Tracker Review: This Is Us Star Justin Hartley Gives CBS’ Post-Super Bowl Crime Series Some Added Kick

Justin Hartley should have a good weekend.

The actor, best known for his sensitive performance as Kevin Pearson on This is usreturns to network television in his own vehicle, Tracker, premiering Sunday night after the Super Bowl game. This is a great platform to launch a series that fits into CBS’ distinct crime-procedural helm. Downton Abbey maybe it was a different story.

Based on the central character in Jeffrey Deaver’s series of thriller novels, Tracker is about — well, it’s hard to pinpoint a phrase Colter Shaw (Hartley) might use when asked to describe his career and experience on a resume. In the premiere episode, he refers to himself as “the rewarder”, but says it with a slight ironic wink, mainly because he’s just been accused of being a mercenary. Even a mercenary doesn’t like being called that.

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Technically Shaw is mercenary, but not cynical or hard-hearted. In fact, he seems completely indifferent to the thousands of dollars in income he takes home in the first two episodes. He is content to follow his own path, driving from adventure to adventure with his Airstream trailer in tow, finding and rescuing people who have gone missing. Collecting money offered by their desperate loved ones is almost pointless. Shaw never mentions college loans that need to be paid off or credit card payments that are in arrears.

The seeker stays on track.

Michael Courtney/CBS

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In other words, as a mercenary, he is about the journey, not the end. As a crime solver, he talks about the end, not the way.

It’s a tough role to play, but Hartley keeps her performance nicely centered – like a bubble in a spirit level – between a tone of easy authority and the occasional hint of inner distress with furrowed brows. In the second episode, which involves a cult and a gun-wielding blonde who could have sneaked in from Raymond Chandler, Hartley leans a little towards that darker side, which adds to the series’ charm.

Because Shaw works they have a darker side, we learn. One of the reasons why it rewards well (career advisors: please help) is rooted in his strange, dysfunctional childhood. His academic father (Lee Tergesen, that ever-reliable character actor) went deep into his head and took his family away from the gridiron, teaching them survival skills in the face of what he warned was a vast, murky, ever-infiltrating conspiracy.

Justin Hartley with his real-life wife Sofia Pernas on ‘Tracker’.

Ed Araquel/CBS

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The flashbacks we see indicate that the experiment ended badly – but even now, Shaw is weighed down by the possibility that this business with his father is somehow unfinished, as he himself traverses the often dark landscapes of the West. Every now and then you wonder if they’re going to bump into Frances McDormand from Nomadland.

It will be fun to watch Shaw solve his weekly cases and earn his moral and financial payoff — but the bigger, lasting draw will be watching him trace the impact of his past on his present.

After the premiere after the Super Bowl, Tracker will air Sundays at 9pm on CBS.

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Source: HIS Education