Tracker Season 1 Episode 9 Recap: Aurora

Colter Shaw finds himself chasing ghosts on Tracker Season 1 Episode 9, “Aurora.” Well, sort of.

This episode opens with a flashback to three years prior when the body of a teenage girl is recovered from a river in Aurora, Vermont. When a father is called to identify the body, though, he notes that it’s not his daughter.

It’s her best friend. His daughter, Lana, remains missing, and three years later, he hires Colter to help find her.

All signs point to the fact that Gavin Russo, the father, is in denial that his daughter is dead. Even when he shows Colter a photo from a recent newspaper that he swears is of Lana, it’s hard for him or anyone else to believe.

There’s also a note that sounds an awful lot like a suicide note, which further suggests if they find her, they’d only be finding a body.

Still, Colter takes the case, in large part because he wants to offer Gavin some closure.  

Local law enforcement is, thankfully, more receptive to Colter in Aurora than they have been in most other places he’s traveled. The detective he speaks to says the case haunts her, and she has no problem with him working on it. She’s even willing to help however she can. 

She seems to take a liking to Colter too, and they wind up making a good team. She dubs him “Homeschool” when she learns that he didn’t have the traditional public school experience, which she learns when he admits he doesn’t know what it’s like to see the different student dynamics in a high school.

Lana and her friends were considered “weird,” she tells him, and says they were into “dark things.” It’s a bit cliché and a bit of a generic way to describe a few goth teenagers, but we get a picture of the characterization nonetheless.

Lana and her friends were interested in the paranormal and were known to be obsessed with an abandoned mental hospital — a recipe for disaster, to be sure. 

So, Colter and the detective visit the mental hospital where Lana and her friends would search for ghosts and knew tales of the “Harkwood Witch.” The detective is clearly a little spooked, while Colter remains certain that everything deserves a rational explanation.

Then, he winds up chasing down a man who’s been squatting at the hospital. 

This man has no ill intent, but he does remember Lana, and a clue he offers about a yellow raincoat reminds the detective about another case entirely.

The investigation picks up from here, and Colter is allowed to remain involved as a consultant for the Aurora P.D. He questions a man, Errol Price, who was charged with the kidnapping of a teenage boy years ago, and based on that conversation, he feels pretty confident that Errol had an accomplice.

From there, Colter winds up talking to Errol’s sister, who is curt at first but then decides to let Colter in to chat. By now, it should probably be obvious to the audience that she’ll have something to do with it, but personally, it didn’t occur to me until Colter spotted that Blood Drive bag. 

That bag is a clue that leads back to the photo of Lana in the paper, and now all of the pieces come together. 

There’s an altercation between Colter and the sister, Maeve, who gives me Kathy Bates in Misery vibes at that moment. It’s chilling, but of course, Colter is a man of many skills and he’s able to take her down and find Lana locked away in her basement. 

Lana’s homecoming is particularly emotional in the way she runs to her father. Her friend Toby comes to see her shortly after, and Colter seems a little more proud of himself than usual. 

There’s something especially satisfying in the way he removes that yellow ribbon and reward poster from the tree outside the Russos’ home. 

So, no ghosts here, but the episode still manages to include some creepy moments, even if they aren’t paranormal. 

—

What did you think of this episode of Tracker? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Tracker airs Sundays at 9/8c on CBS.

This episode was written by Sharon Lee Watson and directed by Jon Huertas.

 Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!