S02E03-Bloodlines-Episode Recap
Previous to the episode Bloodlines, here are some access links to previous Tracker episodes;
- Season One Recap Article
- Tracker Family History
- Season 02 Episode 01: Out of The Past
- Season 02 Episode 02: Ontological Shock
Here is the next installment of Tracker titled ‘Bloodlines.’ The episode aired on October 27, 2024. All the juicy details are below. Enjoy!
Introduction
We see a young man, Eric Dobbs, on an empty lit up baseball diamond, practicing his pitching. Eric receives a text message asking him “Where you at?” and he responds that he is almost done. He drops the phone onto his athletic bag. He hears a noise coming from somewhere off the field and suddenly all the lights go out.
The next scene opens up in a bar and we see Colter having a beer when Billie Matalon arrives.
If you remember from S01E06, Colter and Billie have a romantic history with lingering trust issues. They are also ‘rewardist’ rivals. She thanks him for meeting with her and tells him she needs his help with a job. The job is a missing high school baseball pitcher named Eric Dobbs who disappeared two days ago.
Colter asked if the police were involved, but at this point everyone is hoping that Eric has snapped under the stress and just run off. His parents don’t want any negative attention because Eric is supposed to sign a letter of intent to play at Southern Nebraska University (SNU) next year. They, and the university, want to avoid any bad publicity. It’s SNU that has posted the $50K reward money, and Billie has to provide constant updates to a man named Shane Niall, who is an alumnus of the university and part of the booster group supporting Eric’s athletic career.
Colter still isn’t sure why Billie needs his help. When he doesn’t feel like he’s getting a straight answer, he threatens to walk away, so she tells him the truth.
Barnes, Nebraska is actually her hometown. Prior to this admission, Colter thought Billie was from Miami. She needs him to front this investigation because there are people in town that wouldn’t be happy that she has returned. Back in the day, her mother screwed a lot of people over, including Eric’s family. Billie promises to tell Coulter all about it, if he helps her with the case. He agrees to help her as long as it’s a 60/40 split on the reward.
Cast
| Cast Member | Character |
|---|---|
| Justin Hartley | Colter Shaw |
| Fiona Rene | Reenie Greene |
| Abby McEnany | Velma Bruin |
| Eric Graise | Bobby Exley |
| Sofia Pernas | Billie Matalon |
| Patrick Fabian | Shane Niall |
| Khalilah Joi | Detective Penny Bullard |
| Tyler Lawrence Gray | Eric Dobbs |
| Aaron Pearl | Henry Benson |
| Samantha Coughlan | Martha Dobbs |
| Dreyden Free | Hunter (Eric’s Back Catcher) |
| Michasha Armstrong | Coach Marty Perez |
| Jason Schombing | Roger (Diner Boss) |
| Sari Mercer | Bar Woman |
| Aisling Goodman | Ashley Wallace |
| Aaron Grain | The Washboard Union (Band Member #1) |
| Chris Dunscombe | The Washboard Union (Band Member #2) |
| David Roberts | The Washboard Union (Band Member #3) |
The Tracking Assignment
Colter agreeing to help Billie with her case is our Tracker Assignment for this week’s episode. He calls Velma to let the crew know, and she is convinced this is a bad idea, and tells him so.
–>That’s Not My Son
Billie and Colter leave the bar and go their separate ways; Colter intends on going to see Eric’s family while Billie plans on investigating Eric’s girlfriend, Ashley.
Colter talks with Eric’s parents. His father says that since the girlfriend entered the picture, she has his head turned around and Eric is more concerned with spending time with her than concentrating on his game. His father comes across as a real intense. He pushes Eric pretty hard. Coulter asks him about it and notices some bruises on his arm. Did Eric push back? Eric’s dad confesses that they got into a heated fight, but he thinks the girlfriend is the one behind all the changes in Eric.
Coulter looks around and finds a roll of money and a bag of pills (Oxy) in an old baseball mitt. His father says it has to belong to someone else. That’s not my son.
–>I Run a Clean Program
Colter speaks with Coach Perez to learn more about Eric and what might have happened. He tells him about the drugs he found. The coach says he runs a clean program. No drugs allowed.
He has been coaching Eric since little league and knows him pretty well. Perez calls Eric a rare talent and he’s worried about him.
The coach introduces Colter to Eric’s catcher, Hunter. Colter tells Hunter about the drugs he found and wants to know if he knows anything about them. Was Eric taking drugs because of an injury? Hunter tells Colter that he thinks the drugs might belong to Ashley.
–>Already On It
Colter involves Bobby to see if he can find a location for Ashley.
Bobby got details from Velma so he knew what Colter was up to. He already started looking into the case and was able to find a location for Ashley’s phone before it went offline and sent the info to Colter.
–>The Rail Yard
With the news that Colter got from Bobby, he and Billie go to an old rail yard. Billie tells him that it was a popular make-out spot for teenagers, when she was a kid. As they investigate, they come across one rail car that has a lot of blood in it.
They follow the trail of blood and eventually find Ashley collapsed in a ditch. They call 911.
–>Looks Like Kidnapping
Colter talks with Detective Bullard who asks that he and Billie not interfere with this investigation. She tells him that as a matter of record, Eric Dobbs would be a person of interest, considering what has happened to Ashley.
Colter has another idea. He shares his theory based on what he found, and walks Detective Bullard through it. If he’s right, it looks like a third person was involved, who injured Ashley, left her for dead and likely kidnapped Eric.
As it turns out Ashley isn’t dead. She managed to get herself upright and stumbled off the train car. She made it as far as the ditch before she collapsed. Colter feels pretty strongly that this is kidnapping, and he found an odd thing at the scene; a blood donation bag. He took a photo and sent it to Bobby.
–>It Didn’t Have to be This Hard
Billie shows up at the diner where Ashley works to have a chat with her boss. The owner of the diner, Roger, isn’t very nice to Billie and it’s obvious they have some history. Roger gets suggestive about how Billie can ‘ask nicely’ for the information, so instead she relies on a little physical intimidation.
Roger tells her that Ashley used to have an ‘Oxy’ problem a year ago, resulting from a car accident she was in. She wanted to get clean but didn’t have the money she needed to go to a rehab facility.
She needed $10K.
–>Makeshift Blood Bank
Billie shares her findings with Colter, and he does the same. Detective Bullard had some forensic lab work done and most of the blood in the train car was Eric’s. They didn’t find any ‘Oxy’ in his blood, but they found an anticoagulant that is typically used in blood donation bags.
Colter doesn’t think Eric has a drug problem; he believes he was selling his blood for money to pay for Ashley’s rehab.
Bobby called and told him that he traced the serial number to a shipment of blood donor bags, but they were delivered to some office building. He gave Colter the address. When Billie and Colter arrive there, they find a makeshift blood bank.
They also find a crate with a dead body in it, who turned out to be a teenage runaway named Randy Hopper, whose body was drained of blood. He is wearing a wrist band that has some numbers on it. Colter sends the wristband info to Bobby to see if he can shed any light on what they found.
–>Biohacking
Bobby calls Colter back with information and the numbers on the body’s wrist band are blood serum electrolyte levels. Colter speculates that it might be tied to some grey market biohacking set up. This trend has people believing that harvesting the blood of the young, especially elite athletes, provides recipients with improved performance and longevity. There’s a great deal of money in it.
Eric certainly qualifies as an elite athlete, so if he was selling his blood for this, he could get thousands for it. Enough to pay for Ashley’s rehab.
Colter speculates that something must have gone wrong. They need to find him. Colter thinks he could be in bad shape, so he asks Bobby to find out what he can about the person who is registered to the address of the makeshift blood bank. Colter and Billie split up again as she has to go give their reward employer, a personal update on the case.
–>Pulling the Reward Money
Billie shows up to Shane Niall’s home to give him an update. She explains that they suspect Eric got himself mixed up in a bio-hacking scheme to sell his blood for money to help his girlfriend. She also told him that Ashley is in an induced coma in the hospital but is expected to survive.
Shane announced to Billie that SNU is rescinding their scholarship offer to Eric now that the police are involved and so he is pulling the reward offer.
Headlines about ‘girlfriend of star recruit, stabbed’ is not the kind of publicity the university wants to be associated with. He advises Billie to go see Eric’s parents about the next steps, because he will no longer be involved. He gives Billie $10K for the work done so far.
–>Performance Plan
Colter meets with the parents and tells them all he knows. He asks them about all the nutritional supplements that Eric was using and where he got it all. They told him that Coach Perez has Eric on a performance plan, and he got him that stuff.
Colter told them that someone had to have recruited Eric for the bio-hacking scheme, because they knew he needed money. Eric’s mom doesn’t know why he didn’t come to them.
Eric’s Dad admitted that after everything he said about Ashley, he doesn’t blame Eric for looking elsewhere.
–>Let the Police Handle It
Billie calls Colter to tell him the job is over. She doesn’t work for free, and the reward has been pulled. She will share the $10K with him.
Colter is worried about Eric’s welfare and thinks they should keep looking. She wants him to turn it all over to the police and let them look for Eric. Colter tries to talk her out of it, but she is adamant.
No sooner does she hang up, it looks like she immediately has second thoughts about the action she is taking and is about to call Colter back when her car is T-boned by another vehicle. We see that she is injured and unconscious.
–>Billie is Missing
Colter drops by the Police station to chat with Detective Bullard to see if she has heard from Coach Perez or Billie. He can’t locate either one of them. She has known Coach Perez a long time and doesn’t believe he could be messed up in anything that has to do with Eric’s disappearance, but she will check him out. The Detective and Billie have history, and she warns Colter off, telling him that she is just like her mother.
Colter still can’t reach Billie by phone, and she never showed up with the files she was going to hand over to him. He goes to her place and finds her computer is running some program to break into an encrypted file of a company called “Ever-Life Innovations.” He sends the file to Bobby. Colter is convinced that something has happened to Billie.
–>Blood Donation Gone Wrong
Billie wakes up in a dark room with her hands cuffed and across the room is Eric, also cuffed. Eric explained how all this happened.
He said at first, his blood donations were straight forward, and he would always be given something to relax and wake up after the blood was drawn. Eric kept it up because he was promised $10K for his donations. They told him he needed to come in for one more, but when he woke up afterwards there was a dead kid in the bed next to him, so he ran.
He ran to the rail yard, but someone followed him. They killed Ashley and captured him. Billie told Eric that they found Ashley and she is still alive. She also thinks they will keep Eric alive, because they want more of his blood, but they won’t need her, which puts her in real danger.
–>Ever-Life Innovations
Colter shows up to Shane’s house, looking for information on Billie. He notices that there are security cameras posted outside. After Shane invites him in, he asks if he can see the security footage to get the exact time that Billie left.
Shane leads Colter into his kitchen, where there is another man at the counter working on a laptop. Shane asks this man to queue up the footage for Colter, and while he is waiting, he notices that there are several textbooks about the biology of performance and quantum genetics on his bookshelf. Immediately after, Colter also receives a text message from Bobby that Shane is the primary investor in Ever-Life Innovations.
Colter puts it all together and realizes that it is Shane who is buying Eric’s blood. He was using Billie to get to Eric but when the police got involved, he backed off, but not before taking Eric. Colter asks him point blank; where is he?
The man in Shane’s kitchen attacks Colter and they get into a serious fight. Colter knocks him unconscious while Shane makes a run for it. Colter chases him to a building on his property, where Eric and Billie are being held. Shane gets inside before Colter and uses Billie as a shield. He tells Colter that if he doesn’t back off, he will kill her. Colter takes aim and shoots him.
Billie was not impressed; the shot was too close for comfort.
–>A New Start
Colter drops by the baseball diamond and father and son are having a game of catch. Colter tells Eric’s dad that if it wasn’t for Billie they would never have found Eric, in the hopes that perhaps some of the townsfolk would begin to see Billie in a new light.
Eric’s dad admits to making some mistakes with his son, but believes they are moving forward in a better place than before. Which now includes Ashley. And SNU reinstated their scholarship offer to Eric, so good news all around.
Colter puts on a glove and has a catch with Eric. He does well but when they ask him if he played, he tells them that his father wouldn’t let him.
–>What Happened in Barnes, Nebraska
Colter and Billie are at a bar having a drink. She wants to “owe him one” but Colter says they can call it even if she tells him what happened in that town with her and her family.
Billie explained that her dad ran off when she was little and to make ends meet her mother became a petty thief. She eventually got a job as a bookkeeper at City Hall. She embezzled $500K from the treasury so salaries and pension money of the town’s folk couldn’t be paid out. Their family name was ruined, and the townsfolk were very cruel to her.
Billie wanted to come back to her hometown to try and do something positive. She did, and Colter shared with her a texted thank you he got from Detective Bullard, where she specifically said to pass on her thanks to Billie.
Even though she was a victim in her mother’s schemes, Billie knew what her mom was doing was wrong. She didn’t try to stop her. She admitted to loving and hating her mother all at the same time. Colter said he could relate.
The Shaw Family History
We learned very little about the Shaw family history, except that Colter had some talent as a ball player but was denied the ability to play because of his father. And when Billie admitted to loving and hating her mother at the same time, Colter said he could relate.
In Closing
–>Overall Opinion of the Episode
This episode was very Colter/Billie focused so we didn’t get to see any character development for Velma, Reenie or Bobby. There were scenes that included Bobby doing his tech thing and helping out.
I thought this episode was well done. The performances were good, the story was engaging and the arc from start to finish was fully entertaining. There was a sub-plot that played out as it toyed with Coulter and Billie’s past. Billie’s reveal at the end softened her edges. The character of Billie does have somewhat of a mercenary reputation, so confiding in Colter about her painful childhood really rounded out her character and gave her a little more depth. I could be wrong, but I think the moment Billie called Colter to tell him she was quitting the job, she regretted doing so, and was going to call him back to tell him so. Before she could, her car was T-boned, and she was injured. That is a very telling fact about who Billie is as a person.
The only hole I can see is that Shane Niall, being the primary investor of Ever-Life Innovations, was willing to kill Eric and Billie to keep his secret safe but learning that Ashley survived the attack on her life, no attempt was made to silence her, and she would likely know everything that Eric did.
Extra Episode Photos
Preview for S2E04
Coming next week for Tracker is episode “Noble Rot.” Reenie gets Colter to take a case involving a woman missing from a high-end wellness retreat in Napa designed for CEOs.
Reminder
Don’t forget to watch Tracker on CBS/Paramount+ Sunday Evenings at 8:00pm ET/PT.
- Please note, all photos used in this article are courtesy of CBS, Paramount+ and/or IMDb.
