McCall seeks justice…

This week, the show ambitiously attempts to answer one of the most pressing questions in Western society at present: whether the pasta or the sauce is the most essential component of such a dish.

More urgently though, the cold open sees a teenager die tragically from ingestion of a dangerous drug. McCall is requested to catch the supplier and bring the killers to justice. These words are chosen carefully, as this is the crux of the story, and something of an examination of the heart of McCall’s considered duties. There have been times during the show, due to the law enforcement authorities present, when she has been seen as a vigilante, although the more anyone knows her, the more they realise how much more she is than that. This case presents her with something of a mirror to the soul of her activities: her use of force tends to be a last resort and very rarely have we seen her act with retribution as her primary motivation. Even when she has, McCall has always had the benefit of the rest of Team Equalizer to steer her conscience.

Here, the drug dealers are left with no time to experience McCall’s justice. Another individual is after the dealers, driven solely by vengeance into a killing spree as McCall and her team attempt to work out why. The fine line between justice and revenge drives the story, and in many ways shows McCall a dark side which could have been her own in a different world. It is indeed her empathy with the killer, right down to their previous occupational connection, which helps her to solve the case. We are, however, reminded all too sharply before the show’s conclusion that the path of vengeance rarely ends well for those who embark upon it. One might wonder whether this is about to form the basis of a wider season theme, as neatly wrapped as this episode is.

What is not wrapped is the secret Delilah and Melody are keeping from McCall – the start of her training. Although McCall has not yet identified this, Aunt Vi, being closer to home, has kept a closer eye on things. Will she keep the secret, which would see most of the team, save Dante and McCall herself, privy to the matter? Vi discovering this is particularly intriguing, given she discreetly signed up for firearms training herself in a previous episode. It offers her a somewhat hypocritical path of challenging Dee on the matter should she choose to do so, or quite rightly fearing the inevitably explosive response were McCall to find out for herself. It is going to be trouble; it is just a question of when and how.

For the weight of the subject matter though, this instalment does maintain a steady stream of wholesomeness from McCall’s family pasta quest to McCall and Dante ever warming to one another. Indeed, these two matters are not separate by the end of the show, Harry once more at the heart of a great deal of the episode’s more amusing moments to relieve some of the tension.

Verdict: An interesting follow up to the previous week which continues to set up a tense mid-season complication for McCall and the team. 8/10

Russell A. Smith