THE EQUALIZER Team Previews ‘The Most Intense Episode We’ve Ever Done’

THE EQUALIZER’s Dante (Tory Kittles) was dealt a big blow in the antepenultimate episode of season 3, as he was suspended from his job with the NYPD due to his proximity to a suspicious death. (Viewers know he wasn’t responsible, but his bosses don’t.)

“Dante’s mindset is sort of in line with where he began—he has these questions of can you trust the system?” Kittles tells Give Me My Remote. “The fact that his bosses handle the situation the way that they do without giving him the benefit of the doubt, even though he’s been a strictly by-the-book player for them, it puts him in turmoil. He’s conflicted about how he feels about this job. But the stakes have been raised now for him.”

The stakes are raised for the entire team on the Sunday, May 21 season finale, “Eye for an Eye,” as Robyn (Queen Latifah) and her friends are targeted…while Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes) and Aunt Vi (Lorraine Toussaint) find themselves in a hostage situation.

“It’s a bit of a rough, intense situation,” Hayes says. “We will have to try and de-escalate [it], which is very scary when you’re in a situation like this. And we’ll also have to find a way to listen and communicate in a way that is relatable to the person who is putting us in this dangerous situation.”

Unfortunately for Delilah and Aunt Vi, this is just the latest time they’ve had to contend with dangerous encounters. But with Dee taking the step to train in recent months, “she’s finding a way to control the narrative in any way that she possibly can,” Hayes previews. “And to take ownership and agency over herself. We’ve really been able to see, especially in this last season, Delilah comes into her own. And in this last episode, it’s all leading up to this point. But I think the effect on her is going to be different than from seasons before. She’s a different person now. She’s more mature and she’s able to handle situations like this.”

As things spiral out elsewhere, Dante finds himself in an “unlikely partnership” with Harry (Adam Goldberg).

“It turns into a buddy-comedy in a lot of ways,” Kittles previews. “[I enjoyed] working with Adam, because he has such great timing. And [showrunners] Joe [Wilson] and Adam Glass, who wrote the episode, they wrote some comedy for us and we got to dive into that.”

But it’s not all fun and games by the time the episode ends. “I think this is the most intense episode we’ve ever done,” Kittles teases. “Joe and Adam, they managed to place all of our central characters in imminent jeopardy at the same time, which is a very hard thing to do. And they nailed the script. It has a ticking clock element, [so] you are on the edge of your seat for the entire episode wondering, okay, what’s going to happen next and how are they going to get to this place?”

“It’s the most intense episode we’ve ever done,” he continues. “It’s the most action-packed episode we’ve ever done.”

THE EQUALIZER, Sundays, 8/7c, CBS

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