Once it was announced that Tracker had been renewed for season 3, fans had one major request for leading man Justin Hartley – bring back Jensen Ackles.
On February 20, CBS shared in a press release that several of the network’s most popular shows, including Tracker, were all getting renewed. The show’s official Instagram page shared a post in celebration of the exciting news.
“Get excited #Trackerbackers – another season of Colter and the gang is in the works!” the caption of the post said. The post featured a photo of Colter Shaw.
The comments section of the post flooded with the request to have Jensen back on the show as Colter’s older brother, Russell Shaw, in the upcoming season. He was first introduced to the Tracker audience in season 1.
“I sincerely hope to see Russell Shaw (Jensen Ackles) again,” one person commented on the post.
“Please tell me we will see the Shaw Brothers together in more episodes. I love seeing them work together! The show reminds me almost of a modern-day Burn Notice!” another fan said in a comment.
“I’m so happy about this….also more chance of seeing Russell again hopefully @jensenackles,” another commenter shared.
“Sweet! Hoping for more @jensenackles too I love the pair!” a fourth person echoed.
“I need him as a regular,” another person said, hoping to see the Supernatural alum become a full-time cast member on Tracker.
The Shaw family has quite a complicated history as depicted in season 1 and season 2, after Colter thought that Russell killed their father. But as the story unravels, Russell claims he was not the one who killed Ashton Shaw after all. Still, well into season 2, the question remains as to who killed Ashton on that rainy night in the woods after an altercation in the Shaw family home.
In a February 16 interview, Justin, 48, was asked if he planned to bring Jensen, 46, as well as actress Melissa Roxburgh, who plays their sister, Dory Shaw, back onto the show in the future. “We’re writing for them, yeah,” he responded to the question during the chat with TV Insider, without giving anything else away.
Justin and Jensen are great friends in real life, and the This Is Us alum reflected on working with his pal on Tracker. “It’s been great. We run in the same circles, and we never got a chance to work together,” Justin said during an October 2024 appearance on Entertainment Tonight.
“We’re just hanging out, and then the cameras roll,” Jensen chimed in.
Justin had nothing but praise for Jensen’s performance on Tracker thus far.
“He’s put his own flavor on it, and it’s much better than we ever could have imagined,” Justin said, to which Jensen replied, “Well you didn’t bring me up here to give you vanilla. I threw a little rocky road at you.”
Jensen also said that he hoped to get Justin to make a cameo on his Amazon Prime Video series, The Boys. “I’d want him to be like a badass vigilante and with just a sailor’s mouth. There’s a lot of things you can’t say on CBS,” he said.
