By the end of the first episode, it’s clear that the show is less of a brand new take on “The Equalizer” than it is a straight up take on a CBS procedural about a rogue agent with a heart of gold. And yes, of course The Equalizer ends up running away from a building as it explodes into flames. (That holds especially true given the fact that they’re played by Adam Goldberg and Liza Lapira, two charming actors who are extremely familiar with broadcast ensemble shows.) The fight scenes are efficient and perfunctory, and the case high stakes but simple enough to get solved in 40 minutes or less. Its hero is hardened but quippy, throwing out lines like, “you can’t buy back trust” and countering the insistence that “everyone has a price” with narrowed eyes and a deadpanned, “not me.” She quickly calls on her friends - a bespectacled hacker and wisecracking sharpshooter - to help her with the case of the week, forming an underground team that will be recognizable to anyone well-versed in network procedurals.
Instead, she wants to help “the people I couldn’t save” - a desire that almost immediately pans out as William walks away and a distressed young woman in need of saving crosses her path.Īs developed by Andrew Marlowe and Terri Miller, this version of “The Equalizer” makes an effort to set itself apart from the others while also lining up with what one might expect from a CBS drama. She’s not interested in going back to the CIA, which led her to a catastrophically bungled job in Afghanistan, nor in selling out. And yet when her former mentor William (a suitably smirky Chris Noth) tries to convince her to join his lucrative private security firm, she refuses.
When we first meet her, however, Robyn McCall is mostly just restless her main activities are shuttling her teenage daughter (Laya DeLeon Hayes) to school and trading gentle banter with her aunt (Lorraine Toussaint, woefully underused in the otherwise crowded pilot episode).
Like Woodward and Washington before her, Latifah’s Equalizer is a former special agent who decides to help people more directly, bypassing supervision and the ensuing bureaucratic red tape altogether. It’s easy to understand why CBS would bank on that combination working in the traditionally buzzy post- Super Bowl slot it’s less clear if this first episode will be uniquely gripping enough to capture a big enough audience to justify the choice. Borne out of the cult ‘80s CBS show starring Edward Woodward and 2014 blockbuster starring Denzel Washington, the 2021 iteration of “The Equalizer” mashes the two versions together to create a basic show that leans on its star to keep things interesting. “ The Equalizer” represents both a variation of its genre and as straight up a CBS drama as they come.
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