S02E05-Preternatural-Episode Recap
Previous to the episode ‘Preternatural,’ here are some access links to previous Tracker episodes;
- Season One Recap Article
- Tracker Family History
- Season 02 Episode 01: Out of The Past
- Season 02 Episode 02: Ontological Shock
- Season 02 Episode 03: Bloodlines
- Season 02 Episode 04: Noble Rot
Here is the next installment of Tracker titled ‘Preternatural.’ The episode aired November 10, 2024. All the details are below. Enjoy!
Introduction
We see a young girl walking through a wooded area. She is collecting plants and roots.
As she picks one particular root, putting it in a mason jar, we see a snake moving toward her. She talks to the snake, and as if the snake is communicating with her, she repeats aloud what she believes the snake is telling her; something is coming. Something bad.
She immediately begins to run, only to trip and fall, smashing the mason jar and cutting her arm. We hear footsteps and she looks up at a man watching her from the top of an embankment.
Colter is out on a run, and Velma calls him. She talks to him about a young girl of 16 who has gone missing. Her name is Emmaline Trace, from Prior, Kentucky. It is Emmaline’s brother Jasper who has put up the reward money, but it’s only $5K. Velma tells him there are no parents for these kids, as they died in a fire 10 years ago. Colter asked how Velma got this info, and she said it showed up on a message board she follows and there is something about this young girl that reminds her of where she comes from. Colter knows $5K won’t cover their costs, but he doesn’t seem at all concerned about the money and tells Velma he will take the job.
Reenie overhears Velma’s conversation with Colter and asks her about her family. Velma said she never knew her dad and her mom was institutionalized (mental health) when she was twelve years old. Her older sister raised her when she wasn’t much more than a kid herself. Reenie reassures Velma that her sister probably didn’t mind as much as she thinks. She remembers Colter telling her that he wished he could have done more for his little sister. Some kids are raised and some are forged, and Reenie tells Velma that she thinks the forged ones are way more interesting.
Cast
| Cast Member | Character |
|---|---|
| Justin Hartley | Colter Shaw |
| Fiona Rene | Reenie Greene |
| Abby McEnany | Velma Bruin |
| Eric Graise | Bobby Exley |
| Alison Thornton | Emmaline Trace |
| Connor Price | Jasper Trace |
| Travis Hammer | Axel Drell |
| Steve Bacic | Gideon |
| Cameron Fuller | Travis McCannis |
| Shae-Lynn Pearson | Barbara |
| Jacki Gunn | Tess |
| Scott McNeil | Jim Wheeler |
| Graham K. Miles | Ethan |
| Jonathan Hawley Purvis | Tally |
| Matthew Mandzij | EMT |
| Grayson Wells | Barn Guard |
| Roy Campsall | Emaciated Old Man |
The Tracking Assignment
So we have this week’s Tracking Assignment. Colter takes on a job that feels personal to Velma. It involves two siblings. An older brother, Jasper, reports that his little sister Emmaline is missing, from a not-so-friendly mining town they just moved to. He can’t pay much, but Colter wants to help.
–>Emmaline is Missing
Colter arrives at Jasper and Emmaline’s home and there is a dead coyote on their porch. When Colter asks if Jasper thinks it’s connected to his sister’s disappearance, he says the animal showed up the day before she was taken. Jasper said there have been other animals; a rabbit, raccoon, once there was a cat. They agree that the dead animals are a message. Jasper tells Colter that the town does not take kindly to outsiders. They moved here from Tennessee and the outfit that he works for does mining safety and inspections. It’s a mining town, so he poses a threat to their livelihoods. The last time he saw his sister was yesterday morning. She was sitting on the sofa reading a book, when he left for his shift. The school called and said she wasn’t there. He raced home and found her backpack and phone, so he drove around all night looking for her.
When Colter asked if Jasper involved the police, he just laughed. He said they blew him off and said his sister must have run off. The police have sons and cousins who work the mines, so they aren’t being helpful. Emmaline didn’t have many friends in town. They moved from Tennessee, and it was hard on them. They are very close so he does not think she would run off. Jasper thinks something bad has happened to her.
Colter inspects the dead coyote on the porch and sees that there is broken plastic in a wound on the animal, that looks like it came from a car turn signal light. He thinks this coyote is a roadkill and asks Jasper if he can tell him the days the dead animals showed up. He said he can because he reported each one, but the police have not been sympathetic.
–>Roadkill Collector
Colter reaches out to Bobby and asks him to find out who collects roadkill for the Department of Transportation in Fernland County, Kentucky. He needs that information to be cross referenced against the dates he sent him in the email.
Bobby accessed the government website and told Colter that the same man was working on all the dates he provided. His name is Jim Wheeler. When Bobby did a background check on Wheeler, he had a couple of DUI’s and a domestic violence charge, but no jail time. Bobby was able to get a location for Wheeler based on his cell phone. He sent the coordinates to Colter.
–>Maybe Trouble Found Her
When Colter arrives on Wheeler’s route, the man has a large Doberman who looks like an attack dog. Colter asks Wheeler directly if he knows where Emmaline is. Wheeler denies knowing her whereabouts, but it’s obvious he knows something. Colter tells him point blank that he’s sure it was him who dropped off all the dead animals on Jasper and Emmaline’s property.
Wheeler tells him that he thinks maybe trouble found her, for a reason.
He goes on to say that he has a cousin who works at “The Icy Cone,” who claims that she has seen the devil working through that girl and ‘they don’t need any of her kind around here.’ Colter asks if that is why he keeps dumping dead animals on their property, to which he says, maybe, and they are lucky that is all he is doing.
–>Witchcraft
Colter shows up at ‘The Icy Cone’ shop to ask them about Emmaline. He speaks with a young girl Barbara, when they get interrupted by a woman named Tess who said that Emmaline doesn’t work there anymore because she fired her last month. She dismisses her employee to do work in the back of the shoppe and serves Colter a coffee he ordered.
When Colter asks about Emmaline, she tells him that she does not want any part of what that girl is into; witchcraft. She asks Colter to leave. When he looks at his coffee, he can see she spit in it.
The shop phone rings and distracts her, so Colter takes the opportunity to slip to the back of the shop to talk to Barbara again. Barbara said Emmaline was a little strange, but she was a nice girl. When Colter asks if there is anything that she knows that might help him, she relays a story of a woman named Shirley McCannis. She kept missing work, so they gave Shirley’s job to Emmaline. Then Shirley’s husband Travis came into the shop and started yelling at Emmaline. Barbara wasn’t sure what it was all about, but Emmaline was very upset and crying. That’s when Tess fired her. When Colter asked how he could find them, she tells him, but warns him that Travis has a mean temper and he’s not someone he should mess with.
–>Miracle Worker
Colter goes to the McCannis’ home and sees blood and rope in the back of the pickup truck in the driveway. He pulls his gun and begins to look around the property. While he is in the shed, a man comes up behind him with a hammer, and Colter threatens to shoot him until he drops it. The man tells Colter to get off his property and Colter begins asking questions.
Travis said the blood and rope is from a buck he caught the day before, and that he would never do anything to hurt Emmaline.
Travis told Colter that he owes her everything. Colter asks him to explain, and Travis said that he and his wife were trying to have a baby for many years. The doctor’s told them a few months ago that his wife had ovarian cancer. Emmaline heard about it and came around and told her that she could cure her. When I found out, I went down to ‘The Icy Cone’ and told Emmaline to stay away from my wife, giving her false hope. But not only did Emmaline treat his wife, she cured her. The doctor’s cannot find any sign of the cancer, and now Shirley is pregnant. Travis called Emmaline a miracle worker.
–>Drell Clan Land
Travis shows Colter, one of the mason jars of medicinal stuff Emmaline gave to Shirley. It’s all natural ingredients and she foraged for all the stuff in the area. Colter asked if anyone else knew Emmaline was a healer, and Travis told him that no one knew, she didn’t even tell her brother.
Some of the land where she searched for the ingredients is owned by the Drell clan, so people stay away. They like their privacy. Colter explained that Emmaline isn’t from around here and wouldn’t know that. Travis showed Colter where the land was on his phone map.
–>Medicine Shed
Colter goes to the woods that Travis pointed out. He finds the mason jar that smashed when Emmaline fell. He keeps searching and finds a shed. Most of the inside of the shed is trashed, but one corner of it is cleaned up and filled with dried herbs, plants, mason jars, ingredients, and recipes written for medicines. He calls Jasper and asks him to come and look at it all.
Jasper said he knows why Emmaline would hide all this from him, because she knows he wouldn’t like it. Colter asks why, and he told him that their mother was a healer.
Some people believed she was a miracle worker, while others accused her of being full of the devil and wanting her dead. Jasper believes that the fire that killed their parents was deliberately set because his mother was the target. He never told Emmaline the truth about that.
They find recipes from their mother’s journal. Colter looks out the window and sees some blood. He thinks that Emmaline was taken from this place and that she could be hurt. Asking Jasper what he knows about the Drell family, all he can tell him are rumors. They live off-grid and grow weed but since medical marijuana is legal now, they’re into darker stuff and the cops won’t even touch them. Colter thinks Emmaline may have seen something she wasn’t supposed to.
As Jasper goes to take a step, Colter stops him. The area is booby-trapped with things like bang-sticks, made of shotgun shells that will blow up if you step on them, causing serious injury.
–>The Drell Residence
In the next scene we see Colter driving through the forest until a man blocks his path.
He tells the man he is looking for some good hiking trails. The man (Ethan) turns him away, saying the road is out and he should try hiking somewhere else.
Colter backs out of sight and puts a camouflage cover over his pickup truck, and then sneaks onto Drell land on foot. He comes up to their house and sees someone taking Emmaline into the house with a gun pointed at her.
–>Colter Finds Emmaline
Colter sees someone take Emmaline into the house and he continues to look around outside. He follows the sound of voices and finds a tent structure that looks like a makeshift meth lab. He moves on and comes up on two men talking, Axel and Gideon. Axel is target shooting with his crossbow. Colter overhears their conversation, and Gideon tells Axel that “she’s seen too much.” Axel asks his brother “What if it’s true?” Gideon thinks it too much of a risk to gamble on, but they decide to take her to “big pop.” A third man yells from the road that the shipment is ready, so Gideon and Axel head towards the road. Colter takes the opportunity to enter the house.
Coulter gets into the house by climbing on top of lean to that leads to a second story window. As he gets inside, he can hear that Axel and Gideon have come into the house. Coulter enters a bedroom at the end of the hall and finds an emaciated old man lying in bed. As Colter looks around the room, we can see lots of pill bottles and evidence that the man in the bed is very ill. As Colter stands over him, he reaches up and points towards a door. Colter goes through it, and it enters into a hallway. He can hear a girl softly singing and as he follows the sound, he finds Emmaline.
–>You’re Hurting Him
Colter tells her who he is and that her brother Jasper hired him to find her. Colter tells her that they have to leave immediately, but she said she can’t leave. The old man is very sick, and she has to help him. Emmaline told him that they found her in the woods and told her that she had to bring all of her things. If she doesn’t help him, he will die. Colter explained that it is not safe for her in this place. They hear Axel and Gideon approaching, so Emmaline pushes Colter into the closet and tells him to stay there, otherwise they will kill him. The brothers enter the room and take her.
Colter follows them till he reaches the closed door of the old man’s room. He quietly opens it up slightly and can see that Emmaline is doing things to heal the old man. She lays hands on him and chants, and then administers some liquid from a jar. It immediately looks like the old man is choking, but Emmaline tells the brothers that all they can do now is to be patient and wait. She lays hands on him and continues to chant, while the old man begins to shake in his bed. The brothers begin to panic and accuse Emmaline of hurting him. Gideon pulls Emmaline away from his father and threatens her with a knife. It is at this moment that Colter pushes into the room, shoots Gideon in the shoulder, snatches Emmaline up and runs. Colter shoots through the door, to make sure they are not following after them.
–>It Should Have Worked
Colter and Emmaline are running through the woods and are being chased by several men on ATV’s. The path is blocked by a huge fallen tree, so they can climb over it but the ATV’s can’t follow them.
As Emmaline runs, she steps on a bang-stick and her ankle is injured. While Colter examines, her leg, she tells him that she can’t understand what happened with the old man, the things she did should have helped him.
Colter checks his cell phone and he can’t get any service where they are, and he needs to get her somewhere safe to tend to her wound before the men find them. Emmaline said she remembers passing an old, abandoned store so they go there.
–>In Hiding
They take refuge in the abandoned store, and while Colter is dressing her wound, he tells her a story about his sister, and how when they were young, she used to make potions. But instead of helping them, she told them the potions were to curse them.
After her leg is bandaged, Colter tells her that they need to make it to town on foot. Emmaline agrees, and they try to make it to the back door. When they get there, it is locked with heavy chain wrapped around the handles. The only way out is through they opening at the front of the store, they used to get in. Before they reach it, the ATV’s have arrived, so they have to hide.
They watch the entrance, and they see three armed men enter. One has a rifle, one a knife and Axel with his crossbow. Colter moves Emmaline to a better hiding spot, gives her a knife for protection and tells her to stay there. He checked and only has one bullet left, so he needs to find a way to use stealth to take them down one by one.
–>Let Him Bleed
Colter manages to take down the man with the knife, by choking him unconscious.
He goes back to collect Emmaline so they can make a run for it.
As they head closer to the entrance, Colter is suddenly shot against a wall with a crossbow and is pinned there. The men approach Colter and the one named Tally wants to shoot Colter, but Axel doesn’t think he earned a quick death, so they leave him pinned to the wall to bleed to death. They take Emmaline from him.
–>You Got Your Miracle
Colter is losing a lot of blood, and we can see he is struggling. He manages to snap off the end of the arrow and pull himself off the wall. He wraps a tourniquet around himself and crawls over to where his gun is.
Axel and Tally are still in the building and are dragging Emmaline back to the front of the entrance. Suddenly, a fire extinguisher slides on the floor across their path. Colter shoots the extinguisher, and a cloud of mist fills the air. Emmaline pulls the knife that Colter gave her and cuts Axel, who drops the crossbow. She slides it over to Colter who uses it to shoot Tally.
Axel gets up and moves towards them. Emmaline thinks they can take him, but Colter admits to her that he isn’t going to make it. Just as Axel moves towards them, we hear Gideon calling him from outside. When he reaches Axel, he tells him that their father not only didn’t die, he is up and walking around. Emmaline healed him.
Colter said, “You got your miracle and leave her alone.” They refuse, saying Emmaline belongs to them now. Before they can make a move to take her, she gets up and threatens that if they try to take her, she will cut her hand, mix their families blood with her own and kill their father and curse their family for generations. The are superstitious enough to believe her, so they leave without her.
–>You’ll Be Fine
Emmaline grabs Colter’s phone and manages to call 911. He is losing consciousness and as he does so, he can hear Emmaline chanting to the spirits to enter and save this man… while she lays hands on Colter’s chest. She keeps telling him, “You’ll be fine.”
As the scene closes out, we see Colter being attended by an EMT worker.
Jasper arrives and hugs Emmaline. Jasper tells Colter that the police are raiding the Drell place. Emmaline asks him how he is doing, and Colter said that the EMT told him that it’s a miracle that he’s stable. It’s obvious that he thinks she is the reason. He is curious about her threat to curse the Drell family, and she admitted that she wasn’t able to do that, but like his sister with the potions, sometimes you just need to be convincing.
Jasper takes Emmaline, and the EMT’s load Colter into the ambulance.
–>It’s Personal
As the episode ends, we see Colter pull up to Jasper and Emmaline’s place. He’s on the phone with Velma and Reenie and they are upset with him for having discharged himself from the hospital.
Velma feels bad for pulling him into this. Colter said not to worry about it. This case ended up being personal for both of them.
When Colter approaches the house, there is a jar with a ribbon securing an envelope around it. He opens it and it is his reward money. There is a label on the outside of the jar, telling him to “Apply twice Daily.”
He goes inside the house, and it is empty. Obviously, Jasper and Emmaline have moved on. As Colter walks back to his truck, we see him make a cell phone call. It is to Dory, his sister. He leaves a message and says he’s been thinking about her.
The Shaw Family History
Regarding the Shaw Family history, this episode delivered an anecdote about Colter’s little sister Dory. Colter tells Emmaline that Dory used to create potions when they were little, and tell them that the potions were curses. Emmaline asked if the curses worked, and Colter responds that the jury is still out on that. It’s a little story that Colter shared while dressing Emmaline’s wound, and more than anything I think the conversation was designed to keep Emmaline calm. It obviously got Colter thinking about his sister.
In the closing scene of the episode, we see Colter reach out to Dory via a cell phone call.
In Closing
–>Overall Opinion of the Episode
I think this episode ranks up there as one of the best so far, this season. Nothing felt contrived or planted. The storyline is solid, the performances were very well done, and we are starting so see some character development. We learned a little about Velma’s background, and an anecdote about Colter’s sister Dory, which resulted in his reaching out to her. Perhaps this is a little foreshadowing of episodes to come where we get to do a deeper dive into the Shaw family.
It’s also going to be very interesting to learn much more about Velma, Bobby and Reenie in the weeks ahead.
Extra Episode Photos
Preview for S2E06
Coming next week for Tracker is episode “Trust Fall.” While searching for missing campers, Colter meets a retired police officer who believes a serial killer is on the loose.
Reminder
Don’t forget to watch Tracker on CBS/Paramount+ Sunday Evenings at 8:00pm ET/PT.
- Please note, all photos used in this article are courtesy of CBS, Paramount+ and/or IMDb.
