Reenie calls Colter to a retreat where tech CEO Quinn Ridgely (Jessica Sutton) has disappeared.

There’s a lot going on here so let’s jump straight into the character beats. This is a big Colter and Reenie episode and it’s very deliberately placed. We get references to Reenie’s date with Russell, Colter working with Billie last episode and the ongoing tension/chemistry between Colter and Reenie. Anyone who slogged through the ‘Will they/Won’t they? Oh GOD JUST PICK’ stuff shows likes this often do are looking for the exits. Fear not! Alex Katsnelson & Amanda Mortlock know how to write adults and the scenes where Reenie and Colter figure out who they are right now work really well. Justin Hartley and Fiona Rene have great chemistry and the script gives them plenty to do as these gifted, deeply weird people making their way through their deeply weird lives. So much so that Michael Rady as Elliott Rusch, Reenie’s not-quite boyfriend, fits right in. He gets a great scene where we see him instantly get what Reenie and Colter are doing and help. It’s fun, sparky stuff and it sits him firmly in the ally not rival camp which is so nice to see.

The case this week is nicely chewy too. Jessica Sutton, who was a major part of why Fort Salem was so good, is excellent as a driven, focused woman who is no one’s victim. We only meet Quinn twice but Sutton is so good that we get everything we need to root for her in those scenes. Gloria Garayua is excellent too as Rona, a worker at the retreat connected to the case. Rob Mayes’ work impresses too, as someone who, in any other show, would be a standard perpetrator. Here he’s a man driven to do terrible things for reasons which are as tragic as they are horrifying. You don’t like him, at all, but you can see why he’s done what he’s done. This is what Tracker always does best, taking a traditional situation for a procedural and showing us the people in it. Neil Jackson as the owner of the Retreat, Roshawn Franklin as his security chief even Eddie Canelea and Sophia Lauchlin Hirt in small supporting roles impress.

All that being said, this episode is very, very gory. Irrationally gory to be honest. We see a severed, partially dissolved foot. We see a disassembled body in a barrel. We see a wood chipper and what happens when someone goes through it. It’s horrific, intentionally so, but it feels very dissonant in formation with everything else.

Verdict: The result is an episode that’s fun, sparky and rather more covered in blood than you’d expect. Go in with that in mind and you’ll have a great time. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart