Jensen Ackles is coming back for The Tracker Season 4, and Justin Hartley says Russell will return with a problem that forces him to turn to Colter. Hartley confirmed the news Sunday during a Televerse panel in Los Angeles, saying Ackles is set to start filming his first episode in a matter of days.
That confirmation lands just as viewers are looking for answers after the Season 3 finale, which left Colter and Russell learning what happened to their father, Ashton, and pushed the story into the shadow of a covert, DARPA-funded program experimenting on gifted children. Colter rescued Chrono Stasis test subjects Danny and Lola in that hour, while Russell went after the man behind the program and walked away with a file containing troubling new information about something Ashton had done to Colter as a child.
Before leaving town, Russell called Reenie and asked her to keep Colter off his trail, promising to explain where he was headed and why as soon as he could. Hartley said that was not a betrayal so much as a sacrifice, describing Russell as someone who “took one for the team” and kept a secret from Colter for Colter’s own good. In Hartley’s telling, Russell was protecting his brother by keeping him out of something he did not need to know yet.
That secret is exactly what gives The Tracker Season 4 its first real engine. Hartley said that when Russell is found this season, he needs a favor from Colter and from his skill set, and the brothers end up working together to solve the problem Russell has landed in, along with one of his friends. The setup keeps the emotional weight of the finale intact while moving the story forward instead of resetting it.
The timing matters because the new season is already on the calendar. The Tracker Season 4 premieres Sunday, October 4 at 9:30 p.m. on CBS and will stream the next day on Paramount+, following the Season 2 premiere of Marshals. The question now is not whether Ackles is back; it is how long Russell can keep the truth he has been carrying before Colter gets the full story.
