{"id":91954,"date":"2025-03-10T01:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T01:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/10\/tracker-season-2-episode-12-goes-darker-than-usual-with-a-twisted-case\/"},"modified":"2025-03-10T01:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T01:09:10","slug":"tracker-season-2-episode-12-goes-darker-than-usual-with-a-twisted-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/10\/tracker-season-2-episode-12-goes-darker-than-usual-with-a-twisted-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracker Season 2 Episode 12 Goes Darker Than Usual With a Twisted Case"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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Critic’s Rating:<\/strong> 3.9 \/ 5.0<\/p>\n

3.9<\/p>\n

This was a dark one.<\/p>\n

Tracker<\/a> as a series is far from light, but some cases take on a much more sinister tone than others and this one was about as sinister as it gets.<\/p>\n

Colter was on the hunt for a missing mother, and the person who took her was decapitating victims, which meant time was truly of the essence.<\/p>\n

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(Sergei Bachlakov\/CBS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The missing person\u2019s case of Alice Bear was odd from the start, considering the mother put her son to sleep and then just vanished in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

Did she run off? Was she taken? Or was it something else entirely?<\/p>\n

All Tracker cases typically start one way and end up somewhere else, and this was no exception, as preliminary findings had Colter believing maybe Alice\u2019s disappearance had something to do with a date gone wrong or even drug addiction.<\/p>\n

But that would have been way too neat and tidy for Tracker, and once Colter got to the psychiatrist\u2019s house, with whom Alice had been in communication, things took a decidedly darker turn and never looked back.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen skeletal remains, some nasty injuries, and plenty of gunshots, but have we seen anything more intense than a decapitated body on this show?<\/p>\n

Sal wasn\u2019t just murdered. His head was sliced clean off like the Headless Horseman himself came around his house to claim another head for his collection.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
(Darko Sikman\/CBS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a testament to the crazy stuff Colter sees on a daily basis that the gruesome nature of the crime didn\u2019t even phase him. He just kept on going about the search for Alice like he wasn\u2019t dealing with something more disturbing than a Tinder date gone wrong.<\/p>\n

Discovering Alice was once training to be a psychiatrist before giving it up was information her mother should have shared with Colter from the beginning, even if, on the surface, it may not have seemed relevant.<\/p>\n

Knowing that her past drug use coincided with her time training may have saved Colter a little bit of time, though the only thing that really helped him at all was finding the journals at Sal\u2019s house, which set Colter on the path to finding PJ.<\/p>\n

Mental health is a serious subject that hasn\u2019t always been treated as such on television<\/a> in the past. <\/p>\n

Tracker does a decent job of allowing the viewers to see and hear PJ and his interactions with Alice, as opposed to just hearing his story and history via Colter and his team finding out information through somewhat questionable means.<\/p>\n

PJ was a deeply troubled young man with a lot of trauma who\u2019d recently been released from jail, and while it did seem like he was trying to get help by seeing Sal, he probably needed more intensive help.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
(Sergei Bachlakov\/CBS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His story was one of abandonment, shame, anger, and abuse, and it culminated in murder. He had an obsession with Alice because it was clear that she was seemingly the one person he felt showed him a modicum of kindness and understanding in all his years on earth.<\/p>\n

But PJ wasn\u2019t well, and it\u2019s hard to imagine that after he served his time, the best place for him was to return home to his mother, considering the events of his past.<\/p>\n

Sal was killed because he saw that he was a danger to society, and unfortunately, PJ got to him before he was able to alert anyone.<\/p>\n

Colter quickly put many of the pieces together, assisted by Reenie, who got out of her office and into Ohio to help him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve made no secret about my love for Colter and Reenie\u2019s relationship and the fact that Reenie is the only secondary character<\/a> Tracker is interested in developing.<\/p>\n

Every time we\u2019ve seen Reenie lately, she is talking about her latest client and how difficult they are, and there\u2019s just no way that isn\u2019t building to something in the future.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
(Darko Sikman\/CBS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But building to what is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n

We must thank the faceless new client for putting Reenie near Colter so she could do her Reenie thing to get into PJ\u2019s storage facility.<\/p>\n

Reenie is about as tough as it gets, but I was scared out of my mind for her when she went into that storage unit and shut the door! I know she was trying to escape that man hovering over her, but I just had a new fear unlocked.<\/p>\n

Because what would be worse than getting locked in a storage unit with no one to hear your screams?<\/p>\n

You can call 9-1-1 when you have no service, but it didn\u2019t need to get that far because Reenie was able to MacGyver<\/a> her way out of there and get Colter the information he needed to find out just where PJ may have taken Alice.<\/p>\n

The more time spent with PJ, the more you could see that PJ was very sick but also extremely calculated. He planned things out, and he was following through on both revenge and decades\u2019 worth of anger, all exacerbated by his mental issue issues.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
(Sergei Bachlakov\/CBS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Setting up a bobby trap to blow the head off anyone who walked into his house to find Sal\u2019s head and his dead mother took careful planning and execution.<\/p>\n

Colter wasn\u2019t just dealing with someone driven by complex and scary emotions but also someone with a plan in mind.<\/p>\n

At first, it wasn\u2019t even clear what exactly he wanted to do with Alice because he saw her in a different light, idolizing her and seeing her as the mother he wanted to have. That may also be part of the reason he took her: He wanted her to be the mother to him that she was to Miles.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t seem to want to hurt her, but instead wanted her almost to parent him, or at the very least tell him everything he wanted to hear.<\/p>\n

Alice dug deep into her past life to remember her training and try to reason with PJ to an extent, showing empathy and forcefulness as she tried to get out of her predicament. Still, there was only so much reasoning she could do with someone who\u2019d recently killed his own mother and decapitated a man.<\/p>\n

As if I didn\u2019t gain a new fear of getting locked in a storage unit, the episode\u2019s climax had to come in the form of an abandoned amusement park in all its creepy glory.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
(Sergei Bachlakov\/CBS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For something that brings so much joy, the minute it\u2019s abandoned, it suddenly becomes one of the most frightening places<\/a> you can imagine.<\/p>\n

Colter busting in could have gone a lot worse than it did, and he\u2019s lucky that things didn\u2019t go worse for him because PJ had him in his sights from the moment he got to Alice.<\/p>\n

Once PJ was shot in the leg, I assumed Colter would tackle him, and then that would be that, but the episode was on such an ominous roll that they decided to really bring it home by having Colter, and eventually, Alice, hunt PJ through a hall of mirrors.<\/p>\n

Colter\u2019s job isn\u2019t necessarily to kill people, but in dealing with the kind of dangerous people he encounters, it has become part of the job, but it still gets me every time because he\u2019s not a cop.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not exactly professionally trained for it, nor does he get any help in the aftermath of some of the more challenging aspects of his job.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I especially loved that conversation between Colter and Reenie at the diner when she mentioned it wouldn\u2019t be the worst thing in the world if Colter talked to someone.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"
(Sergei Bachlakov\/CBS)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He can go back to his childhood or stick with the greatest hits from adulthood. Either way, it would behoove him to talk through all the emotions that must be trapped inside him.<\/p>\n

It could be so helpful for him, considering the life he leads and all the unanswered questions from his past.<\/p>\n

Tracker Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n