Justin Hartley threw out a fun story line for the season 3 finale of Tracker that might have his character dying — and going to heaven.
In the course of 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 reply he was given to read.
“The season 3 finale, this actually is sort of a spoiler. But principally 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 seems 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 essential to maintain 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’s doing are very very dangerous.”
Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker follows Colter as he travels the country helping to search out missing people (or sometimes dogs) and solving cases others aren’t in a position to.
“I just love that while you watch a show like that and also you tune into season 1 and then you definately tune into the last season, you see the event of the character and also you go, ‘Wait a minute, are they playing different roles?’ But then for those who watch it throughout the years, you experience those things with the characters,” Hartley previously told TV Insider in September 2024. “As competent and assured as Colter is, I don’t in any respect 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 feel that can be how the show lives on an extended runway, is that we keep developing this character and he becomes higher at what he’s doing. He’s a restless man, and for an audience member, no less than shows that I really like to look at, you’re keen on to see that growth of a personality and now we have that.”
More recently, executive producer Elwood Reid weighed in on Colter’s fate, telling Us Weekly in October 2025, “A few of the danger is in here because he’s not a cop. He is that this guy who’s poking his nose in places. The network is at all times like, ‘He can get tousled, he can lose a fight, he can get conked on the pinnacle 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 will not be a superhero.”
Reid noted that Tracker is at all times trying to find ways to surprise viewers.
“Once I watch a variety of a lot of these 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 will be wounded and might screw up.”
He continued: “I’m very conscious of not making Colter too perfect. We’re scuffing him up, letting him screw up and letting him do the fallacious thing. I feel that’s what makes the character fun to jot down — no less than for me.”
Tracker airs on CBS Sundays at 9 p.m. ET before streaming the subsequent day on Paramount+.