Jensen Ackles is headed back to Tracker for the Season 3 finale, returning as Russell in the episode set for Sunday, May 24. The finale is titled The Best Ones, and CBS says Colter and Russell will search for a victim tied to a nefarious research project.
It is the first on-screen return for Russell since the two-part Season 3 premiere, when he and Colter took on the Process, an eerie system in which people were blackmailed into doing terrible things. That scheme was put together by grad students after their professor’s experiments, and one third grad student was still out there and did not appear to be involved.
Russell’s return also answers a question that has hovered since the middle of the season, when Colter was framed for murder and told Reenie not to bring his brother into it. Russell was left out of that mess, even though the series had already shown how useful he could be when the stakes turned ugly.
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Earlier this year, Justin Hartley said Ackles would be back on Tracker, and he explained why Colter would keep his distance when trouble got personal. “I think that was important because when I was reading these scripts, it was one of the first things that I thought was, well, if he’s in this much danger, why are they not calling him? Of course, he could help. She’s done that in the past. She called him in the past when Colter’s in trouble, why wouldn’t she call him now?” Hartley said. He added that Colter was “in trouble, and he’s in way deep, deeper than he’s ever been,” and said the people around him might be better off if he did not draw them in. Hartley also said Russell’s approach might not fit every case, saying he “tends to come in with a sledgehammer; maybe this one needs more of a scalpel.”
The finale brings those threads together. Russell last appeared during the Season 3 premiere, and this time he comes back for a case built around a research project rather than the murder frame-up that kept him out before. For viewers who have been waiting for jensen ackles to rejoin the hunt, the answer is now set for Sunday night.
