Save this story for later.
âWho do you go to if you canât go to the cops?â Jewel Machado, a high-achieving Latinx teen-ager, wonders, unbelievably, in the pilot of the CBS action procedural âThe Equalizer.â Even considering the relative conservatism of prime-time drama, the line struck me as glaringly unhip. Wouldnât this character, coded as she is,
get it? And yet the series is full of Jewel Machados: people who are marginalized but still stunningly naïve about the forces of marginalization. Their cluelessness allows âThe Equalizerâ to showcase the bad-bitch proficiency of its hero, Robyn McCall, played by the congenitally warm Queen Latifah. In each episode, an unequal system plunges a character, who is poor or Black or both, to the darkest of depths, and McCall, a former C.I.A. agent, is invariably there to rescue them. Though she is styled a lot like Olivia Benson of âLaw and Order: S.V.U.,â in domme leather outfits, ofte
Queen Latifah is ‘The Equalizer.’ Super Bowl TV premiere has N.J. playing starring role.
Updated Feb 18, 2021;
Posted Feb 06, 2021
Queen Latifah in a scene from The Equalizer filmed in Paterson. The show will debut after the Super Bowl. Barbara Nitke | CBS
Facebook Share
Latifah, a Newark native who grew up in East Orange, stars in “The Equalizer” on CBS. Scenes filmed in Jersey City and Paterson can be seen in the pilot, and the production is based inside the former Izod Center in East Rutherford.
The series, premiering in the highly coveted post-game spot, features the multi-hyphenate entertainer as Robyn McCall, a former CIA agent who becomes a guardian angel to the vulnerable.