THE EQUALIZER: Episode: 1.2 Glory

“Glory,” the second episode of the new CBS series THE EQUALIZER, depicts former CIA operative Robyn McCall helping a woman whose young son has been kidnapped and threatened by a wealthy sex trafficker being investigated by the FBI. “Glory” tells an exciting, ultimately uplifting story about ending a sex trafficking ring, with brief positive references to Jesus in one scene, but it’s marred by five light obscenities and deceitful politically correct elements in the last scene.

The episode opens with a black woman named Aliya babysitting the two daughters of a white FBI agent, Frank Sadler. Aliya puts the two girls to bed and talks briefly to her young son, Jackson, on the phone. The FBI agent comes home and locks his gun in the living room wall safe, and Aliya goes home. However, when she gets home, the house is in disarray, her son is gone, and her sister has been tied up and gagged. Aliya’s sister says two men with guns took Jackson and want Aliya to retrieve some information from Agent Sadler’s safe or they will kill her son.

Aliya contacts Robyn, who’s been placing some ads around New York offering to help people in trouble. Robyn consults with her computer friend, Harry, and his wife, Melody, about how to get the information from Agent Sadler’s safe. She decides that the only way to do that is to break into Sadler’s safe when he’s not there.

It’s a close call, but Robyn and Harry find out there’s a secret FBI file in the FBI agent’s safe identifying the beautiful mistress of a notorious sex trafficker as his informant. The men who took Aliya’s son work for the sex trafficker. The sex trafficker has a mole inside the FBI, but Agent Sadler suspects there’s a mole. So, he’s hidden the file in his safe so that he’s the only man at the FBI who knows the informant’s identity.

Robyn suspects the sex trafficker will kill her, Aliya and Aliya’s son when she turns over the FBI informant’s identity. How can Robyn fool the sex trafficker and his main henchman and save Aliya’s son without putting the female informant’s life in danger?

Meanwhile, Robyn’s daughter, Delilah, reluctantly tells her mother her school choir will be singing at a music fair Thursday night in Times Square. Delilah expects her mother to call her at the last minute and tell her she can’t come to hear her sing. Sure enough, the kidnappers eventually set Thursday night as the time to exchange the FBI file for Aliya’s son.

“Glory” tells an exciting, ultimately uplifting story about ending a sex trafficking ring. It also has a clever, thrilling finish that’s pretty satisfying. The bad guys get their just desserts. In addition, Delilah’s concert song at the very end contains two positive references to Jesus, including a reference to the Second Coming of Jesus.

However, the episode is marred by five light obscenities and deceitful politically correct elements. For example, in the choir’s song at the end, Delilah’s choir makes a reference to the false leftist narrative about the 2014 shooting death of the violent black thief by a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri. Contrary to the ending of this episode, the man shot by the policeman had sucker punched the policeman and tried to take the policeman’s gun and later, according to eyewitnesses, was charging at him, and not trying to surrender, as leftists keep alleging. Leftists have used the Ferguson incident, and other similar incidents, to allege that police forces throughout the United States have a racist agenda to kill unarmed black people. Statistics show, however, that black Americans are more likely to have negative encounters with police because of higher crime rates and more 911 emergency calls among the black population in urban areas like Chicago, Baltimore, New York City, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Also, blacks in these areas are far more likely to be shot by a fellow black person than they are by a policeman or by a white person. Racial hostility in the United States won’t be reduced until the people running the entertainment industry and the “news” media stop spreading leftist lies and hate about America and its police. The choir’s song at the end of “Glory” feeds into this false leftist narrative of systemic racism and “social justice.” It also includes lyrics like “freedom is like a religion to us” and “justice for all is not specific enough.” While the choir sings this song, Robyn tells her connection to the CIA that the song is about “freedom,” and freedom to continue helping people privately is what she needs from the CIA, in return for sometimes helping the CIA, but only if it’s a “good cause.”

Despite the political correctness at the end, “Glory” has a positive depiction of the FBI agent trying to put the elusive sex trafficker in prison. The NYPD detective keeping tabs on Robyn’s vigilante activism is also a positive figure and role model despite his disagreement with Robyn’s mission and vigilante methods.

MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children for the second episode of the new EQUALIZER series.