‘This Is Us’ Alum Jon Huertas Talks Directing New ‘Tracker’ Episode and Reuniting with Justin Hartley (Exclusive)

A This Is Us is happening on the new episode of Tracker, airing this Sunday, Apr. 21, when Jon Huertas directs, and he spoke to PopCulture.com all about it. With Huertas directing, he reunited with former co-star Justin Hartley and Tracker and This Is Us executive producer Ken Olin, who brought up the idea even before CBS ordered it to series.

“Well, I actually got asked by Ken Olin and Justin before This is Us ended,” Huertas shared. “They were already in the process of developing the show and they were like, ‘Hey, I’d love for you to come direct on the show and get it picked up.’ And they got it picked up and then the call came through, ‘You still into it?’ And I was ecstatic to work with Justin, he’s one of my favorite actors, it was a dream come true. So, ‘Absolutely, sign me up.’”

After playing Miguel Rivas on This Is Us for the NBC drama’s entire six-season run, Huertas said goodbye to his character and his colleagues in 2022 when the series came to an end. Even though it’s been two years, Huertas said reuniting with Hartley and Olin was like “no time has gone by at all.” He continued, “We still have a great rapport, it’s shorthand, rib each other for the week, we can have fun. It’s like we haven’t missed a beat. It’s really great. We got spoiled working on This Is Us, and to work with two of the most talented people in our industry is just something special, and the whole time, I’m smiling.”

As for the actual episode that Jon Huertas will be directing, airing this Sunday, Apr. 21, Season 1, Episode 9, “Aurora,” will center on Colter helping a widower find his only daughter, who disappeared three years ago and is presumed dead. After the father shows Colter a newspaper photo from a recent county fair, he’s convinced that it’s his daughter, and “Colter’s search leads him into the world of amateur ghost hunting and paranormal activity.”

Huertas says that the episode is a “thriller, with a little bit of found footage, supernatural horror elements in it. But it leans more into a thriller that will allow the audience to help culture in this new character that we introduce in this episode, Detective Brock, investigate and go on this journey with him. The audience can participate a little bit in this episode, which is fun. And it’s a little darker, there’s not a lot of laughs in this one, it’s scary at times. So, I think people are really going to respond well to this episode.”

It sounds like the new episode is going to be one to watch, and you won’t want to miss a single second of it. Between Jon Huertas directing and Tracker going in a paranormal route, there’s no telling how the episode will turn out. With Season 2 of, hopefully, this won’t be the last time Huertas directs, and he is hoping that as well, but it all depends on the schedule and other shows he’s directing. But he “would love to try to knock out two, three, four Tracker episodes if I can. I’d rather work with people that I know than people I don’t know.”

Meanwhile, would Huertas want to reunite with Justin Hartley on-screen as well in the near future? The actor and director admitted his former co-star has brought it up and he’d be down but only “if it’s a character that speaks to me, I would do it, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of me directing on the show. But maybe it’s an episode I’m directing, and I’m in it. But yeah, it’s a possibility.”

Don’t miss Jon Huertas directing a brand new episode of Tracker this Sunday, Apr. 21 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.