While Tracker is a procedural that deals with different missing persons cases that survivalist Colter Shaw takes on from one episode to the next, there’s an overarching story that bleeds through the entire series. It’s that of the death of Colter’s father, Ashton. When Colter was a teenager, his father left their off-the-grid home without explanation. Colter went out an hour later to search for him and found him dead at the bottom of a cliff.

When Colter looked up, he saw his older brother Russell standing at the top of the cliff and assumed that he pushed their father to his death. He learned as an adult, however, that that wasn’t the case. The mystery has taken twists and turns since, but there’s no resolution. A fan theory, however, suggests that the situation is far more complicated than expected.

The Fan Theory Thinks Colter’s Mom Is Evil

Redditor Key_Shallot_2415 is one of many fans who have posited this theory, but lays it out in detail. They believe that Colter’s mother Mary is the one who pushed Ashton to his death. Russell told Colter that he saw another person in the woods that day right before his father died. He didn’t recognize the person but knew it was someone he had seen their mother talking to before. Their mother, meanwhile, was not at home at the time that their father ran off.

The theory is that Mary orchestrated the family’s move off the grid, not Ashton. It was all part of an evil plan to get Ashton isolated somewhere so that she could get rid of him. The reason is that she was working for the very people Ashton was hiding from. But he didn’t know this.

Mary, the theory suggests, was actually a contract killer. Since Russell knew the truth about what happened, she manipulated him to take the fall for the death. This explains why he started working with a group of questionable mercenaries; he chose to go along with her plan so as to protect both Colter and Dory from finding out the truth. This also kept Russell away from the family for many years; he only turned up in Colter’s life in present day, wanting to clear his name but not revealing anything more.

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This would also explain why Russell has had no contact with his mother and why, when Colter mentioned to Mary that Russell was relentlessly reaching out to him, she insisted that he ignore his older brother and stay away from him. “I need you to trust me,” she told her son. “Block that number. Ignore him. For everyone’s sake, leave it be.” It sounded more like a panicked, protective measure, however, than a nefarious one. The mentality may be that the less Colter knows, the less likely someone would be after him. “He would be jeopardizing their safety,” writes Key_Shallot_2415, “by putting a target on their back.”

The guilt Russell feels from having kept this information to himself may be why he decided to join the army after working with those mercenaries. While Russell has been deeply affected by what happened, in the end, his love for his brother is something he can’t deny. This is why he reconciled but made a point to leave town after appearing in one of the best Season 1 episodes of Tracker to avoid revealing anything further.

The theory even goes so far as to suggest how the show will eventually end, with Colter investigating a case that involves his own mother. He will be captured himself and become the missing person, not the person looking to find them. This could put Russell in the hot seat as the survivalist searching for his brother.

Given that this theory was posited during season one and none of these events have materialized in season two to date, however, it holds less weight. However, since season two has all but abandoned the Colter family mystery plotline altogether through its first half, there’s still time for this to all play out.

There Are Other Possible Theories About Ashton’s Death

While this theory makes a lot of sense, there are many other theories about the family mystery in Tracker. One theory that still points to Mary suggests that she might have been working with the government or some other organization with Ashton as her target. But she might have actually fallen in love with him over time. The family moves off the grid and Mary legitimately hopes this will clear her from her duties and they can live in peace.

The man Russell sees may be someone Mary worked with who ended up finding them. She confronts him, but he does the deed and kills Ashton anyway. Unable to tell her kids the truth, Mary keeps up the lie that they don’t know how Ashton died. Since Russell was nearby and knows or saw something, however, she had to ensure he was sent away to keep him from talking.

Another theory points to hints that Ashton was involved in something more than just working as a professor. In an early season two episode, Russell returns to help Colter when Reenie contacts him because she believes that her friend is in trouble. Colter is, as he followed a missing persons case all the way to a government black site. And there are strange things going on there.

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After taking down the assailants, one indicates to Russell that he knows who he is and suggests that his father “asked too many questions.” This all but confirms that Ashton was murdered by someone and for a specific reason. It likely has to do with the government, and perhaps something Ashton was studying, discovered, or got involved in. Indeed, When Colter explains why his family moved to Sierra National Forest, he mentions that there was an “incident” at Berkeley where his father worked and he “started to talk about these people that were out to get him and how we all had to be prepared.”

A far-fetched theory is that Colter is the one who pushed his father. He repressed the memory, and the rest of the family decided to keep the information from him in hopes that he would never remember. It’s all about protecting Colter. This would explain why Mary doesn’t want Colter talking to Russell, for fear that it might cause the memories to come flooding back. It would also explain why Dory is so insistent on leaving the past alone and moving forward.

Going farther down the far-fetched rabbit hole, others believe that Ashton could actually still be alive and he faked his death. It would be possible for a teenager like Colter to believe his father was dead. He likely didn’t examine the body and was more traumatized than anything else at what he saw.

It could be that Mary was involved in covering up the faked death and wants to keep Colter from investigating to keep Ashton safe. Maybe she was indeed working for the government or was a spy or a plant or a contract killer. But she turned and put herself on the line to protect him and help him escape, even if they weren’t actually in love. The more Colter digs, the more danger they could all be in.

Fans Are Desperate for Answers

With the first half of season two of Tracker abandoning the Colter family saga, fans are eager for the story to pick back up. Russell, Mary, and Dory are all confirmed to return. Family friend Lizzy will as well, and she could play a crucial role. She revealed to Colter at the end of Season 1 that her mother and his father were having an affair and that she found a box of his belongings in her mother’s home after her death. She gave the box to Dory, but Colter has no idea what was in it.

This leads to another theory where some think the affair was going on much longer than anyone realized, and that Mary might not actually be Colter’s biological mother, but rather Lizzy’s mother is. If true, this would take the show into soap opera territory. So it’s not a theory that holds too much weight.

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The big questions are who killed Ashton and why, who knows more than they are letting on, and why is everyone so determined to protect Colter and/or stop him from looking into it more? Justin Hartley, who plays Shaw, told TVLine that the story will be addressed and that when it happens, it will be “very meaningful.” As for Mary, he believes she is “desperate enough to lie to her own son” to keep him away from harm. Whether that harm is something she brought on or was caught up in because of Ashton remains to be seen.

Fans hope that the story will be explored in the back half of season two and into the already confirmed season three. Currently, Tracker is more heavily weighted towards Colter’s rewardist cases. But the most rewarding, potentially most dangerous, of them all may be the mystery of what went on in his own family.

Tracker

Release Date

February 11, 2024