Justin Hartley put his Tracker skills to the text to help Stephen Colbert find a missing mug.
During the Thursday, October 3, episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the host, 60, realizes he can’t locate his favorite cup. He leaves the stage to get help from an expert since Hartley, 47, plays a rewards seeker named Colter Shaw on Tracker.
“My name isn’t Tracker. My name is Justin Hartley and I am on a show called Tracker,” the actor clarifies for Colbert, who continues to refer to him as Tracker. “[I could] probably [find your mug]. I mean how many mugs could there possibly be in the greater New York Metropolitan area?”
The duo subsequently go on a mission around the Ed Sullivan Theater to find clues. Colbert nearly gives up hope but Hartley hypes him up with a speech.
“Listen to me, I found a missing ghost hunter in Vermont, a missing race horse in Kentucky and I even managed to find the perfect balance of drama and action to make Tracker the No. 1 show on primetime,” Hartley says. “I am telling you, I am going to find your f—— mug.”
Hartley and Colbert notice a janitor holding a mug so they chase him back on stage. They even tackle him before Colbert realizes his mug was at his desk the entire time. Viewers can look forward to more successful cases being solved on season 2 of Tracker.
The procedural, which is based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, premiered in February after Super Bowl LVIII and immediately found its audience as people tuned in weekly to watch their favorite fictional survivalist a.k.a Colter travel the country to help solve missing person cases, track down information on criminal cases and so much more.
After the show’s first season finale, viewership numbers confirmed that Tracker was the most watched series from the 2023-24 TV season. The show was already renewed for a second season, which introduces new cases for Colter to solve.
“We have a whole other season to shoot that we have to make better than Season 1. So while we wanted all those story lines wrapped up, we also wanted those bows to sort of lead to other questions — bigger, deeper questions — about his past,” Hartley told Deadline in May about future plans for the show. “So I think we did that in answering some of these questions that we had built up all year. I think we did a good job of making sure that the answers to those questions then lead to a bigger mystery, something that we can unpack in season 2.”
That same month, Hartley teased whether Colter will get arrested again after spending time behind bars numerous times in the first season.
“We do have a running joke though, of how many times Colter has broken the law. Our grips department put together a list and it’s ridiculous. My idea was to have, maybe at the end of season 2, my wrap gift to everyone is going to be a hoodie that lists all of the things that he’s done,” Hartley joked with The Wrap. “Like assault, breaking and entering, kidnapping, all that stuff. But it’s a long list already. Every episode, he’s doing something illegal, right?”
Tracker returns to CBS on Sunday, October 13 at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Paramount+.
