Trust and deception lay at the heart of the thrilling season finale.

The episode begins with an early reminder of Mason Quinn’s threat to McCall: “Don’t come for me again, because then I’ll have to come after you.” To the surprise of no viewer, McCall remains undeterred – if anything, pursuing the matter with increased tenacity as she scrambles to uncover his true plans. The moment at the start of last week’s episode receives a follow-up in terms of discovering the identity of a likely lead to Quinn – Cuban revolutionary Omar Delgado. Whilst McCall’s team are certain that her path is a dangerous and ultimately destructive one, they are of course willing to help, albeit with the utmost caution and some reluctance.

Delgado proves to be an obstinate barrier to finding out Quinn’s plans. McCall has to work smart to manage him, given he knows some of her tricks. Luckily, McCall has more tricks, including an inventive way of gaining the information.

However, McCall still finds herself with an important client this week, and it is not Delgado. Delilah’s school friend Vera finds herself on the end of an ugly online harassment campaign from Logan Jeffries, a recent ex. After initially smearing her campaign to become school president, the trolling gets exponentially worse, yet Vera has understandable concerns that to report it through official channels would destroy her more.

With McCall’s tracking of Quinn as consuming as it is, something has to give and despite Delilah’s best efforts, her mother is not always available to pick up the phone. Delilah initially attempts to handle the matter herself but with the obvious recourse being legal enforcement, it soon becomes apparent that the vile Jeffries is set to get away clean with destroying Vera’s life. Thankfully, Dante points Delilah back in the direction she was heading in the first place, suggesting the Equalizer will help. This sets up a balance of stakes between McCall’s solo mission and the dangerously vulnerable Vera.

The theme of trust is approached in several ways. Logan breaks it in a callous, spiteful way whilst at the same time McCall threatens her own relationships by still keeping secrets from her family and allies. Although the seeds for Delilah’s understanding of this are laid in recent episodes, it is here that she finds its conclusion.

For McCall and Delilah, throughout the episode, whenever faith is threatened, their actions and conscience pull them back from the brink. When McCall misses Delilah’s cries for help, Aunt Vi is there to remind her of all she values the most. Melody and Harry suffer somewhat as they and McCall mutually overstep boundaries at different points, yet there is little time for rifts to truly develop as the chain of events pushes an exhausted McCall into frequently shifting her focus between foiling Delgado and protecting both Vera and Delilah. To her credit, she always manages to be there in time in some capacity, and the ultimate payoff for McCall and Delilah is that it is both necessary and finally safe for McCall to introduce her to the rest of the team. It is important we remember that for Delilah, this comes with the price of there being no turning back from this. The previous season finale contained a comparable moment; that of Delilah learning of her mother’s true occupation in the first place. Given the consequences of that continued for Delilah throughout this season, we can expect this change in the show to carry a similar weight. It mirrors the warnings of a path of darkness that McCall was warned about in her pursuit of Quinn, of which the effects continue to be as visible.

There appears to be a moment with Harry’s part in the show in which an enemy hacker could have had a more sinister connection, a possible minion of Quinn. It is not impossible this is still the case; however for this episode, we are instead presented with some necessary comic relief. Hackers can be inherently amusing for some reason when their competitive streak is in full flow, and Harry is an exemplar of this.

The structure here arguably deceives us into thinking the hunt for Quinn truly leads the episode, whereby once we think about who the client is, that changes. The theme of deception runs right up to the end credits.

One particularly admirable element of this finale is that it manages to move at the expected fast pace yet not as fast as we might think, maintaining a finely-tuned balance between McCall’s archnemesis making his presence keenly felt whilst keeping enough distance to really earn the confrontation. Given the shocking cliffhanger, we are guaranteed a hot start to Season 3. 9/10

Russell A. Smith