This was another case of Tracker feeling like it was biting off a story we’d already seen.
If you’ve watched the film Gone Baby Gone (which somehow came out almost 20 years ago now!) or read the book, then the big twist of this hour probably didn’t faze you too much.
But for me, as someone who has seen the movie more than once, I gasped at the big reveal here, which was a solid sign that this was a pretty well-done piece of television.
Tracker very rarely shocks me, because, in many ways, the stories are predictable, or they’re set up in a way that doesn’t lend itself to truly shocking, out-of-left-field reveals.
Sure, we’ve had some twisty moments, both during the cases of the week and within the Shaw family drama, but it’s not a show known for serving up earth-shattering turns week in and week out.
I wouldn’t even classify the twist in Tracker Season 3 Episode 8 as insane, but this was the kind of hour that was building and building toward something, though it was never clear what that something was going to be.
And those are some of the best hours of the series. The ones that are captivating both in the storytelling, but even more in the questions they leave you with when it’s over.
This series can get very dark and morbid at times, and I was already feeling a little sick about the whole episode centering around a missing child.
The first scene with Sierra waking up from a drunken stupor and searching for Aubrey before screaming in the streets was jarring, and even more so when we fast-forwarded a year into the future.
There are enough missing persons shows on the air today for us all to know that the first hours after a kidnapping or disappearance are crucial, and that after a year of no news, the odds of finding young Aubrey were probably low.
But Sierra waking up to her daughter’s dress hanging in her backyard would undoubtedly be a solid reason to reignite the case.
I suspect there will be a lot of differing opinions about this case, especially reactions to Sierra’s character.
It was very clear from seeing Sierra with Colter, and even seeing the state of her home, that she was a much different person than the one that we saw in the beginning, having slept through her daughter’s kidnapping.
Aubrey’s disappearance was a kickstart for Sierra to get her life together, and she’d done just that over the past year, with the biggest step being committing to sobriety.
But even with Sierra being a different person, her past couldn’t be expunged from people’s memories, and you saw that with Tyson, who clearly had preconceived notions about Sierra having grown up with her and refused to think or see much beyond that.
Should he have even been working the case, considering his connection to Sierra, however fleeting?
When he interrogated her, it felt like there was nothing she could say to him to prove she wasn’t a part of what happened to Aubrey, and to him, her journal entries only made her more guilty.
While we knew as the audience that Sierra had nothing to do with what happened to Aubrey, I didn’t understand in the beginning why the police were so laser-focused on her. Of course, that would become clear later, but in the early parts of the hour, it did seem a little curious.
And Sierra’s journal entry also read like someone with tremendous guilt about losing her daughter and being somewhat responsible because she was in the home when it happened, and less because she’d done something herself to hurt Aubrey.
Tyson was frustrating to say the least, but luckily for Colter, he never lets anyone really sway his feelings about a case or go against his instincts or the facts.
The fact was that Sierra didn’t produce that dress in her backyard and get herself arrested for attention. There was someone out there with knowledge, and once it became a matter of following the clues, Colter did what Colter does best.
My biggest fear once Colter got to the Flint residence was that we were going to discover Aubrey was taken in some child trafficking ring, and Colter ultimately wouldn’t be able to find her.
That’s not typically Tracker’s style, as they’re not really in the business of sad and unsatisfying endings, but the case was gnawing at me, and it was even a tough watch at times, because of the grim reality of what the outcome could be.
The Flint family was the nightmarish family Colter always finds himself running into. Still, the idea of Aubrey being held there for a year didn’t exactly make sense, which meant the alternative was unfortunately in play.
Colter not only tracked down where the dress had been kept all this time, but also Aubrey’s hair and evidence that she was most likely alive within a couple of hours, should have been my first clue that, at the very LEAST, this was the most incompetent set of detectives on the planet.
Alibi or not, Spencer Flint would have been a number one suspect, along with all his associates.
And that IS what happened, but obviously, Arthur didn’t then find Aubrey and return her home to her mother. No, he made a decision he felt was in Aubrey’s best interest and would save his family.
But was it the right decision?
Whether it was right or wrong, it wasn’t Arthur’s decision to make.
Clearly, Arthur was a good detective because he found Aubrey and rescued her from certain cruelty in the hands of Derek Flint. Still, he killed the man, instead of arresting him and then returning Aubrey to her mother and perhaps then going through the proper channels, like child protective services, to ensure Aubrey was being well cared for moving forward.
Legally, that was perhaps the right thing to do, and as a sworn officer of the law, that’s what should have taken place.
But Arthur wasn’t just a cop throughout this whole scenario, but instead a grandfather. And that was the part that shocked me the most, because my brain was going through so many scenarios where he and his wife lost a child, and they were trying to transform Aubrey into someone else.
Instead, Arthur and Iris were trying to love and protect their daughter from a cruel world, and a mother they thought wasn’t worthy enough to have her.
Just like Gone Baby Gone, it poses an interesting question about what is morally right versus what’s right in the eyes of the law. And in a human sense, one could understand what Arthur was trying to do and why he thought he was doing the best thing.
He lost his son to his addiction, and he saw Aubrey being neglected, and he had the means to give his granddaughter what he believed to be a better life. But again, that wasn’t his place to do so, and I felt it when his wife told him it wasn’t supposed to be like this, because they’d likely been flying by the seat of their pants for the last year.
Aubrey was utterly cut off from the outside world and made to think her mother was dead, and now, Arthur was flying around town, shooting at people to cover his tracks. They were going to have to flee with Aubrey, lying to her and looking over their shoulder, and it just got to a place where it was out of control.
And more importantly, nothing was in Aubrey’s best interest, but instead in the best interest of protecting their secret.
It’s a complicated thing to consider, and the hour did a magnificent job of highlighting that it wasn’t nearly as black-and-white as one might think from the outside.
Unlike what happened in Gone Baby Gone, Sierra was cognizant of her role in what happened to Aubrey and committed herself to getting healthy and stable in the year Aubrey had been gone, not even truly knowing if she’d ever get her daughter back.
I thought it was a curious choice to have Sierra be so calm, low-key, and emotionless throughout much of the hour, but I’d guess that was a narrative choice to ensure we understood that she understood how much her actions played into what happened here.
She was more willing to accept her responsibility and extend grace to Arthur as a person who made a wrong choice, believing it was for the right reason, instead of harboring anger and resentment that she was robbed of a year of her daughter’s life.
But had this situation never happened, would Sierra have worked to get better? That’s something we’ll never know.
As I was saying earlier, the best Tracker hours leave you with questions long after the credits roll.
Tracker Notes
- No Mel again! Will she show up in the midseason finale, and will we get some confirmation that she is or isn’t shady?
- There were so many times I held my breath during this hour, but none more than when Colter was pulling up that crate from the water. I almost closed my eyes.
- I desperately need Colter and Reenie teaming up again for a case in person. It feels like it has been forever.
This was an emotional one, and I can’t wait to hear all your thoughts, so make sure to leave them all down below!
You can watch Tracker on Sundays at 8/7c on CBS.
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