How the Season 3 Premiere Explains Bobby and Velma’s Absences

SPOILER ALERT! This article contains details about the CBS season 3 premiere. Tracker.

Two familiar faces were missing from Sunday night’s Season 3 premiere. Tracker.

Eric Graise and Abby McEnany are no longer series regulars, as Deadline reported in July, and the return of the missing persons drama to CBS provided some brief explanations for their characters’ exit from the universe.

The answers come after the opening episode in which Colter’s (Justin Hartley) brother Russ (Jensen Ackles) finds him starting a fight in a small-town bar after learning some harsh truths about the night his father died in the Season 2 finale. After helping him clean up the mess, Russ calls Reenie (Fiona Rene) to let her know Colter is okay, and she assigns them a new job.

We stay with Reenie, who arrives at her office greeted by Randy (Chris De’Sean Lee), who is Bobby de Graise’s cousin and was introduced in Season 2. Apparently, he helps Reenie hire a new tech specialist after Bobby gets a new job opportunity.

“He’s killing it,” Randy tells Reenie, after Bobby messages her to check in. “He officially quit his job at the repair shop and now he’s an encryption specialist at a new startup. Between the stock options and the salary, he’s bringing home the bacon.”

As for McEnany’s Velma, she left with his wife Teddi, who left town last season to visit her mother when actress Robin Weigert left the show. Reenie says this may not be the last time we see Velma, but for now she needs to focus on her family.

“I don’t know where this stuff is. Velma does,” she tells Randy when he asks where to find some materials. At this, he asks when she might return, but Reenie has no idea.

“Honestly, I have no idea. She went to see Teddy. She’s trying to save her marriage,” Reenie says.

In the first season, Teddi and Velma helped run Colter’s “back end”: finding new jobs, tracking the money, and occasionally breaking him out of prison. Last season, Reenie began taking on much of that responsibility with Velma as Teddi was gradually removed from the show.

The season 5 premiere sees Reenie assign Colter and Russ a job working for one of her clients, whose ex-wife and daughter have gone missing. Just when the brothers think they’re investigating a cryptography scheme gone wrong, they find themselves entangled in a quagmire much bigger than they could have imagined.

New episodes of Tracker airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.