The Equalizer (2021) s02e04 – The People Aren’t Ready

I’m not getting roped into the “maybe ‘The Equalizer’ will actually be good” game again, but this episode’s solid. It improves some things, it maintains some things, it fails at some things.

The fail is Tory Kittles teaming up with Dominic Fumusa for a bit. Kittles has all these buddy cop one-liners he dismissively spouts just before the cut like a “Law & Order” spoof. The one-liners ring particularly hollow because they’re the only interactions Kittles has with Fumusa where the episode doesn’t go out of its way to remind Fumusa is a complete asshole. There’s even a secret origin reveal of his character to further explain the assholery. It’s a bunch.

The improvements are for—almost unbelievably—Liza Lapira and Adam Goldberg. They go out in the world on a mission together, and Goldberg’s a buffoon, and Lapira has to save their bacon, but it’s actually cute. Even with Lapira’s socially conscious expository dump in the first few minutes about prosecutors holding people of color in pretrial detention for years on end. It’s the second time “The Equalizer” has tried this information dump from Lapira, and it works better this time. It also doesn’t end up being very important to the actual plot, which has Queen Latifah getting arrested and having to save the day from jail.

Latifah’s got information about a threat against Karen DA Jennifer Ferrin, but Ferrin doesn’t believe it at first. Once there’s an incident, Ferrin makes Kittles and Fumusa work together to try to stop the would-be assassin—aggrieved father Michael Chenevert—while Goldberg and Lapira are pretty sure it’s a frame-up.

Meanwhile, in jail, Latifah meets a young woman (Imani Lewis) whose stubbornness is stopping her from getting out of a bad situation. So Latifah becomes a mentor, whether Lewis wants one or not.

Then at home, Lorraine Toussaint and Laya DeLeon Hayes are freaking out about Latifah being in jail—as part of the family’s new honesty policies, Latifah discloses her arrest—though no one knows her identity. So lots of good, quick family drama for Toussaint and Hayes.

Combined with the Lapira and Goldberg all of a sudden being charming and an inventive episode setup… maybe “Equalizer” is getting better. Or at least it seems to be raising the bottom.

The script—credited to Joseph C. Wilson—still manages a bunch of awful dialogue.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e02 – The Kingdom

So, this “Equalizer” is in many ways the best episode ever. There are still many problems—starting with the A-plot being about Queen Latifah taking on the Saudis and continuing with some bad acting from one of the principal guest stars—but it’s pretty darn good. Especially for “The Equalizer.” Randy Zisk’s direction is strong, Latifah’s performance is strong, the other principal guest star is excellent. The last episode didn’t promise improvement for the show for the second season; this episode starts making that promise.

The A-plot is about college student Arash DeMaxi going missing. He’s the son of the Saudi ambassador (Nasser Faris); his sister, Melis Aker, is the one who calls Latifah. But we don’t see the call. Instead, the action picks up with Latifah already on the job, complete with disguise. It’s a nice change; she’s more comfortable as her super-spy secret hero.

Though that comfort figures into the home plot with Latifah and daughter Laya DeLeon Hayes, who’s still distant since discovering her mom’s the star of a weekly action-thriller show on CBS. The home plot, with aunt Lorraine Toussaint fretting over Hayes’s behavior, has good acting, good directing, and weaker writing. Not the weakest writing. The weakest writing is the details in the A-plot.

The episode starts hammering in the Saudis as bad guys, then takes it up a notch to say they’re bad guys the U.S. needs to be exploiting better. There’s a bit about the country’s sexism and homophobia (ignoring it’s based in the state religion), but also about online dissidents. Adam Goldberg does the expository dumps about the dissident stuff, and he’s pretty bad for a lot of it. Like he can’t pronounce characters’ names correctly. Luckily all the actual espionage stuff plays well in action. It feels like a dated plotline, which might be why the show feels so comfortable; they’re not reinventing the wheel; they’re just doing the Saudi episode.

Plus, Chris Noth—sporting a bad dye-job because “Equalizer” pretends he’s a very wealthy, erudite scrub—meets Liza Lapira. Lapira, who’s got some annoying scenes with Goldberg as usual, doesn’t like Noth, but at least there’s some energy to her acting in the scenes. Again, signs of improvement.

Meanwhile, cop Tory Kittles has a subplot about low-key racist white cop Dominic Fumusa now hunting Latifah. Not much for Kittles to do, but he’s good in the scenes.

It may just be a solid episode, but Latifah’s in much better control of the show than usual. I’m hoping it’s a sign of things to come.

The Equalizer (2021) s01e08 – Lifeline

I watched this episode like it was the season finale, so I was more bullish on the epilogue than I would’ve been if I’d known there were two episodes after this one.

This episode’s got Queen Latifah doing a CIA one-shot amid her regular plot lines, like daughter Laya DeLeon Hayes and aunt Lorraine Toussaint getting very suspicious about her work. Latifah’s been saying “global charity” or something, which accounts for the days away at a time, but they’ve finally had enough. It leads to some decent scenes; better than the episode average scenes, particularly better than the Chris Noth and Tory Kittles material.

Again, if they’re out of episodes and trying to sunset Noth and Kittles’s outstanding arcs—as they are—for the season, the material makes sense. If it’s not the season finale, they’re just using both actors and wasting both actors; the show usually only has either Noth or Kittles, not both. But to have both and do zilch? Maybe in the season finale. Episode eight of ten… not so much.

The case this episode is Latifah’s old CIA mentor—not Noth, but the one we’ve never heard of until the plot required it—and his daughter, Alexandra Socha. Socha is on the run from professional assassins and needs Latifah to talk her through it; imagine Die Hard but Reginald VelJohnson does all the action from the parking lot because budget. It’s not great. The script—credited to Joseph C. Wilson—isn’t good. It’s often quite bad. The family stuff is fine. The rest is garbage and a desperate Mission: Impossible nod. Or Bourne nod. Maybe both. Doesn’t matter. It’s bad espionage stuff.

But Latifah gets through it. Equalizer needs to keep going until it can figure itself out, which grants it some leeway with excursions to France—probably not even Quebec France—and an entirely new MacGuffin nemesis getting introduced. Again, seems like a season finale. But there’s definite potential to the series, which the episode highlights. In maybe the only good direction from Randy Zisk, who bellyflops so hard on the big fight scene you can hear the impact.

The Equalizer (2021) s01e04 – It Takes a Village

Did they save up their Chris Noth for this episode? He actually does something with the plot. Nothing with the non-Queen Latifah cast, but they get him in a lengthy action set piece involving the episode villain (Scott Cohen). Noth and Latifah crashing actually evil philanthropist Cohen’s formal ball isn’t as good as it could be—there’s no tango or even ballroom scene—but they actually get to have fun together as opposed to doing exposition dumps while on a New York location walk and talk.

Here’s the plot of the episode, told in RoboCop. Cohen is actually Dick Jones, trying to get gangster Clarence Boddicker (Jayson Wesley) to get the residents out of Old Detroit except there’s a certain Black community activist (Marcus Callender), who needs to be gotten got. Sadly there are no ED-209s, but there is a scene where Latifah crashes Wesley and crew beating in a new gang member and she gets to terrify them thanks to CIA prepping.

Oh, and Cohen’s a CIA asset. American billionaires who fund terrorists as CIA assets on CBS. How far we’ve come. Or not, actually.

The minimal B plot is about Latifah’s daughter, Laya DeLeon Hayes, getting mad about a pothole screwing up her driving lesson and becoming an online road maintenance activist. They seem to have realized she’s a little bit too annoying and to give her some humility; sadly no one accuses her of being fake woke about potholes like she accused a former friend of being fake woke about police violence last episode. Lorraine Toussaint gets a little to do in the subplot, probably more than Hayes because Toussaint gets to have conversations with both Latifah and Hayes while Latifah and Hayes just exchange angry one-liners.

Then there’s detective Tory Kittles, who’s seemingly given up pursuing Latifah as a vigilante and is instead her police department insider. Speaking of police department insiders and being fake woke about potholes… there’s a super gross scene where Adam Goldberg and Liza Lapira (fourth episode of the show, fourth different characterization of the obnoxious, charmless couple) cheer the cops arresting someone. It’s a bad guy, but the way they do the cheering… let’s just say a Blue Lives Matter sticker on Goldberg’s computer is only unlikely because the set decoration isn’t good enough. It’d certainly be appropriate.

Goldberg and Lapira are getting real tiresome. Cohen’s blah in the Dick Jones part. Zach Appelman’s fine as his son, who’s basically Bob Morton (no spoilers, just basically Bob Morton). Wesley’s fine. It’s a crap part.

But then there’s Robert G. McKay, who isn’t good and really needs to be good. He’s got one of the biggest supporting roles and while it’s also not a great part, there’s potential to it; instead McKay gets worse as the role gets more difficult. His scenes become a chore, whereas the rest of the episode at least doesn’t feel like one.

“The Equalizer” seems to be evening itself out… and turning out to be a lot blander and safer than originally implied.