Helping old friend Roger (Diego Klattenhoff) look for two missing sisters in Montana, Colter uncovers something much, much darker.

There’s a moment procedural dramas always reach when they have enough of a rhythm established that they can start breaking it. That moment has come for Tracker.

The show has played with horror but not quite found the right key all season. This episode it does. From the moment Colter and Roger (and it’s really nice to see Diego Klattenhoff again after The Blacklist) discover the girls it’s clear this isn’t a usual episode. We’re ten minutes in when it happens, and the good fortune feels too sudden. Likewise, the discovery of Dash (Sean Depner), Rufus (Jedidiah Goodacre) and Ameila (Ariana Guerra) in a cabin nearby. It all feels too good to be true. And it is.

The slow burn menace is brilliantly handled and presents the horror honestly and with human consequence. Amelia kneeling in front of Colter because she assumes he’s there to hurt her is chilling. The closing, carefully planned and brutally effective gunfight isn’t cathartic so much as vital. It’s not just that Colter inadvertently left his charges in the hands of killers. it’s that these people are horrifically broken, and deeply, profoundly evil. That could have been played for cheap, trashy spectacle and shock. It’s not and the episode is so much better for that.

On a lighter note, there’s also some neat dovetailing as Bobby returns! And is mostly fine! And Reenie’s mysterious client Leo comes through with a last-minute save.

Verdict: All of this ties together into an episode that’s claustrophobic, tense and very well executed. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart