WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Equalizer Season 1, Episode 1, "The Equalizer."
CBS' reboot of The Equalizer definitely has social justice edge to it, with Queen Latifah's Robyn realizing how people of color struggle to get help. She suffers from PTSD from her CIA missions and from having to hide her past from her daughter, Delilah. But no matter what, she can't run from a cry for help. However, rather than just typical crimes and run-of-the-mill procedurals, Robyn's first case turns into all-out tech war, setting the tone of the series for a digital age.
Robyn is met by Bishop, her old colleague, who wants her to join him in the private security business, but she opts out. Instead, right after, she saves a young lady named Jewel from thugs at the pier. As a Black/Latinx woman, Jewel is panicked after seeing a video that framed her for killing a lawyer. Robyn takes her to her crew, Mia and her hacker husband, Harry, and they discover the video's a deep fake and mercenaries are trying to pin the death on the girl.
All are shocked as it's really tough to crack the video, which is why cops are hunting Jewel down. However, as Harry hacks his way around, breadcrumbs lead to an Elon Musk-type character, Pruitt. His tech is revolutionizing America, like the self-driving car, which can speed, drift and do a bunch of stuff others can't. And as suspected, when Robyn hacks his phone, she realizes he's the culprit.
The "why" behind it all is fuzzy, but soon enough, they discover the lawyer dug up incriminating info on over 80 deaths with the cars. Pruitt had him killed and got his techies to frame Jewel, who ran when she saw the shooting occurring, all so his company could be protected. As for the chip with all the evidence, the lawyer left it in a library, only for Robyn to grab it and be ambushed. She's taken prisoner to be tortured by the mercs, but Robyn has a tech secret of her own. She's bugged herself, Bishop and the crew and raids the den, taking the enemies in.
It leads to Robyn going after Pruitt at his smart home, eventually taking out his guards and bringing the coward to justice. But while it ends on a happy note, with Robyn taking Jewel for a job interview she missed, there are some threads a la Person of Interest occurring.
With Harry and Mia, she has her own team, similar to Batman or Green Arrow, and puts out a message on the dark web. It's for people who need help, updating the old lore with ads in the papers. But this means unwanted faces could find her, not to mention villains can use social media and cameras to track her too once she's in the public eye. Dante, a detective who was helping Jewel in her case, already realizes Robyn's faking identities as a lawyer, guard, etc. and he's started trailing her, which means others will too as Season 1 rolls on.
Starring Queen Latifah, Tory Kittles, Liza Lapira, Adam Goldberg, Laya DeLeon Hayes, Lorraine Toussaint and Chris Noth, The Equalizer airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.