The Equalizer (2021) s02e18 – Exposed

“The Equalizer” wraps up season two with a cliffhanger; it’s been renewed for two more seasons, which means it’s safe for a good while, so it’s a playing renewal chicken cliffhanger. Though it is kind of perpendicular to one. No spoilers.

The cliffhanger’s manipulative but also not. It’s predictable (the scene leading up to it is literal fodder), but they unexpectedly don’t go very far with it. “Equalizer” still limits how dangerous things get for anyone but Queen Latifah, which is both good and bad.

But more about that approach next season.

The season finale opens with Latifah breaking into the Cuban embassy in Washington D.C. to get some information on her nemesis, the guy who killed off Chris Noth and saved the show awkwardness. Though now the whole show is about Latifah avenging Noth’s character, not a great character arc, all things considered, especially since this episode’s all about Laya DeLeon Hayes realizing her mom being “The Equalizer” is cool.

The A-plot is actually Hayes’s, with Latifah’s adventure with guest stars Brett Dalton (returning new CIA guy) and radical Cuban communist terrorist (sure, Jan) Gabriel Sloyer playing B-plot. The B-plot has more twists and turns, but the A-plot’s got all the heart.

It starts with Hayes and best friend Cristina Angelica at school, where Angelica’s ex-boyfriend, Will Edward Price (a perfectly shitty white boy), ruins her class president campaign speech with revenge porn.

As Angelica spirals and Hayes initially doesn’t want to go to Latifah for help (Angelica says no parents), the episode does a crash course in the bullshit people in these situations experience, including the school administration victim-blaming. It’s harrowing, especially after Hayes goes to see cop Tory Kittles (back to his single scene per episode). He tells her just because they’re on a TV show doesn’t mean they can pretend the white boy’s going to be held accountable.

Unless Hayes maybe wants to call her mom. But Kittles doesn’t know it’s her mom, obviously (and unfortunately, I was really hoping Kittles and Hayes would team up and Latifah’s identity would be the cliffhanger).

The episode’s got three credited writers—Terri Edda Miller, Andrew W. Marlowe, and Joseph C. Wilson (it’s probably the best thing Marlowe’s name’s ever been on)—and it feels like a couple of them worked on the Hayes plot, one on the Latifah one. The episode’s brimming; Angelica’s in danger, which Hayes experiences, but Hayes also puts herself in danger. And then Latifah’s off poking the sleeping bear who said he’d kill her family if she poked him. It’s all very intense, made more so by Latifah not really knowing what’s going on with Hayes because sometimes it’s more important to be James Bond.

Even if you can’t say so.

There’s some kind of cute but also forced interaction between Hayes and Liza Lapira. They bond while Adam Goldberg (showing off his guns this episode—flesh guns, not bang bang guns) fights a Russian hacker.

Hayes’s stuff is excellent. It’s melodramatic but exceptionally earnest and sincere (Eric Laneuville directs, which no doubt helps). The rest is fine. If the A-plot weren’t so affecting, the B-plot would be flimsier.

“Equalizer”’s still uneven—why is Kittles so pointless again—but it’s going into season three on relatively solid ground.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e09 – Bout That Life

How does “The Equalizer” deal with Chris Noth’s permanent absence? It’s like he was never there. He’s heavily featured in the recap because he got Adam Goldberg out of federal prison, then nothing. He was also supposed to be mentoring teenage Laya DeLeon Hayes, who was conspicuously absent from Noth’s last episode. I kind of thought they’d kill him off offscreen somehow, though I suppose they still can.

It’s just weird to have Goldberg, Liza Lapira, and Queen Latifah standing around talking about Goldberg’s release and the conditions and never mentioning Noth’s character’s involvement.

The A-plot this episode is Latifah and Tory Kittles investigating a rap war. It’s not really a very “Equalizer” plot, more a whodunit procedural. Rick Ross is in prison for killing his rival, then a track drops with details only the killer could know. The acting on the arc is fine; it’s just really rote. The episode’s script credit goes to Jamila Daniel, her first on the series (she started as a producer for Noth’s recent showcase episode), and it feels more like a cop show’s drawer script.

There is a relatively neat little scene with Latifah talking to a teenage female rapper, Lucky Ray, about the craft. It’s cute and hits a little bit more sincerely than the rest of the episode. Even if Latifah’s character here is not, you know, Queen Latifah. I’m still bummed she’s not Edward Woodward’s daughter from the original.

Anyway.

There’s a connected subplot about how Lapira needs to do the computer stuff because they’re going to Guantanamo Goldberg if he ever touches a keyboard again. Except she hates taking his directions, and he thinks she’s incapable of taking them. It’s a new facet to their relationship and seems to be there so someone can turn them into a “the straights aren’t okay” meme. They spend the whole time hating each other, with weird details like Lapira’s bar—on top of Goldberg’s now-off limits underground lair—has bad Wi-Fi, which seems completely unbelievable.

The family plot is Hayes bringing home a boy, Nathaniel Logan McIntyre, who’s appropriate in all the ways—even if he’s from a poor family (straight-A student)—he just doesn’t want to go to college. It’s a peculiar arc, with some cringe “student debt is worth it” monologuing from both Hayes and Lorraine Toussaint, but when McIntyre gets to soapbox to present his side, it’s mostly well-done.

Eric Laneuville directs. It’s way too classy direction for what the episode needs. Most of the actors can keep up, and Laneuville does really well with Ross’s family on the outside, wife Narci Regina, sons Maxwell Whittington-Cooper, and Jordan Aaron Hall. Whittington-Cooper is probably the best performance in the procedural arc. The character development just doesn’t go anyway since it’s a whodunit.

The finale presses a reset on the series. Not sure they Thanos snap Noth out of continuity, but they definitely are done with the Goldberg in jeopardy plot. Hopefully, they do something with the refresh besides more bland cop show scripts.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e03 – Leverage

Every time I think “The Equalizer” is getting better, it stalls out, though at least some of this episode is fine, and the worst stuff (Liza Lapira acting tough) is predictable. This episode, writing credits to Keith Eisner and Erica Shelton, is a combination of “The Wire”-lite and “The Shield”-lite. And it’s directed by Eric Laneuville, a very measured, thoughtful, experienced TV director.

If Laneuville can’t make it play, it just can’t play.

The plot has Queen Latifah trying to rescue teenager Justiin A. Davis from a life in the game. The show goes out of its way to imply that situation, only to reveal he’s being forced into it by yuppie DEA agents Michael Drayer and Jacqueline Nwabueze. Drayer’s a white guy; it’s clear he does not give a shit about Black teenager Davis. Nwabueze’s a Black woman; it’s clear she knows they’re doing the wrong thing but is hoping Drayer’s imperviousness to accountability will go for her too. Neither are exactly bad, just terribly miscast. It’s unbelievable Latifah doesn’t beat the shit out of them after meeting them.

So while she’s trying to figure out what gang they’re trying to get Davis to infiltrate, a new cop on the vigilante case, Dominic Fumusa, is after her. But most of his pursuit is making “is the okay sign really racist” comments to Tory Kittles, who’s demoted to office work this season, where Fumusa likens himself to a Great White Hunter. It’s weird. Like “The Equalizer” can’t really address some things because then Kittles’s whole character falls apart. Like cops can’t be villains, even though whenever they’re on the show too much and get too many lines, they’re clearly villains, racist villains.

It’s actually downright subtle compared to the DEA blackmailing Black teens into working undercover, which the episode spotlights in three or four expository dumps. Sure, the dumps feel contrived, but they’re at least informational, save maybe when Lapira and Adam Goldberg are doing one.

The home plot is Laya DeLeon Hayes giving a eulogy for the kid who got killed in the last season finale when Hayes found out her mom’s “The Equalizer.” Lorraine Toussaint provides sturdy support. It’s not particularly well-written, but it’s at least effective, thanks to good acting.

Maybe next episode will be better. It usually goes better, worse, better, worse, so the show can’t get any real momentum going.