Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw.Photo:Michael Courtney/CBS
Michael Courtney/CBS
Justin Hartleyshould be having a good weekend.
The actor, best known for his sensitive performance as Kevin Pearson onThis Is Us, returns to network television with his own vehicle,Tracker, premiering Sunday night after theSuper Bowlgame. This is a terrific launchpad for a series that fits in CBS’s particular crime-procedural wheelhouse.Downton Abbeymight have been a different story.
The tracker staying on track.Michael Courtney/CBS
As a mercenary, in other words, he’s about the journey, not the end. As a crime-solver, he’s about the end, not the journey.
It’s a tricky role to bring off, but Hartley keeps his performance nicely centered — like a bubble in a spirit level — between a tone of light authority and the occasional furrow-browed hint of inner trouble. In the second episode, which involves a cult and a gun-toting blonde who could have slinked in from Raymond Chandler, Hartley leans a little toward that darker side, and it gives the show some added kick.
Because Shawdoeshave a darker side, we learn. One reason he’s a good rewardist (career counselors: please help)is rooted in his strange, dysfunctional childhood. His academic father (Lee Tergesen, that ever-dependable character actor) went off the deep end and moved his family way off the grid, teaching them survival skills in the face of what he warned them was a vast, murky, ever-encroaching conspiracy.
Justin Hartley with his real-life wife Sofia Pernas on ‘Tracker’.Ed Araquel/CBS
Ed Araquel/CBS
It’ll be fun watching Shaw solve his weekly cases and earn his moral and financial payoff — but the bigger, sustaining draw will be watching him track the impact of his past on his present.
source: people.com
