Nine minutes. This is about how long the wait is for Queen Latifah to start defeating bad guys in reloading CBS The equalizer. And boy, is it worth the wait.
The pilot episode premiered Sunday after the Super Bowl, portraying Latifah as Robyn McCall, a newly retired CIA operator trying to settle into a quiet life of motherhood and school leavers. She almost gets her wish until an old handler and mentor named Bishop (Chris Noth) asks to meet at the Coney Island Wonder Wheel to talk about what appears to be her fraudulent resignation.
The last mission broke her, Robyn says during their clandestine night meeting, despite Bishop’s message from ‘The Company’ that she can still return. Bishop even says that Robyn can come and work for him at his private security firm. “If I can ‘t sleep at night, it’s keeping me going,’ says a determined Robyn, rejecting all of Bishop’s offers. “These are the people I could not save.” And with that, Robyn stays behind to stare into the darkness and meditate on her choices after Bishop leaves.
It’s also a good thing she does, because then Robyn sees a young woman and a shady man pushing through a chain fence to sneak into the amusement park. Robyn, the mother of a teenage girl of about the same age, is worried about the minor stranger and follows the two. (As viewers previously learned, the girl, whose name is Jewel, witnessed a murder for which she is now set up and meets with some underworld types to buy a fake ID and passport so she can be on the lamb go.)
Robyn still knows nothing about this, but her Spidey senses still tell her to investigate things just in case. Look, underworld types do not play by the rules, and instead of selling the fake documents to the girl, take the bad money and decide he and his three friends will rape her first. That is, until Robyn shows up and spoils their sick plan.
The main goon emanating straight from Central Casting by the Russian accent tells Robyn to disrupt her own business. “I’ll tell you, I tried,” Robyn says as she gets closer to the devil and channels her inner Liam Neeson, a lowered voice, squeaks and more. ‘But it turns out I’m really bad at it. But there are other things I really am well by. So, why don ‘t you let that girl go, and I’ll let you walk here. ‘
The goon and his slimy friends laugh at Robyn’s words and pull out their guns – but before they can pull triggers, she disarms the head gon and shoots the others with his gun. Two of them get up to fight her with a hammer and wrench, but she strikes them with their own tools to the beat of a fast-paced rap song. (This is especially nice because Latifah recently told reporters that the musician in her villains in the show is fighting a song in her head in the program, and she knows she has to knock them out by the time the hook falls.)
As fans of the original 1980s The equalizer will tell you, Edward Woodward was a cool old guy, but he could not succeed against a drum beat. By using a fighting style called Wing Chun, Latifah proves that she does not have to be muscular to wipe out thugs. She also does not have to be Denzel Washington in the film versions of The equalizer. Or not a man at all. Latifah, who clearly knows how to fight, just needs to be faster and more skilled than the other guys.
The altercation also allows Robyn to realize her life mission and the purpose of the show – to save people in need who cannot turn to the police. Although there’s one cop who’s better than the rest (played by actor Tory Kittles), Robyn knows she has to prove Jewel’s innocence first. To keep the tension in the action drama high, Robyn must also save Jewel more than once and rely on her clever sidekicks (played by Liza Lapira and Adam Goldberg) from her CIA days. Bishop even helps, but not before another set of malicious thugs sticks Robyn’s hair out while she’s on board. Pour water on a black woman’s head? Oh, you’re going to die.
Because there should be no mistake about this, Robyn is a black woman in an America with its first black and South Asian vice president and a black woman named Stacey Abrams who helped make Georgia blue. A black woman can also equate all kinds of criminals, play darts and leaning on her aunt (played by the incomparable Lorraine Toussaint) to help her raise her rebellious daughter. We can not wait for the dismantling to get a load from this mother.