Tracker Officially Signals the End of an Era for Keaton (& It’s Worse Than Fans Thought)

Tracker takes the lone-wolf survivalist, Colter Shaw, across the country, solving all manner of mysteries. Justin Hartley’s hit show also deals with Colter’s secretive and fractured family as the rewardist digs into his past for answers about his father. In addition to his handlers, Reenie and Randy, Colter works with a few recurring characters as trusted allies, like Jensen Ackles’ Russell and Bent Sexton’s Keaton.

In Tracker‘s shocking midseason finale, Colter and Keaton stumble into a massive criminal conspiracy. The episode ended with Keaton and Colter both shot and unconscious in an overturned car. In a recent interview with TV Line, Executive Producer and Showrunner Elwood Reid may have let slip that Keaton doesn’t make it.

Keaton First Appeared in One of Tracker’s Highest-Rated Episodes

Keaton’s first appearance is in Tracker season two’s “Trust Fall.” It’s one of the highest-rated episodes of the series. When Colter takes a job to find a group of lost campers in the woods, he runs into a retired cop, John Keaton. The former detective was certain that two of his old cases were connected, pointing to a serial killer on the loose in the forest. Colter’s missing campers brought him to the same hunting ground as Keaton’s killer, so they worked together to check out the area.

The serial killer hunted during super blue moons, which only happen every 10 years or so. Colter’s keen eyes spot a camouflaged structure high on the mountain. Colter and Keaton bonded as they hiked up the hill, talking about how neither can let go of a case until it’s solved. It wasn’t long after finding the killer’s nest that they found him. Wilson believed the land belonged to him and let his bullets decide who lived or died. He wasn’t responsible for hurting Colter’s campers, but Keaton finally caught his white whale.

After helping Colter find the missing group, Keaton offered to look into the Gina Picket case. Sure enough, a few episodes later, Keaton had found a lead. “The Disciple” saw Keaton and Colter hunting down another serial killer together. When Elwood Reid talked about Keaton and Colter’s bond, he said, “They did this really dark thing, formed a bond, and they play off each other really well. That’s one of those freebies you get sometimes as a writer — a character that really sticks with the audience.”

Keaton Was Back in Another High-Stakes Investigation for Tracker’s Midseason Finale

Keaton resonated with audiences, making him a great ally for Colter to call on and vice versa. In “Good Trouble,” Tracker‘s winter finale, Colter heads to Tacoma to meet with Keaton. The retired cop’s old partner, Dobbs, disappeared under suspicious circumstances. As Colter and Keaton follow Dobbs’ trail, they find themselves mixed up in a massive criminal conspiracy involving the Armenian mob and corrupt cops, one of whom was Dobbs.

To make matters more complicated, a contract killer accused of killing a cop resurfaces with a mysterious agenda. Emile Lang, played by new cast member Mark Engelhardt, is torturing and murdering his way through the conspiracy in search of a woman named Cassie Lindstrom. Colter and Keaton were only a few steps behind Lang and ran into the assassin after he’d killed another victim. Keaton opened fire on Lang when he spotted him loading up the trunk of a car with a file box.

Lang returned fire, shooting Keaton in the abdomen. When Colter found Keaton on the ground, the ex-cop urged the rewardist to go after Lang, but he was long gone. Colter helped Keaton into his car and raced to the hospital. Keaton knew it was bad and apologized to Colter while coughing up blood from his gunshot wound.

His chances weren’t great before Colter got shot and their car ran off the road. When asked about Keaton’s fate, Elwood Reid revealed that Keaton had died in the first draft of the episode, adding, “Now, whether that remains, I don’t know….”

Reid also confirmed that “Colter is shot pretty bad at the end.” As the showrunner elaborated on what viewers can expect in part two of the story, he let slip an alarming detail that spells bad news for Keaton. “When we pick up in Part 2 — and I didn’t tell anyone else this — [Colter’s] in really bad shape. He’s the only one who crawls out of that car, and then he’s got bigger problems.”

Specifying that Colter is the only one who crawls out of the car implies nothing good for the fan-favorite character. Colter really cares for his friends and would never leave Keaton behind if there was a chance he could save him. With Colter being in rough shape and having to deal with “bigger problems” after the crash, it doesn’t sound like Keaton survives. It will be a franchise first for Tracker to kill one of Colter’s allies.

Colter could call an ambulance before he faced his bigger problems, and while it’s implausible that Keaton could survive the mortal gunshot wound and car crash, Tracker has pulled off a similarly unlikely case of survival in “Preternatural.” Colter was shot with an arrow, and the healer girl he was rescuing from her captors performed some magical healing on the rewardist, mysteriously stabilizing him until the ambulance arrived, so it will depend on how long Colter will have before he becomes a “wanted man.”

If the unseen shooter is first on the scene to confirm his kills, Colter may have to flee, leaving Keaton behind. The most likely outcome would be that Keaton dies from his wounds or at the hands of the shooter. If some bad guys abduct Keaton from the car before Colter wakes up, what are the chances they remove the bullet or stitch him up before they interrogate him? Of the various scenarios where Colter climbs out of the wreck alone, barring supernatural intervention, Keaton will almost certainly die.

Tracker Confirms Colter Will Be a Fugitive When Justin Hartley’s CBS Show Returns in March

At the end of last season, Justin Hartley teased an idea he had for Tracker season three. The actor wanted Colter to find himself on the wrong side of the law and wind up a fugitive. Both Hartley and Reid confirmed that the story would be happening this season, but Reid has also affirmed that it will be the case from “Good Trouble” that gets Colter in hot water.

“Without giving too much away,” Reid said, “[Colter] becomes a wanted man because he’s been at the scenes of these crimes, and people start wondering if he’s in cahoots with the killer.” Lang is the one leaving a trail of bodies behind him, and Keaton told the police commissioner as much. Bogart, played by Sasha Roiz, told Keaton to stand down from the investigation and always had an explanation for the events handy. Keaton described Bogart as a “good guy,” but he also didn’t think Dobbs was on the take for the mob.

When Keaton called Bogart after Dobbs died, Bogart said, “The best I have to go on is that Lang is taking down Menassian’s operation and somebody paid him to do it.” Before Keaton informed Bogart about Lang, the commissioner thought it was the Russians. His desire to get Keaton off the case, coupled with Colter getting accused of working with Lang, casts a suspicious light on Bogart. And the show isn’t going to cast a versatile actor like Roiz for a nothing part.

Regardless of Bogart’s motives, if Keaton isn’t dead, Colter’s presence at the various crime scenes could easily be explained. So that’s another story point that implies the retired cop doesn’t survive the crash. Of how Colter ends up a wanted man, Reid teased, “There’s another plot that helps explain that.”

He also assured that Colter will need a lot of help to come out the other side of this one. “We’ve got a decent cast of characters, and you can probably guess who he calls,” Reid added. He’ll have to check in with Reenie and Randy at some point, but the other obvious choice to call probably won’t happen.

Russell Shaw’s legally questionable lifestyle and skill set would make him the perfect person for Colter to call on. While Reid is always trying to get Jensen Ackles back on the show, he is, as of yet, unconfirmed to return. Other allies include fellow rewardist Billie; his mother or sister; his childhood friend Lizzie, played by Jennifer Morrison; and Detective Helen Brock, who has partnered with Colter on a couple of her cases, earning him her trust.