Justin Hartley Jokes Colter Dies in Tracker Season 3 Finale

Justin Hartley proposed an amusing storyline for the season 3 finale of Tracker, suggesting his character could die and ascend to heaven.

On the Tuesday, May 5 episode of The Tonight Show, host Jimmy Fallon had Hartley, 49, respond to interview questions using prewritten answers from cue cards. When asked about the conclusion of the third season of his popular CBS series, Hartley struggled to keep a straight face while reading the scripted response.

“For the season 3 finale, this is kind of a spoiler. My character dies and goes to heaven,” Hartley joked. “The angels are like, ‘Help, Abraham Lincoln is missing.’ So I track him down and he’s at a Jamba Juice. It was unbelievable.”

While the finale likely won’t depict Colter in a near-death scenario, Hartley hasn’t dismissed the idea.

“It’s crucial to keep raising the stakes. I enjoy Colter as a hero, finding people and all. I also like to see him in suspenseful thrillers and dangerous situations,” Hartley 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 is doing are very dangerous.”

Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker follows Colter as he travels across the country helping to locate missing people (or sometimes dogs) and solving cases that others cannot.

“I just love that when you watch a show like that and you tune into season 1 and then you tune into the last season, you see the development of the character and you go, ‘Wait a minute, are they playing different roles?’ But then if you watch it throughout the years, you experience those things with the characters,” Hartley previously told TV Insider in September 2024. “As competent and confident as Colter is, I don’t at all 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 think that will be how the show lives on a long runway, is that we keep developing this character and he becomes better at what he’s doing. He’s a restless man, and for an audience member, at least shows that I love to watch, you love to see that growth of a character and we have that.”

Recently, executive producer Elwood Reid discussed Colter’s future, telling Us Weekly in October 2025, “Some of the danger is in here because he’s not a cop. He is this guy who is poking his nose in places. The network is always like, ‘He can get messed up, he can lose a fight, he can get conked on the head 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 is not a superhero.”

Reid emphasized that Tracker continually seeks to surprise its audience.

“When I watch a lot of these types of 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 can be wounded and can screw up.”

He continued: “I’m very conscious of not making Colter too perfect. We are scuffing him up, letting him screw up and letting him do the wrong thing. I think that’s what makes the character fun to write — at least for me.”

Tracker airs on CBS Sundays at 9 p.m. ET, with episodes streaming the following day on Paramount+.