Justin Hartley has previewed Tracker season 4 on CBS Mornings, talking through the changes to the hit CBS drama, the move to Los Angeles and a family reunion with Jensen Ackles. Hartley, who stars as Colter Shaw and executive produces the series, appeared on the morning show on October 28, ahead of the episode that brings Colter and his brother Russell back together.
Tracker season 4 premiered on CBS on Sunday, October 4, at 9:30 p.m. Eastern, and has since settled into its regular Sunday slot. The show, run by Elwood Reid, ended its third season as the most watched scripted show in broadcast prime time, and Hartley told CBS Mornings that Tracker season 4 pushes further, with bigger action and a more physical feel.
The move to Los Angeles is the clearest change in Tracker season 4. Colter has spent much of the series travelling from case to case across the country, but the fourth season plants him in a city where the cases come to him, and where the criminal operations he walks into are larger and harder to leave behind. Hartley said the season has a new energy, and that the Los Angeles setting lets the show stage action in a bigger scale.
What Tracker season 4 changes for Colter Shaw
The new season also changes what the audience knows. Viewers now know something Colter does not: his brother Russell agreed to do a shady job in exchange for keeping Colter in the dark about something their father did to him as a child. That gap between what the audience knows and what Colter knows runs through the early episodes, and Hartley has said it gives the season a different kind of tension.
Hartley has described Colter as a man who prides himself on tracking down the truth, and the hidden family story tests that self image. “Something haunts Colter, and you’ll see a hint in the premiere, something that has been lingering that we reintroduce in his life,” Hartley said in an interview around the premiere. “We’re used to seeing him look for someone or something, then find it. It’s not always the case where people get everything they want. He’s human, he does fail, and that weighs on him.”
The season premiere, titled “Safe Harbor,” put that idea into practice at once. Colter’s search for a teenage boy’s missing father led him to a dangerous criminal operation at the Port of Los Angeles, a case that used the new setting from the first episode and set the tone for the season that follows.
Tracker season 4 brings back Jensen Ackles
The weekend episode Hartley was previewing on CBS Mornings is the fifth of the season, titled “Need to Know”. In it, the case of a kidnapped military contractor’s wife and daughter brings Colter and Russell together, with Jensen Ackles returning as Russell Shaw. The brothers team up to track the missing pair down, and Hartley teased that the reunion carries high stakes, as they chase a cover-up touching their own family history.
Ackles first played Russell in earlier seasons, and the character has become one of the show’s most popular recurring figures. Russell is the older brother, and his relationship with Colter has never been simple. Season three ended with Russell carrying a secret Colter does not know about, after telling Reenie, played by Fiona Rene, that he had to disappear for a while and asking her to keep his secret. That secret is now part of the reason their reunion matters.
Hartley confirmed Ackles would return for Tracker season 4 during an appearance at Televisa 2026 in August, telling the audience that Ackles would be back on set the following week. The return is welcome news for viewers who had followed the brothers’ story, and the fifth episode is built around it.
What comes next in Tracker season 4
The sixth episode, titled “Blind Spot”, sends Colter on another dangerous case as the season’s momentum builds. The show continues to mix standalone missing person cases with the longer family mystery, and the early episodes have kept both threads moving at once.
Hartley also spoke on CBS Mornings about working with his wife on Tracker season 4. His wife, Sofia Pernas, has appeared in Tracker, and Hartley talked about sharing the set with her. The interview gave viewers a lighter look at a season leaning into heavier family drama.
New episodes of Tracker air on Sunday nights on CBS, with streaming on Paramount+. Tracker season 4 has already given Colter a new city, a more physical run of cases and a brother he cannot yet fully trust, and the episodes ahead will show whether he starts to close the gap between what the audience knows and what he knows about his own family.