The Equalizer Review

It struggles to stay consistent. It’s a work in progress. And yet you get a strong feeling it might be considerably better as the season goes on.

That accurately described the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their first game of the season last fall. 

And it also accurately describes the pilot episode of The Equalizer, the new CBS drama that debuted Sunday night after the Super Bowl.

When shows are a bit iffy, it helps to have a star. And like the Buccaneers (who had Tom Brady), this show has star power in Queen Latifah.

In The Equalizer, Latifah stars as former CIA agent Robyn McCall who is now unemployed and navigating a more difficult path: raising a teenage daughter. 

However, she can’t leave the spy games behind. After using her good instincts and following a teen in trouble after witnessing a murder, she enters a complicated case and vows to protect her. But it’s not easy.

To do it successfully she has to rely on a few old friends: Melody “Mel” Bayani (Liza Lapira) and Harry Keshegian (Adam Goldberg). Mel works as a bartender–but she is really one of the finest sharp shooters around. Harry is a computer hacker and digital information gatherer with a “hideout” that looks comparable to Harold Finch’s high-tech headquarters from CBS “everyone is watching you” drama Person of Interest. I guess it’s a computer hacker thing. 

Lapira and Keshegian are immensely likable. They happily serve as Rob Gronkowski and Leonard Fournette to Robyn McCall’s Tom Brady. While they help her in very different ways, the team is stronger because of them. 

William Bishop (Chris Noth), who was quite underused in the pilot, also stars as a former CIA contact attempting to help Robyn orient herself in a new civilian role while hoping she returns to the CIA. A look at future episodes suggest he’ll be in the game more often as the season moves on.

But you can’t be a protector (of sorts) without getting in trouble with both the bad guys and law enforcement, so Robyn often finds herself tricking – or just confusing – a detective with good instincts and heart, Detective Marcus Dante (Tory Kittles). While it’s a bit early, it seems these two will need to work with each other, or at least tolerate each other, in order for Robyn to do the good she hopes to in the community. 

So why did the Buccaneers struggle early in the season? The same reason The Equalizer struggles: the individual pieces are better right now than the total package. 

Of course, football teams can’t run themselves and neither can a television drama. The executive producers behind the show and writers of the pilot (Andrew Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller) paired up to write more than 150 episodes of Castle – which might explain why the acting is quite good but the writing of the pilot was ho-hum and seemed too light for this kind of show. 

In fact, the plot bordered on ridiculous: automated car company trying to hide their malfunctioning cars hires hit men and tries to pinpoint the murder on a teenage girl? And a targeted breakout of a girl from a police van in the middle of the city seems to draw no ire from the police? The police are just missing out on fights between hit men and Robyn’s teams? The series needs to be a bit more grounded to be realistic.

Yet, the smaller moments worked, like Robyn trying to be a better mom by “scaring” her daughter through showing her prisoners who look like her. Her advice about why her daughter must exhibit perfect behavior? “The world is looking for a reason to put a young Black girl like you on the other side of that fence (jail).”

But when it comes to CBS drama, acting can trump writing on any day. And just like Tom Brady assembled his team for victory, I think The Equalizer will find its way as the season progresses. 

There’s no doubt who the MVP here is: Queen Latifah. Whether out-muscling the bad guys, outsmarting city government, or outmaneuvering the police, Robyn is a pleasure to watch precisely because of Latifah. We never doubt it’s a show about her and that should always be the case.

So the jury’s still out about whether the ridiculous play calling (writing) will fall in line, but the players (actors) are all there to enliven the show.

We’ll have to see if The Equalizer can improve enough to make the roster (the CBS lineup) and still be airing in the fall. 

After all, Tom Brady will be back. Let’s hope Queen Latifah is, too. 

The Equalizer airs Sundays at 8 pm EST / 7 Central on CBS. It also can be streamed on CBS All Access here: https://www.cbs.com/shows/the-equalizer/