Sometimes a camping trip with friends goes sideways. Maybe someone forgets the bug spray, maybe the cooler’s full of lukewarm beer. But in “Trust Fall,” the latest Tracker episode, things go spectacularly, explosively sideways. Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley), our resident expert in finding lost things, stumbles onto a missing persons case that’s less about misplaced car keys and more about misplaced morals. A group of friends, Monika, Jason, Sam, and Coop, vanishes in the woods, and the only thing thicker than the trees is the sense of something deeply, darkly wrong.
One of the missing, Sam, surfaces, sporting fresh injuries and a tale of gunshots. Enter Keaton (Brent Sexton), a retired cop hunting a potential serial killer in the same neck of the woods. Coincidence? On Tracker, not likely. Colter and Keaton, two lone wolves with their own agendas, find themselves sniffing around the same disturbing scent. The trail leads to Marcus Wilson (Haig Sutherland), a mountain man who seems to think he owns the entire wilderness—and possibly the people in it. Wilson is certainly off-putting, but is he a killer?
The real story, as it often does, lies buried in the past. A flashback reveals that eight years prior, this tight-knit group of friends covered up a fatal drunk driving accident caused by Jason. Coop, wracked by guilt, had been quietly sending money to the victim’s widow. Now he’s decided confession is good for the soul, but Monika and Jason aren’t interested in spiritual growth. They prefer silence, preferably the permanent kind.
Coop, though, isn’t going down without a fight – or a backup plan. His foresight ultimately leads Colter to untangle the truth, but not before things get bloody. Coop kills Jason, and Monika, never one to take things lying down, attacks Coop. It’s a chaotic scene, even by Tracker standards. Luckily, Colter and Keaton arrive just in the nick of time, preventing Monika from adding another body to the woodpile. Both Monika and Coop are arrested, their years of deception finally catching up with them.
In the aftermath, Colter reinforces his bond with Reenie (Fiona Rene), offering her more work and cementing their mutually beneficial partnership. He also develops a grudging respect for Keaton, who proves to be a surprisingly effective, if slightly off-kilter, ally. “Trust Fall” is a twisty, tense hour of television that, while relying on a perhaps improbable chain of events, provides a solid payoff. Just maybe skip the next group camping trip.
Tracker airs Sundays on CBS.
