Justin Hartley threw out a fun story line for the season 3 finale of Tracker that would have his character dying — and going to heaven.
During the Tuesday, May 5, episode of The Tonight Show, host Jimmy Fallon had Hartley, 49, answer interview questions by reading prewritten answers from cue cards. The actor was asked about how his hit CBS series would wrap up its third season — and Hartley could barely contain his laughter at the answer he was given to read.
“The season 3 finale, this actually is kind of a spoiler. But basically my character dies and he goes to heaven,” Hartley quipped. “The angels are like, ‘Help, Abraham Lincoln is missing.’ So I track him down and it turns out he’s at a Jamba Juice. It was unbelievable.”
While the finale likely won’t actually show Colter in a near-death situation, Hartley hasn’t ruled it out as an option.
“It’s important to keep upping the stakes. I like being Colter as a hero, finding people and all that. I also really like seeing him in a suspenseful thriller and a dangerous situation,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in April 2025. “I don’t want our audience to forget that this man is mortal, he’s not a superhero. He can die! The things he is doing are very very dangerous.”
Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker follows Colter as he travels the country helping to find missing people (or sometimes dogs) and solving cases others aren’t able to.
“I just love that when you watch a show like that and you tune into season 1 and then you tune into the last season, you see the development of the character and you go, ‘Wait a minute, are they playing different roles?’ But then if you watch it throughout the years, you experience those things with the characters,” Hartley previously told TV Insider in September 2024. “As competent and confident as Colter is, I don’t at all think for a second that he doesn’t have a ton to learn, especially about himself and his family and all that.”
Hartley continued: “Going forward, I think that will be how the show lives on a long runway, is that we keep developing this character and he becomes better at what he’s doing. He’s a restless man, and for an audience member, at least shows that I love to watch, you love to see that growth of a character and we have that.”
More recently, executive producer Elwood Reid weighed in on Colter’s fate, telling Us Weekly in October 2025, “Some of the danger is in here because he’s not a cop. He is this guy who is poking his nose in places. The network is always like, ‘He can get messed up, he can lose a fight, he can get conked on the head and he can have a gun pointed at him.’ Justin pitched an idea for the season 3 midseason finale where it doesn’t go well for Colter. That’s what makes him fun is he is not a superhero.”
Reid noted that Tracker is always searching for ways to surprise viewers.
“When I watch a lot of these types of shows, the minute the character becomes infallible or perfect then I’m uninterested,” Reid explained. “I like when characters have flaws and make mistakes and are mortal and can be wounded and can screw up.”
He continued: “I’m very conscious of not making Colter too perfect. We are scuffing him up, letting him screw up and letting him do the wrong thing. I think that’s what makes the character fun to write — at least for me.”
Tracker airs on CBS Sundays at 9 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Paramount+.
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