Posted in: CBS, TV | Tagged: Jensen Ackles, tracker

Tracker: Reid Talks Season 3, Ackles/Russell & Hartley/Colter Dynamic

Tracker Showrunner Elwood Reid shared some new insights into Jensen Ackles' Season 3 return, Russell & Colter's evolving dynamic, and more.

With less than two weeks to go until the Season 3 return of CBS, Showrunner Elwood Reid, and series star/executive producer Justin Hartley's Tracker, Reid is offering some interesting insights into what the two-part opener has in store for Colter (Hartley) and his brother Russell, portrayed by the returning Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, The Boys, Countdown). The new season picks up "a couple of weeks" after the game-changing Season 2 finale. "Colter's kind of fallen off the grid a little bit, and it's no surprise that who comes and finds him is his brother, played by Jensen Ackles. That conversation continued after the [Season 2] cliffhanger, and we'll learn some of the contents of that conversation when he speaks to his brother in the opening of this season," Reid shared with TV Insider. With Colter dealing with what he learned may or may not mean, Reid says that it's crucial for him to have someone on a personal level to compare notes with.

"It was a pretty heavy bomb we dropped, hearing what Colter thinks that bomb means and then hearing what his brother Russell thinks it could mean, and then you kind of put these two things together. It was just a way to make it more active for Colter with someone who — remember for a long time, he kind of blamed his brother with having something to do with it," Reid explained. "So, I'm really proud of this scene and I'm really proud of, it's just two guys in this little tiny set in the Airstream talking and it's very tense. It's an interesting scene for our show."

As the two work to piece together the answers to their family's history, Colter and Russell will have a chance to bond as brothers. "Where I think it ends up, as you'll see, is that they become closer, but then another central mystery arises. Not just the bombshell we got, but the why of it all, and that's something that we're going to carry through the season a little bit," the Tracker showrunner shared. "I think one of the things I wanted to do, because I have Justin, is I wanted to do it emotional because it goes without saying he's a great actor, but he's got that real emotional accessibility and to be able to get there — we have a fun bar fight in the beginning of the episode — to the scene where it's just two guys talking about their emotions in the way that guys do, which is not very verbose half of the time, is a really fun scene. It was really fun to write, and we just kept taking away and taking away because I think both of the actors were really game to kind of play with each other. It was so much fun to shoot."

Reid also shared that there are "some little nuggets" about what's been going on in Russell's world since we last saw him. "Suffice it to say, when you get to that scene, just like when you got to the scene at the end of last season, the brothers realize — the audience learns how tense and heated and some of the external forces that were on that family previous to the father's death. And Russell being older, he has a different, probably darker memory of it that was shielded from Colter, if you remember, because Russell disappeared and Colter stayed back with his mother. So, I think that's where a lot of the anger and the blame came in, was from him blaming him for leaving him with this sort of mystery and this kind of aftershocks of what happened to his father," he explained. "But then we hear Russell's side of it in this scene. So, it is a really interesting scene. It doesn't close any doors. It opens up a deeper mystery, but I still think — at least what I feel in the performances — you come away with it that Colter is still damaged and reckoning with what he learned."

Regarding Colter looking for answers about both his father's and mother's backstories, Reid notes that Russell's perspective should be one that Colter keeps in mind before rushing to judge their mother. "In that conversation that we're going to have in opening of the season, it kind of becomes, 'There's so much to talk about it and I need to know more before I go back there' because there's one version where like, 'Hey, you had dad killed.' I don't think it's that simple. I think it's far more complicated emotionally. And part of what the conversation gets to there is that idea that — this is from Russell's perspective. 'Colter, you don't know how bad dad was at the end. There's things that I saw that you didn't see.'"

Finally, The Tracker showrunner noted that Episode 2 will offer some more insights into Russell's world. "In Episode 2, you'll get that. I'm hoping the fans take note and start howling because it would be — I mean, for some reason, Jensen just really fits in this world. I don't know what it is. I mean, I have so many ideas and Jensen's always one of my first call guys, but I do dangle a little sort of carrot out there in the end of Episode 2 and you get to see more of him with Reenie [Fiona Rene], which is a lot of fun, too," Reid added.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!