Trackerhas built a successful two seasons thanks to its unique procedural format, but I welcome one confirmed character change for season 3. The series follows Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) as he travels the country tracking down missing people in exchange for the reward money offered for their return. He is aided in his unusual job by a group of allies who are not often out in the field with him, but are still a huge part of his story.
One of those allies is Reenie Green (Fiona Rene). Reenie is introduced in the first season as a lawyer who has a history with Colter. She shows up every once in a while to bail him out of trouble, but season 2 expanded her story to be more than just a member of Colter’s support team. Heading intoTrackerseason 3, there will be even more of an expansion of Reenie’s story.
Tracker Season 2 Increased Focus On Reenie’s Personal Storylines
Reenie’s New Job And New Client Expanded Her Story
In the first season, Reenie was largely there to provide banter with Colter, offer legal advice, and get legal documents, like arrest records, for him. Thesecond season allows her to have her own storyline outside of Colter’s cases. That’s a welcome change for the show already since everyone in Colter’s circle’s stories are always related to him and his cases.
Reenie opens her own firm, and Velma (Abby McEnany) operates out of her offices to help Colter. She very quickly gains a new wealthy client who monopolizes a lot of her time. Reenie’s new client, Leo Sharf (Pej Vahdat), is a business owner with a shady past. While Reenie has her suspicions about him, they do not turn out to be quite as dark asTracker’saudience might have expected, but they did provide Reenie with her own mystery to unravel and a way to expand her character.
Theend ofTrackerseason 2, however,saw Reenie kidnapped and held as leverage to get Leo Sharf’s attention. She became one of the very missing people that Colter had to find. That experience is going to continue to have an effect on Reenie going forward.
How Reenie Will Be Different In Tracker Season 3
Reenie’s World Will Be A Bit Darker
ThoughTrackersticks to a procedural format with new cases every week, it does not abandon continuity to do so. The serialization inTrackercomes from overarching narratives. So far, that has been about Colter’s own family past and Reenie’s new client. Now, Reenie will be feeling the effects of her traumatic kidnappingfromTrackerseason 2, episode 19.
ShowrunnerElwood Reid spoke withTV Guideafter the events of season 2 and has made it clear that Reenie’s kidnapping will have ramifications for her - and potentially for Colter. Reid told the outlet that Reenie will be an “unsure, dark place coming into next season,” and he is interested to see that effect on Colter as well:
The Reenie world is really interesting because we smashed her up at the end of Episode 19 and we get to see a [new] side of her, and she’s going to be in a kind of weird, unsure, dark place coming into next season. [I’m interested in] seeing the way Colter interacts with that or doesn’t interact with that because he’s a guy that doesn’t open his emotions up very often.
Reenie will have to process the trauma of the kidnapping, but that means her own interactions with Colter might change. She might not be so quick to help his cases if she is worried about potential threats to her own safety. Reenie held her own during her kidnapping, keeping those with her talking and distracted, but her life came down to the wire, and it’s unlikely she is going to forget that inTrackerseason 3.
Fully Fleshing Out Reenie As A Character Is Great For Tracker
The Supporting Cast Needs More Storylines
Every week Colter tracks down a new missing person in a new location, and his team is mostly helping him via phone calls, including Reenie. We need to see more than just his team helping him on the phone.
Right now, Tracker’s supporting characters have very thin characterization. They might pass information along to Colter and crack a joke here and there, but we do not really get to know them in their limited appearances in the series. Arguably, Reenie is the member of Colter’s circle who has been given the most attention inTrackerso far, so it makes sense for her character to become more fully fleshed out first.
Reid is aware that keeping Colter’s allies as simply “phone-a-friend” characters will bore the audience, and he made it clear in hisTV Guideinterview that he plans to “build out those worlds” for Colter’s friends:
I think from a showrunning standpoint, we do have to build out those worlds more. And if I don’t build out those worlds, then I think it’s just Colter running around Googling things. I don’t want to do that either, because I think there’s something to be gained by those characters.
Trackerhas to be able to give the rest of the characters outside of Colter fully realized livesand personalities. Right now, they are mostly the traditional character types seen in crime procedurals, but we only have vague ideas of who they are. We know Bobby (Eric Graise) has a military history, Velma loves dogs and has a rocky relationship, Randy (Chris Lee) is willing to drop everything to help, and Reenie is usually the smartest person in the room.
Fleshing out Reenie further beyond just her legal expertise and her banter with Colter is the first step toward fleshing out all of the charactersin the show. Colter might be the main character, but he is surrounded by people who put their lives on hold to help him every week, and the audience should be able to get to know them just as well as Colter. They each need their own stories to help deepen the connections between the characters as well as provide some variety in the storytelling.
Allowing Reenie to grow and change from her experiences will only help to enhance the storytelling for all the characters inTrackerseason 3.
