Tracker’: Jensen Ackles Arrives as Colter’s Brother — What Does He Say About Their Dad’s Death?

Meredith Jacobs

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Tracker Season 1 Episode 12 “Off the Books.”]

“Hey, little brother,” Russell (Jensen Ackles) greets Colter (Justin Hartley) when we first see him in the latest Tracker. (Let’s just say this episode? Full of moments that remind us of Ackles as Dean on Supernatural, including the fact that Russell drives an Impala.) He’s shown up at Colter’s trailer after skipping a planned meeting (so Colter did listen to their sister), and he has something that his brother needs to hear … but is he telling the truth?

When the boys were younger, their father died, after falling—or being pushed—off a cliff. Colter thinks Russell did it. But, according to Russell, he didn’t. He doesn’t know if he fell or someone else pushed him, but he’s certain someone else was in the wood that night. Their father had enemies and was paranoid, Russell reminds Colter. So why did their mother let Colter believe that Russell did it? His brother says she has secrets, too. In fact, he’d seen the man in the woods that night before—talking to their mother. So did she have something to do with what happened to their father? Russell doesn’t know, but when their father died, she told him it would be best if he left and to keep quiet about what happened. And so he did.

Russell then enlisted, and he’s come to Colter for help: One of his army buddies, Doug, has gone missing. Since getting out, they’d been working for a somewhat mysterious Horizon Group. The search for Doug takes them to the morgue (to follow up on a finger sent to Doug’s wife), jail (after getting caught breaking into the morgue, leading to fun with Fiona Rene‘s Reenie meeting Russell), a kid’s birthday party to meet Russell’s handler, and finally a cabin in the woods. It’s there that they find Doug; it goes back to an old kill op of Russell and Doug’s, where the target’s men saw the latter when he went back for the former’s knife. (Colter and Russell’s dad gave him the knife, and even he’s not sure why he’s kept it all these years.)

But even once they’ve gotten Doug out, Russell insists on going back to kill the person who wanted him dead (the previous target’s brother) as soon as Colter patches up a gunshot wound to his arm. He says he’ll see him around to talk about his exit plan, following an earlier conversation where he couldn’t believe Colter doesn’t have one. (Russell’s is to open a brewery.) Colter argues that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but the open road.

At the end of the episode, when Colter stops by the motel where Russell was staying, he finds out he checked out a couple days ago and left him a package with cash and the knife. “Keep this safe for me,” the accompanying note reads. What did you think of Jensen Ackles as Russell? Do you believe Russell’s version of events of what happened that night? Let us know in the comments section, below