I Watch TV: The Equalizer

The Equalizer

The Equalizer is back, with a longer season (the first one foreshortened probably due to covid). Robyn McCall is an ex-spy vigilante who outed her violent past and present to her aunt and daughter at the end of the last series. Her personal plot line is mostly about dealing with that, with having lied to her daughter and now her daughter having to lie about things (including to her father).

Another plot line revolves around Harry, her hacker friend, who faked his death after leaking details of American war crimes (I think it’s implied that this is what eventually leads McCall to leave the CIA). He wants to return from the dead, get a pardon maybe. This eventually works out, thanks to the intervention of Bishop, McCall’s old mentor, now a CIA contractor, though Harry and his wife Mel then have to pick up their lives, again dealing with the lies they had to tell to people they love.

McCall’s relationship with Bishop goes through a couple of phases, with old and new debts accumulating and paying off, leading to her confronting an old nemesis Mason Quinn. Bishop’s story gets a dramatic and strangely disappointing send off.

The other major character, detective Dante, starts by mistrusting McCall, then is used to try and trap her, then when they save the District Attorney her vigilantism is officially being ignored. Following this he then gets kidnapped by some bad cops upstate who have racially profiled him, decides to leave the force, then rejoins. Each step is fine, but in the end they just put him back to where he started.

The stories of the week work best when they’re the high concept ones, McCall teaming up with a notorious thief for a heist, Dante kidnapped, a psychic looking for his sister. The more regular ones, with ordinary people caught up in violence and crime, are mostly notable for the inability and lack of interest of the authorities, even Dante often not having the time or resources to help. Which is both the theme and set up of the show, along with the intersecting inequities of race and class.

Watch This: Some clever crime and detective stories, ranging from grounded to convoluted
Don’t Watch This: It’s just some people fighting and following each other