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) s02e17 – What Dreams May Come

I’m sure it’s happened before, but this episode has a guest star who appeared on the eighties “Equalizer,” too. In the first scene of this episode, Queen Latifah meets with spy guy Neal Benari to check up on her nemesis, who’s overseas after killing Chris Noth (offscreen). Presumably, we’ll get some sort of return visit from the bad guy this season, with “Equalizer” maybe finally ready to put Laya DeLeon Hayes in real danger.

Hopefully not.

Anyway, Benari was on a couple episodes of the original show.

Hayes gets her own arc this episode, involving her going to therapy to talk about having a vigilante mom with Latifah and a dad who wants to know all about Mom’s goings-on. Roma Maffia plays the therapist and is delightful because it’s Roma Maffia, and it’s nice to see Hayes finally get to do this arc after hinting at it a few episodes ago.

The main story of this episode involves a missing reporter, played by Brittany Bellizeare. Her brother comes to New York looking for her, fueled by physic visions.

In other words, “The Equalizer”’s going to do its supernatural episode now, months before Halloween.

Yusuf Gatewood plays the psychic brother. Gatewood’s way too good for the part. He acts the heck out of the show, which gives him almost nothing to do, but he’s very active doing it.

Rob Hanning gets the script credit. The episode will weave around various cast members’ beliefs in the supernatural, with Adam Goldberg playing the voice of reason. His wife, Liza Lapira, is the avowed non-skeptic, while Latifah’s more guarded and unwilling to take a side. We later find out Lorraine Toussaint is a true believer in the shining. She introduces a new backstory for Latifah involving a psychic premonition before Latifah’s father died.

They don’t say her father isn’t Edward Woodward… fingers crossed.

The mystery’s convoluted but thoughtful, with the psychic stuff being a bit of a red herring once they get to political corruption. Second-half guest stars Shirley Rumierk and Roberts Jekabsons don’t compare well against Gatewood; Rumierk’s okay but nothing more. Jekabsons’s bad.

The family stuff with Hayes is solid; the family psychic stuff is not.

Eventually, the episode cops out on the psychic stuff because, of course, it does.

Oh, and Tory Kittles is back to having nothing to do on the show, making his multi-episode arc just a pointless look into how nice it is when he’s around more.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e16 – Vox Populi

Right up until the ending, which resolves Tory Kittles’s recent professional turmoil story arc–two racist white cops kidnapped him and tortured him because they thought he was just a mouthy Black guy, not a Black cop—this episode’s one of the best “Equalizer” episodes.

It’s also something of a “gimme” episode, just because of the structure. Lorraine Toussaint is on a jury where the evidence doesn’t make sense, and it certainly seems like the cops are railroading a Black defendant (RJ Brown). Brown’s accused of raping and murdering a white woman. The episode comes real close to talking about systematic racism (especially for CBS), and there are numerous “gotcha” moments where the white jurors catch themselves being a little racist. It’s always unintentional and without actual malice, but the moments are there. Toussaint’s great and rarely gets enough to do on the show, so having her be the de facto client this episode is excellent.

Of course, Toussaint doesn’t know Queen Latifah’s investigating the case. Latifah knows Toussaint’s not happy with the evidence or the prosecutor’s case; Latifah tells sidekicks Adam Goldberg and Liza Lapira (neither of whom gets much to do) Toussaint wouldn’t have complained if she didn’t want Latifah to do something. Still, it’s never actually made clear Toussaint had that motive. So while Latifah’s trying to figure out if Brown did it, Toussaint’s playing 12 Angry Men with the other jurors.

Sam Pearson, James Adam Lim, Rosa Arredondo, and John Bedford Lloyd are prominent other jurors. Pearson and Lim are more sympathetic to Toussaint; Arredondo and Lloyd are the most antithetic. Lloyd’s better playing the whole jerk than the conflicted one, but Toussaint keeps their exchanges rolling even when his resolve starts slipping.

Kittles helps Latifah out with the investigation, seemingly setting him up for one future plot arc only to flush it for another incredibly problematic one. At least he’s not leaving the show. And hopefully, he and Latifah get to keep being cute together going forward. But it’s a letdown, especially after all the time the episode spends setting him up for something else.

Laya DeLeon Hayes has a mostly offscreen subplot about Latifah feeling bad Hayes has to lie about her mom being “The Equalizer” (to her dad, Latifah’s ex-husband). Unfortunately, given the show seemed to be setting the ex up as a permanent foil, the arc plays reductive. Similar to Kittles’s whole thing.

Nitpicking about future plotlines and multi-episode arcs aside, it’s a strong episode. It’s a Toussaint one. How could it not be?

The Equalizer (2021) s02e15 – Hard Money

With Chris Noth now dead and presumably buried, “The Equalizer” can move on to whatever’s next, which apparently involves introducing Queen Latifah’s ex-husband, Stephen Bishop. Latifah has to take a gunshot victim to Bishop for help—he’s one of the best surgeons in the city, and Latifah’s client can’t go to the hospital because the bad guys are after her—and Bishop’s very unhappy to hear about Latifah’s new gig as a… good guy. Especially as it relates to her parenting their daughter, Laya DeLeon Hayes.

Hayes and Lorraine Toussaint get a beginning and end of the episode arc about being worried for Latifah’s well-being. Since she’s told them she can take care of herself, but then her mentor Noth got killed, maybe her equalizing isn’t as safe as she’s led on.

Now, what’s really unclear about this arc is how much Latifah’s told Hayes about Noth’s death. Did Latifah tell her they were fighting a Bond villain who used a Bond weapon to shoot down an airplane? It might make Hayes feel a little better to know her mom’s usually just helping Dollar General employees who know too much about an inside counterfeit laundering job, not fighting Ernst Stavro Blofeld. It also doesn’t really matter because the episode resolves Hayes’s concerns, but only because dad Bishop’s going to get more involved.

The A-plot—there’s really no B-plot other than Bishop caring for the injured client (played by Bianca Horn)—has Latifah and Tory Kittles trying to figure out how counterfeit money relates to Horn and co-worker Catherine Combs seeing something they shouldn’t have at their work. They can’t just go to the police because the episode opens with Combs and Horn pulling a heist, only to have second thoughts, but then they interrupt another heist already in progress.

Since he’s now an ex-cop with nothing to do all day, Kittles tags along with Latifah (whether she likes it or not) on her investigation, turning “Equalizer” into a buddy not-cop show with some romantic underpinnings. It works out. At one point, someone tells Kittles to stop playing private investigator and rejoin law enforcement; I hope it’s an empty threat.

Much of the episode is Combs at work, trying not to raise suspicion, while her asshole boss (a way too good RJ Vaillancourt) makes her life hell.

The guest stars are all good enough, with Combs and bad guy Evan Hall standouts. Bishop’s a just okay foil; it doesn’t help he and Latifah’s scenes are just exposition dumps about their troubled history.

Not a lot for Adam Goldberg and Liza Lapira to do this episode, notably Goldberg, which is fine. Kittles and Latifah playing together all episode beats anything the sidekicks would be doing. Hopefully, the show keeps this new dynamic going.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e14 – Pulse

The opening recap features Chris Noth, which had me hoping they’d finally resolve his character on the show. They do. In some ways, it’s the biggest episode of “Equalizer” so far; Queen Latifah takes on a Bond villain, Chris Vance, who’s got a Bond weapon of mass destruction to unleash on unsuspecting New York City.

As Latifah’s much-ballyhooed nemesis, Vance is a disappointment. He’s fine in that vague eighties and nineties Euro-trash way, but he’s a Bond henchman at best. And, you know, a James Bond TV show henchman. So it’s concerning if they auditioned him opposite Latifah and picked him, though maybe even more concerning if they didn’t. There’s no pay-off to him.

And since Noth doesn’t come back—even though there are a couple flexes like he might at the last minute—there’s no real pay-off there either. Instead, the pay-off will be Tory Kittles, apparently not leaving the show. It’s entirely unclear what he’s going to be doing on the show going forward, but he’s still around. He gets two scenes. As his ex-wife (even Latifah’s surprised to see guest starring again), Tawny Cypress also gets two scenes. Presumably, the show will reveal what’s going on with Kittles. The team may have room to grow.

Though they’re also auditioning a Noth replacement with Brett Dalton. Dalton’s a CIA guy who proves reliable by the end of the episode; well, trustworthy, but maybe not reliable. Either Dalton tested with Latifah, or he’s better at procedural banter than Vance is at Bond villaining.

The episode’s fairly solid, given the constraints. Noth put the show into a bind with his character, and they’re doing the best they can. It’s an overly complicated plot involving the United Nations, Russian scientists, and Chinese interpreters—plus Latifah’s former CIA protege, Maria Rivera, getting in touch and a bewilderingly pointless subplot for Adam Goldberg. But they get through it. It’s good Kittles is still around. Dalton is fine. Vance seems like a seasonal appearance recurring villain.

The most compelling moments come at the beginning of the episode with Lorraine Toussaint informing Latifah her subplot about rekindling an old relationship is still going on, just not on screen, and Laya DeLeon Hayes curious about Latifah and Kittles’s relationship status. Except then, Toussaint and Hayes leave and don’t have anything else in the episode; those subplots are left for next time (or even later).

Maybe if Paul Holahan’s direction were better… there’s a big action sequence at an oil refinery, and it feels like a generic action show from the eighties. Kind of appropriate because Vance is there, but still. Holahan’s action direction is bad in general, actually; he messes up a fairly standard fight scene at one point.

Anyway. We’ll see what they do really post-Noth. They’ve got four episodes left this season to re-establish the ground situation. After all, it’s not like they’ve got a high bar to clear.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e13 – D.W.B.

Tory Kittles gets his most significant episode of the season (if not the show), but with several caveats. First, it’s a Black trauma episode. Kittles—with his two sons—is somewhere in not-New York City New York, and a couple sheriffs’ deputies assume he’s a suspect. When he asserts his rights, the senior officer (Lee Tergesen, leaning into his typecasting as a racist piece of shit) attacks him, knocking him unconscious. Once the other, less overtly shitty cop (Brandon Espinoza) confirms Kittles is a cop… they put him in the back of their car and drive him out somewhere to kill him instead of calling an ambulance.

Because all of a sudden, “The Equalizer” really wants to be realistic.

The other big caveat for it being a Kittles-centric episode is it being, one way or another, a major change for the character and potentially the show. We finally meet his ex-wife, Tawny Cypress, who’s initially confused why her sons called Queen Latifah for help before her, and then we get some backstory on Kittles. Including how Cypress always wanted to tell her kids about racist white cops, but cop Kittles wouldn’t let her. The episode speeds through that aspect of the story, letting the detail inform Kittles’s arc but not Cypress’s or the kids’.

The last caveat has to do with Kittles and Latifah’s chemistry. The show leans into it more than ever, but also without there being much weight behind it. Kittles has multiple flashback hallucinations in the episode, including returning guest star dad Danny Johnson either getting CGI de-aged (or de-aging make-up just looks like CGI now) and Kittles occasionally playing himself as a child. It’s kind of an acting showcase for Kittles, really. Just a horrific Black trauma one.

Because even though the show couches the racism a little bit, it’s only a little bit. The small-town cops are sympathetic to being murderers; the only non-overt racist the show introduces in the small-town is Dennis Boutsikaris, who plays a judge. Boutsikaris knows New York D.A. Jennifer Ferrin, who helps Latifah look for Kittles. The New York City cops can’t act because small-town racist sheriff Michael Pemberton tells them everything’s fine, so Ferrin and Latifah have to independently investigate.

While keeping the investigation limited makes it easier for the episode plotting—Adam Goldberg and Liza Lapira don’t get much to do here, and Laya DeLeon Hayes and Lorraine Toussaint don’t even appear–it also comes across like Kittles’s brothers and sisters in blue do not give a shit if Black cops are murdered by white ones.

Again, “Equalizer”’s picking one heck of a story to go for realism on.

Tergesen shows up before the opening titles, but then Boutsikaris and Ron Canada’s names show up, so it’s obviously going to be a big guest star episode. Canada has a great scene; sadly, all Black trauma stuff.

The show’s been having a rough time this season with Kittles as a Black cop and somehow decided the best way to resolve it was an exploitation picture from the seventies. Kittles does a great job. The main racist white cops are good too—Tergesen, Pemberton; a weird compliment.

Latifah simultaneously gets a lot to do but also not very much.

It’s a harrowing episode, start to finish.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e12 – Somewhere Over the Hudson

So, Rob Hanning gets the script credit this episode; his name stood out but not because of his “Equalizer” work. He used to write on “Frasier.” He did another “Equalizer” too, the relatively good episode with Chris Noth saving his son; an inglorious distinction, to be sure. But Hanning’s name stood out.

And his episode is a mix of Midnight Run and Oliver Twist. Just a straight mix of the two. Not the Liza Lapira subplot—she tells best friend Christina Brucato how husband Adam Goldberg’s actually alive, and Lapira’s been lying to Brucato for years about it. The subplot’s not good. Brucato’s profoundly unlikable.

But Oliver Twist J.J. Wynder is good. He’s a teen car thief who works for Alphonso Walker Jr. And then the Charles Gordon analog, Josh Cooke, is mostly good. Cooke’s got a weird, rushed romance subplot with Walker’s abused girlfriend, Louisa Krause. It’s a strange addition to the episode, which must’ve been stretching to make its runtime.

Cooke’s Queen Latifah’s client this episode. He’s a mob accountant who got a conscience—which makes him analogous to Wynder, eventually—only Wynder stole his car, and the ledger they need is in the car. The feds won’t have anything to do with him without the paperwork; if they just followed him around, they could get the mobsters for multiple murder attempts.

So Latifah’s got to keep Cooke alive while getting involved with Wynder, Walker, and Krause. There are double-crosses, missed connections, and a lot of botany talk. Cooke’s a green thumb.

It’s mostly amusing because Latifah and Cooke are fun together. He’s in way over his head in every situation, usually comically or awkwardly. Then Latifah decides to help out Wynder, leading to odd couple interactions for him and Cooke.

Despite there being quite a bit of danger, given Walker, given the mobsters, it’s kind of a light episode. At least for Latifah. Lapira’s subplot is pointlessly intense. Even if Brucato didn’t know Goldberg was a CIA hacker or whatever, she must’ve known Lapira was a Special Forces sniper and would have some correspondingly intense adventures. Or not. The only thing we find out about Brucato and Lapira’s friendship is they’ve known each other forever, and they like doing shots.

The good subplot is Laya DeLeon Hayes and Lorraine Toussaint playing spades against Toussaint’s rivals. Toussaint’s regular partner calls out, and Hayes has to sit in, leading to an amusing subplot. Toussaint and Hayes’s performances are delightful, even though the subplot doesn’t get any real resolution.

The end’s a little tepid too. While the show never gives up on Latifah’s relationship with Wynter, Cooke suddenly becomes the hero in a romantic comedy thriller, not the guest star on an “Equalizer.” It’s also unclear how much a better performance in Krause’s part would help; in addition to Krause’s performance being lackluster, she and Cooke don’t have any chemistry. It doesn’t help she’s in an abusive relationship and he’s doing a nerdy white knight whing. But also… Krause isn’t good.

The episode starts better than it finishes and never fulfills most of its promise. Wynter would make a good regular or recurring sidekick for Latifah. Especially if he doesn’t bring annoying guest stars like Brucato along.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e11 – Chinatown

The Leonard Matlin capsule review of 1987’s other Mannequin movie, Lady Beware, describes Diane Lane’s lead performance in the film as “uneven, but her rage is convincing.” That phrase has stuck with me for decades now. This episode of “The Equalizer” feels similar. It’s about general hate crimes against Asian-Americans escalating to murder, though the NYPD doesn’t take them any more seriously once someone dies. It hits close to home for Asian-American Liza Lapira. The episode brings in a guest sidekick for Queen Latifah (and Lapira) with Perry Yung, a Chinese ex-cop whose investigating since the cops won’t.

There’s also some material for Yung and current cop Tory Kittles, who have a solemn discussion about their white police “brethren” actually giving a shit about them. It’s probably Yung’s best scene, which unfortunately isn’t saying a lot. His performance is uneven, but his rage is convincing. Ditto Lapira. Both of them make some really ill-advised, really unconvincing decisions to move the plot along. Maybe if Yung mentioned he was a fan of one old man Clint Eastwood movie in particular, since he borrows the plot twist for this episode. Just be obvious about it.

The scenes between Lapira and Yung ought to be great; they are not. Uneven performances, convincing rage.

The episode gets a lot of mileage from the shitty white supremacist villains being so awful—not to mention their victim, sweet old lady bakery owner Jo Yang, being such a sweet old lady. Despite initiating the case for Team Equalizer, Latifah keeps getting called away because of returning guest star Imani Lewis. Latifah is semi-mentoring Lewis, who’s currently fretting over doing a “Scared Straight” presentation to a high school class.

The Lewis stuff ought to be great, but it’s an even lesser subplot than the unlikely family one for Laya DeLeon Hayes and Lorraine Toussaint. Toussaint wants to make an old family recipe and teach Hayes—it’s one of those all-day cooking recipes, and Toussaint needs help, only Hayes wants to hang out with her friends, which seems very out of character for Hayes. She’s rarely callous, especially so obviously so. But Toussaint doesn’t want Latifah to interfere because Hayes should want to help, not be forced to help.

It’s a nothing-burger, busy-work plot, but somehow the episode still manages to prioritize it over Lewis’s return appearance.

The episode’s still reasonably effective—the bad guys are very bad guys, and the good guys are incredibly sympathetic, but it’s all pretty rote. The occasionally strong character moments (like Yung and Kittles) are too muffled. I’m actually surprised to see Zoe Robyn with the script credit since her name’s been on more thoughtful episodes.

But while the main plot is lackluster, Hayes and Toussaint’s subplot is downright disappointing. And Lewis seems like an afterthought instead of a guest star.

The Equalizer (2021) s02e10 – Legacy

Based on the Legacy title, I thought we might be getting Chris Noth’s character dying offscreen. Sadly no. They also mention him a few times, which is kind of weird. It implies the viewer’s supposed to remember the character, though—presumably—Noth won’t be back.

The episode opens with a flashback to the Tulsa massacre in 1921 when white Oklahomans murdered probably a couple hundred Black people and burned their houses to the ground after stealing all the valuables they could. The flashback shows a couple such white Oklahomans stealing a portrait. It’ll turn out they stole a lot more (basically stealing a profitable Black shipping business), but the portrait’s the Legacy.

Quincy Tyler Bernstine is the great-granddaughter of the portrait subject, and her grandmother’s on her death bed. Can Queen Latifah get the portrait back before Grandma dies? Bernstine knows who’s got the portrait—shipping magnate Ward Horton, who got it from his family, just like he got the shipping business, which they stole from Bernstine’s family back in Tulsa.

Bernstine tried getting the cops to reclaim the stolen property, but they said they couldn’t find it, though no one—including NYPD detective Tory Kittles—thinks they’d have been honest with the Black people when they can suck up to a rich white guy. But it turns out the cops didn’t lie, and Horton really did move the painting before they searched his place. He put it in “The Vault,” where wealthy New Yorkers hide all their valuables from customs. So Latifah’s got to break in and get it, only she can’t do it on her own, so she calls old acquaintance, occasional partner, and very special guest star, Jada Pinkett Smith, to help her.

Pinkett Smith is an infamous thief who can break into anywhere, steal anything. And she annoys the hell out of Latifah.

Meanwhile, at home, one of Laya DeLeon Hayes’s white friends (Cristina Angelica) shows up wanting her help claiming she’s a minority student so she can get a scholarship. Hayes tells her what for, which puts the friendship in turnaround. Lorraine Toussaint eventually offers some sage advice, and Hayes gets to a resolution point. Unfortunately, it’s a resolution with a lot less impact than the subplot initially implies.

The same thing happens in the A-plot. After the startling Tulsa opening, it soon becomes all about Pinkett Smith’s guest spot, with Bernstine mostly disappearing. Though not as much as Kittles, who’s barely in this one, unfortunately.

Horton’s a fairly great villain (especially for “Equalizer”) and makes up for Pinkett Smith being one-note, writing-wise.

I haven’t seen Set It Off, so I’m not sure if there are any direct references to that film—where Latifah and Pinkett Smith also do heists—but they definitely have more chemistry playing off one another than when Pinkett Smith’s hanging around Liza Lapira and Adam Goldberg.

Also, the plotting on the heist execution’s weak (script credit to Talicia Raggs). It’s way too amateurish and haphazard for Latifah, even if Pinkett Smith’s messing her up.

It should’ve been better, not just as a very special guest star episode, but given the first act’s promises.

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.