S04.E02: Full Throttle

[DanaK]

Quote

After a young girl is struck by a car in an illegal street race, McCall tracks down the person responsible for the hit-and-run. Meanwhile, Dee contemplates the idea of following in her mother's footsteps to join the armed forces, on the CBS Original series THE EQUALIZER, Sunday, Feb. 25 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+

 

Edited February 23 by DanaK

[AnimeMania]

Stacey Sergeant as Hiba Bentang
Hisham Tawfiq as Sameer Bentang 
Havon Baraka as Slovan Naim
Alonzo B. Slater as Johnny Black

[AnimeMania]

I don't really see what the problem was, the family got back the $7 million dollar diamond. If they are not killed by the Sudanese Government they can defect to the US and comfortably live an upper middle-class lifestyle. Ari and the girl can fix up the garage and start dating. They can give a bunch of money to the little girl they ran over to pay her hospital bills and make her forget what happened. 

Instead of Robyn giving the girl her Equalizer card at the end, she should have given her Ari's phone number.

[Good Queen Jane]

Did the family get the diamond back? I just saw Robin walk off with it. Besides, it was stolen from ...somebody. I got lost a lot during this episode.

[dwmarch]

The phone call from the Bishop security guy right at the beginning was a little weird. Robyn asks him a bunch of questions about last episode's CIA plot and we establish that it has been a few months with no sign of Michelle. Great except he called her and didn't have any information so why did he actually call? Did they have a preset time where he would phone her to give her an update even if the update was that he hadn't found anything yet? It's almost as if he phoned her solely for the purpose of providing exposition. Then again, exposition seems to be his actual job based on his visit to Dee so he could immediately starting telling her some gory war stories. I know we probably don't want to watch awkward small talk but him launching right into his story was kind of ridiculous.

If you really don't want Dee to join the military, let her know the military is probably going to make her take her braids out. We already know she'll quit a job with the quickness if they get disrespectful about her hair.

I love how casual Robyn is with just swinging by the precinct to drag Dante into a fresh case. He's not busy, he can just drop what he's doing and hang around with a vigilante squad during work hours. I guess him being on the clock is why he can also shoot bad guys and not get in any kind of administrative trouble for it.

[12catcrazy]

Can't say that I enjoyed this episode.  Again, everything seems to revolve around shoot-em-ups.  I guess that I really miss "God Friended Me".

I wanted to just slap Dee.  Can somebody please tell this little PITA that you can go to college AND after you get your degree you can enlist.  And big bonus - since you have the college degree you can go in as an officer, which is a super-shit load better than being an enlisted person. 

Dee especially bugged the hell out of me as I enlisted in the Air Force (back in the dinosaur 70s) because my parents wouldn't allow me to go to college and the area where I lived was having  a recession due to the Vietnam war ending (so many companies back then were tied up to the aerospace industry).  My parents couldn't stop me from enlisting because I was 19, but being in the military (especially coming from my background) was an eye opening experience.  And I didn't even have to worry about being sent to a war someplace as there weren't any at that time.   Even back then, most of the people who enlisted did so because of crummy job opportunities where they were from.   I didn't know anybody who had a chance at college who said, "Nah, I think I'll enlist instead".  

[blackwing]

58 minutes ago, 12catcrazy said:

Can't say that I enjoyed this episode.  Again, everything seems to revolve around shoot-em-ups. 

I didn't care for it either.  Everyone kept shooting each other, I kind of lost track who and why.  So now that Dante is sort of on the team, does that mean everything Robyn and Mel are doing is sanctioned by the police (and the district attorney)?  They had no qualms engaging in multiple shootouts, and many people died.  Sure, they were all mostly bad guys, but still. 

5 hours ago, Good Queen Jane said:

Did the family get the diamond back? I just saw Robin walk off with it. Besides, it was stolen from ...somebody. I got lost a lot during this episode.

I'm glad I was not the only one confused.  I think the ambassador didn't like the dictator so he stole one of the Sudanese crown jewels.  He was going to use this money to defect and get away from the dictator.  He hid the diamond in the car.  But the son took the car to go drag racing.  Dictator sent his team to go find the diamond and to kidnap the son to get it back.  The people from the chop shop also wanted the diamond?  Nobody knew that son's pseudo-girlfriend had stolen it.

I think in the end, Robyn will probably turn the diamond over to the cops who will give it back to the Sudanese dictator.  Because even though he's a dictator, the diamond is technically his.  Even though he probably killed people illegally to get to be dictator in the first place.

Wouldn't the family be screwed either way?  At this point, dictator knows that the ambassador betrayed him.  So why wouldn't dictator be sending out a hit squad on the family even before the episode ended?  Seems to me the family needs to defect, change their names and go into hiding.

[12catcrazy]

50 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I didn't care for it either.  Everyone kept shooting each other, I kind of lost track who and why.  So now that Dante is sort of on the team, does that mean everything Robyn and Mel are doing is sanctioned by the police (and the district attorney)?  They had no qualms engaging in multiple shootouts, and many people died.  Sure, they were all mostly bad guys, but still. 

I'm glad I was not the only one confused.  I think the ambassador didn't like the dictator so he stole one of the Sudanese crown jewels.  He was going to use this money to defect and get away from the dictator.  He hid the diamond in the car.  But the son took the car to go drag racing.  Dictator sent his team to go find the diamond and to kidnap the son to get it back.  The people from the chop shop also wanted the diamond?  Nobody knew that son's pseudo-girlfriend had stolen it.

 

The ambassador didn't like the dictator and didn't want to go back home, so he stole the diamond to sell to get enough money for him and his family to change their identities and go into hiding.   The guys who wanted the diamond were bad guys (former British military guys turned international criminals) and they were pissed off because they had a contract with the ambassador for the diamond and now he didn't know where it was.  I'm confused about how his aide was involved (the woman who was shot and killed by the bad guys); maybe she knew where the son and the car was.... I have no clue.  

I don't think the chop shop guys knew about the diamond (the girl didn't tell them; she was keeping that to herself).  They wanted the car so they could chop shop it.  So you had two sets of bad guys - the international criminals who wanted the diamond, and the local NY chop shop bozos who wanted the car.     The whole thing was absurd.   And of course the little girl hit and run victim was going to make a full recovery so her Mom wasn't going to press charges (like she would have to - the NY police would arrest the hit and run driver regardless).  

[AnimeMania]

1 hour ago, 12catcrazy said:

I'm confused about how his aide was involved (the woman who was shot and killed by the bad guys);

She was the one who found the people (bad guys) who had enough money to buy the diamond.

[milkyaqua]

There was a lot of shooting.  It took me a minute to realize the ambassador was Dembe from The Blacklist.  I was also paying attention to Robyn's $800 Bottega Veneta earrings and her necklace which with gold prices is probably $10k.  While I get D wanting to make her own choices, I also get her mom and Aunt Vi's position.  As has been said, if she wants to go into the military, she can go to college and get an officer's commission through ROTC.  Her mom enlisted because it was one of her few choices and that's not D's case which she still doesn't seem to understand, regardless of how much she admires what her mom and others have done.  I'm also leery of Harry's AI program.  You just know that's going to come back and bite him and the others at some point.

[AnimeMania]

1 hour ago, milkyaqua said:

I'm also leery of Harry's AI program.  You just know that's going to come back and bite him and the others at some point.

I think Harry's AI program might start generating cases that Robyn should look into that might not be so obvious on the surface. That might be a good thing, since everybody thinks that AI is only used to do evil things. Oops, I just described the plot of "Person on Interest".

[Trini]

11 hours ago, Good Queen Jane said:

I got lost a lot during this episode.

Yeah; this was me. I admit, sometimes I'm multitasking with some of these case-of-the-week shows, but this time I was actually paying attention!

Didn't really like the end with the mother of the girl not pressing charges; but like someone already mentioned, would that actually be up to her?

Anyway -- the only fashion standout was Robyn's embellished coat. I did like that her hair was loose, which they don't usually do.

Edited February 27 by Trini

[tvfanatic13]

2 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I think Harry's AI program might start generating cases that Robyn should look into that might not be so obvious on the surface. That might be a good thing, since everybody thinks that AI is only used to do evil things. Oops, I just described the plot of "Person on Interest".

After your first sentence I said out loud Person of Interest. I still miss that show. 

[KWalkerInc]

Even with the mother not pressing charges, there must have still been some type of charges filed against Ari, because Dante said he might do time (but more likely probation).  I was annoyed because they kept saying it wasn't his fault (I guess because the other car knocked him into the girl?), but he certainly still has some responsibility because he was drag racing.

I'll spoiler tag this (about an old episode) just to be safe in case someone didn't watch it:

Spoiler

At least it wasn't as bad as the episode where someone held an evil politician at gunpoint at a press conference and nothing happened to him because the politician didn't press charges in order to deflect attention from his misdeeds.

 

Edited February 27 by KWalkerInc
Left out a word.

[blackwing]

17 hours ago, 12catcrazy said:

The ambassador didn't like the dictator and didn't want to go back home, so he stole the diamond to sell to get enough money for him and his family to change their identities and go into hiding.   The guys who wanted the diamond were bad guys (former British military guys turned international criminals) and they were pissed off because they had a contract with the ambassador for the diamond and now he didn't know where it was.  I'm confused about how his aide was involved (the woman who was shot and killed by the bad guys); maybe she knew where the son and the car was.... I have no clue.  

I don't think the chop shop guys knew about the diamond (the girl didn't tell them; she was keeping that to herself).  They wanted the car so they could chop shop it.  So you had two sets of bad guys - the international criminals who wanted the diamond, and the local NY chop shop bozos who wanted the car.     The whole thing was absurd.   And of course the little girl hit and run victim was going to make a full recovery so her Mom wasn't going to press charges (like she would have to - the NY police would arrest the hit and run driver regardless).  

 

16 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

She was the one who found the people (bad guys) who had enough money to buy the diamond.

Thank you, this explains a lot more.  Somehow I didn't follow that there was this gang of international thieves that was looking for the diamond or that the Sudanese chief of staff was also corrupt and trying to sell them the diamond.

When there was yet another shootout and a body got dumped on the street, I think Robyn thought it was Ari.  Then she goes over and exclaims something like "Johnny Bananas?!" or "Johnny Rockets?!".  Who was that?  Was that a chop shop guy?  How did he get captured by International Gang?  Was he trying to steal the car back?  Not very bright.

[12catcrazy]

Yes I think that Johnny Whoever was a chop shop guy.  I guess that he didn't know who he was dealing with.  Both him and the other chop shop guy wound up dead and the girl who worked with them had the diamond, having stolen it from the glove compartment of the car earlier. 

[AnimeMania]

40 minutes ago, blackwing said:

17 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

She was the one who found the people (bad guys) who had enough money to buy the diamond.

Thank you, this explains a lot more.  Somehow I didn't follow that there was this gang of international thieves that was looking for the diamond or that the Sudanese chief of staff was also corrupt and trying to sell them the diamond.

When there was yet another shootout and a body got dumped on the street, I think Robyn thought it was Ari.  Then she goes over and exclaims something like "Johnny Bananas?!" or "Johnny Rockets?!".  Who was that?  Was that a chop shop guy?  How did he get captured by International Gang?  Was he trying to steal the car back?  Not very bright.

The Sudanese chief of staff was "also corrupt" and trying to sell them the diamond. He and his family were trying to "flee their country/seek asylum" due to a brutal dictator/regime change that occurred about a year prior. He stole the $7 Million diamond so he could have some "walking around money". Um, maybe he was a little corrupt.

Johnny "Banana Rocket" Black was one of the chop shop guys, the chop shop girl put a tracker in the car, so that they could steal it later.

[torqy]

Two Blacklisters, Dembe and Weecha!

[andromeda331]

Thank you @12catcrazy and @AnimeMania. I was confused too.

[kwnyc]

On 2/26/2024 at 7:29 PM, AnimeMania said:

Oops, I just described the plot of "Person on Interest".

Well, it seems like Harry's Secret Hideout is the same one Mr. Finch used in PoI!