Tracker (2023-)
not to be confused with
Duster (2025-6) and
Reacher (2022-5), is about a guy who "tracks" missing people, usually in the square red states. I went through the first season in search of gay characters awhile back, and didn't find much (Tracker's assistants are a lesbian couple, but the missing people seem to be all hetero).
Tonight I have nothing to do while waiting for my partner to get back from the gym (and bring food), so I'm going through Season 3. Episodes about "Randy's close friend vanishes" and "a hidden relationship in a lawless desert town" have been disappointing, but Episode 3.11, "an 18 year old with a secret life" looks promising. It stars Ben Krieger, a Broadway star who is obviously gay: he goes to Pride events, performed magic in a gay bar, and spent his 21st birthday with a male companion.
Scene 1: Queens, New York. Stepho's Greek Taverna. Ben is cleaning up his parents' restaurant after closing. A girl invites him to a party, but he refuses.
Your first sentence is rejecting a girl? A nice queer code. He locks the back door, sets his bag of food aside, and walks over to the dumpster to throw out the trash. Suddenly a car zooms up with its headlights glaring.
Scene 2: The parents call for Tracker (Justin Hartley): Ben didn't come home last night, and because he's 18, the police won't do anything. He also failed to deposit the day's receipts, several thousand dollars.
In cash? Doesn't everyone pay by card nowadays?Tracker suggests that maybe he took the money and vanished, but the parents dismiss that idea. He would never just leave. But he didn't want to work in the restaurant forever. He was interested in social justice issues. Like LGBTQ rights, for instance?
They open his locker, and find a taser cartridge. Dude needed to protect himself for some reason.
Scene 3: Next they check the back.
Notice the Pride Flag on the building next door. It is visible in several scenes, certainly a deliberate background choice to hint that Ben is gay.A homeless lady is eating the food that Ben dropped off. She saw him arguing with a guy, and then being loaded into the car.
Next they find Ben's cell phone: he must have dropped it during the scuffle. Tracker gets his associate, the Hacker, to hack into it.
Left: Google says that the Hacker is played by Eric Graise, a gay actor best known for the new
Queer as Folk. He may be disabled: some sources say that he's a bilateral amputee, and others, that it's his character.
The IMDB says that Eric left at the end of Season 2, replaced by "Cousin Randy" (Chris Lee), who is straight in real life.
The new, straight Hacker tells Tracker that yesterday Ben called Ellis Brawner (Alex Barima from Daniel Spellbound, straight in real life) a dozen times.
The parents know him: he used to work at the restaurant, but was fired for stealing. Could he have gotten revenge by kidnapping Ben?
Scene 4: The B-Plot, back at headquarters. A lady is buttering up another lady, who praises her work on previous cases.
Alex Barima (right), seen here in a non-romantic scene in The Exorcist, has no n*de or beefcake photos online.
The Hacker looks up Brawner's address, and Tracker breaks in. A lot of fake passports and drivers' licenses. No posters of bikini babes? A good sign. When Brawner arrives and sees Tracker, he runs, but Tracker chases him down.
He explains that he and Ben-Ben are partners in the fake id business. Ben-Ben? Sounds like they're boyfriends.
Last night Ben called and told him to get to the restaurant fast. They were yelling because Brawner was angry over being awakened in the middle of the night. It was just after a restaurant closed, and one of the staff was heading to a party. Do you go to bed at 7:00 pm?
He needed some ids and a car right away, and paid for it with the money he took from the restaurant.
"Was it about the fake id business?"
"No, I think it was about a girl. I heard him talking." Ulp, heterosexual identity established at Minute 15.
Ben left his laptop at Brower's place. Tracker confiscates it.
More after the break.
