Posted in: CBS, TV | Tagged: tracker

Tracker Season 4: Jensen Ackles/Russell Deserve "Punisher" Treatment

Based on how CBS's Tracker Season 3 wrapped, they might want to go the "Punisher" route with Russell (Jensen Ackles). Here's what we mean...

With the hit series making the move from Vancouver to Los Angeles with the upcoming season, CBS and Showrunner Elwood Reid's Justin Hartley-starring Tracker is definitely going through some changes with Season 4 on the horizon. But if Colter (Hartley) thinks the new season will be a chance for a fresh break from the ghosts of his family's past – well, it looks like he's going to be more than a little disappointed when the s**t hits the fan between him and his brother, Russell Shaw (Jensen Ackles).  After his military source sells him out in a big way, Russell's forced into a little run-n-gun to stay alive, which he does – but not without a nasty bullet wound for his troubles. That leads him to hit up Reenie (Fiona Rene) for help tracking another person, but he doesn't want Colter to know about it. Hmmm.

After the good guys prevail and folks get sent off to (hopefully) greener pastures, Colter feels more confident than ever that he's ready to turn the page and move on from his past. Except… remember that help Russell needed? It seems Russell has gotten himself pulled back into the Horizon Group's web. The leverage? A file on Colter and Russell's dad that, based on Russell's reaction to the few parts we saw him read, seems to implicate "dear old dad" in experimenting on Colter when he was a kid. If Russell wants the file, then he's got to perform… wait for it… one last mission. And that's where Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, comes into play. No, not the character; something that Marvel Studios did with the character recently that the producers behind Tracker might want to consider.

With fans increasingly pushing for a Russell Shaw spinoff, why not give his final mission its own streaming spinoff film? You could stream it on Paramount+, and then screen a more network-friendly version on CBS sometime after. We added that last part because if you're going streaming, then you need to dial up the action and violence. It would be a great way to give the storyline the importance it deserves, especially when it connects directly to what's going down in the main series. It would also be a great way to "test run" the viability of an ongoing Russell Shaw series. Basically, we're looking at what Marvel Studios is doing with its "Special Presentation" series, which recently spotlighted the Punisher in A Marvel Television Special Presentation: The Punisher: One Last Kill and previously focused on Werewolf by Night. With studios more and more hesitant to pull the trigger on a series order, it might just be the next best thing.

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