Jensen Ackles will reappear on Tracker for its upcoming third season, and this time, it won't be for just one episode. Tracker showrunner Elwood Reid has revealed new details about Ackles' long-awaited return to the CBS drama series.
According to TVLine, Ackles will appear in the two-episode Season 3 premiere of Tracker, which will air on CBS on Sunday, Oct. 19 and 26. The first part is titled "The Process," and the official logline reads as follows: "As Colter grapples with the shocking truth surrounding his father’s death, Russell joins forces with his brother to help track down the missing wife and daughter of one of Reenie’s clients. Their reunion finds them mixed up in a chain of events involving a sinister underground operation known as 'The Process.'" A first look at the long-awaited reunion between Justin Hartley's Colter Shaw and his previously estranged brother, Russell (Ackles), was also shared by TVLine and can be viewed below.
Ackles was last seen on Tracker in the second episode of Season 2, "Off the Books," which aired on CBS in October 2024. This means that audiences will not have seen Ackles' Russell in exactly a year, a long time for fans of the character (and actor) to wait. However, as Reid explained to TVLine, Ackles' busy schedule with Prime Video has made it hard for them to bring Russell Shaw back more than once a year.
Tracker Showrunner Hypes Ackles' Season 3 Return
"Jensen is gainfully employed at Amazon [on Countdown and The Boys prequel, Vought Rising], but we’ll take as much of him as we can get," said Reid. "He and I go back because we worked on Big Sky together. He’s got a very, very busy schedule, but I was able to plug him into this hole, and he came up here and did two episodes for me. He’s amazing. I just got done editing Episode 2, and [he and Justin Hartley] are so good together. It’s so much fun."
New details about Ackles' Tracker return come roughly a month after the CBS drama series underwent a massive cast shakeup. In July 2025, it was announced that Eric Graise and Abby McEnany had exited Tracker as series regulars, leaving just Hartley and Fiona Rene as main cast members. Graise and McEnamy played master hacker Bobby Exley and handler Velma Bruin, respectively, in the show's first two seasons.
As Reid mentioned, Ackles is busy starring in multiple series for Amazon's Prime Video. He can currently be seen headlining the crime drama series Countdown, which airs its Season 1 finale on Sept. 3, and just recently began filming The Boys spinoff prequel series Vought Rising, which will explore the origins of Vought in the 1950s as well as the early exploits of Ackles' superhero Soldier Boy.
Tracker returns for its third season on CBS on Sunday, Oct. 19.
