The Equalizer Episode Guide

The Equalizer aired for four seasons, totaling 88 episodes. The first season was reportedly a challenge due to a rather late start. Some scripts were finished last minute. The pilot involved some re-shoots. Despite a rough start, the pilot tested very well, Woodward in particular. The second season, probably its best, dealt with a writers' strike that caused the third season premiere, "Blood and Wine", to be filmed at the end of the second season. The third season suffered at the beginning from Woodward's heart attack but gained momentum in its second half. The fourth season, sadly its last, saw McCall and company carrying on equalizing. Invariably, my favorite episodes were written by Coleman Luck.

 

Season One

 

1.01 Pilot

Air date: September 18, 1985

Director: Rod Holcomb

Writer: Michael Sloan

Series and guest stars: Robert Lansing (Control), William Zabka (Scott McCall), Patricia Kalember, Jerry Stiller, Steven Williams (Lt. Burnett)

 

We meet Robert McCall, a middle-aged Englishman in New York City, who has spent most of his life working as an espionage agent with "the Agency," also known ambiguously as "the Company." This organization is presumably the CIA or perhaps a darker shadow operation. It is run in part by a man known only as Control who manages to prevent the Agency from eliminating McCall when he abruptly resigns. Control tells McCall that with all the skills and knowledge he has acquired over the years, McCall is "the most dangerous man I have ever known." From the outset, the relationship between Control and McCall is compelling and complex. It is easily one of the best-written and best-acted male relationships seen on television.

 

McCall seeks some means of redemption for his dark past by placing an ad in the newspaper to help those who are in dire trouble and have no one else to turn to. The ad read: "Got a problem? Odds against you? Call the Equalizer. 212-555-4200." McCall has his first two clients in this episode, a woman being stalked (played by Patricia Kalember), and a man who has stumbled upon a dangerous political plot. In confronting a Senator who is being blackmailed, McCall uses his government credentials to get to him.

 

McCall, who is divorced, attempts to begin making amends with his son Scott, played by William Zabka. Scott is a musician and clearly harbors great resentment for his father's absence in his childhood.

 

Jerry Stiller makes an appearance as Brahms, a character that unfortunately didn't appear in the series again. Brahms is a former colleague of McCall's and the person who gave him the name "The Equalizer". Brahms knows McCall is "code red" and warns him to get out of New York and go "somewhere no one is afraid of you" but gets nowhere with his plea. Brahms resignedly says, "I'll be at your funeral." Unmoved, McCall replies, "I'll be there."

 

Steven Williams makes the first of several appearances as Lt. Jefferson Burnett. He apparently knows McCall's background and warns him about working alone on the mean streets of New York. McCall again seems unconcerned.

 

Patricia Kalember made a second, memorable appearance on the show in the second season episode "Coal Black Soul".

 

1.02 China Rain

Air date: September 25, 1985

Director: Richard Compton

Writers: Joel Surnow, Maurice Hurley, Victor Hsu

Story by: Victor Hsu

Series and guest stars: Robert Lansing, Keith Szarabajka (Mickey Kostmayer), Steven Williams, Lauren Tom, Jodi Long, Tzi Ma, Chang Valdes, Roger Chang, Steven Tom, Jim Russo

 

The great character Mickey Kostmayer is introduced in the second episode. He remains a steadfast colleague and friend to McCall throughout the series. Younger than McCall, he provides an edgy, shoot-from-the-hip, devil-may-care cynicism that sometimes clashes with McCall's compassion for others and moralistic principles. Kostmayer's face lights up when McCall presents him with a "candy store" of weapons to choose from. Kostmayer goes for the Uzi. McCall sticks with his Walther.

 

McCall goes to Control to supply him with various equipment for his operation to save the boy. Control complies. In the next episode, McCall has obviously stocked up his own supply of weapons and gadgets as seen in his hidden weapons cabinet.

 

An Agency hacker played by Adam Redfield makes the first of two appearances, helping McCall use the "axe."

 

A young Chinese boy is kidnapped and his mother seeks the help of McCall to get him back from a vicious Chinese gang. The mother gets McCall's ad from the nanny who sees it sitting out in the kitchen beneath some seafood that's being prepared.

 

McCall and Kostmayer execute his rescue as lethal professionals with cold precision (though there is some disagreement about the proper way to deactivate a bomb).  There is an enjoyable rapport between the two men though they see things quite differently.

 

McCall seeks out the help of a contact from China, a woman named Tommy Li. Their conversation reveals some work McCall did working with her drug operation on behalf of the Agency. Whether this was in exchange for intelligence is not stated but implied. Li tells McCall he should have joined them and that he "did everything but make the money." The audience begins to see that McCall indeed has some seriously dirty business to atone for.

 

1.03 The Defector

Air date: October 2, 1985

Director: Rod Holcomb

Writers: Heywood Gould

Series and guest stars: Robert Lansing, Steven Williams, Melissa Leo, Robert Joy (Stock), Joe Silver, Joseph Mason, Jaroslav Stremien

 

McCall helps a former informant, Felix, defect but faces deadly opposition from a former nemesis, Karl Radek. In the end, McCall joins forces with a shamed Agency operative, Stock, to rescue Felix's daughter from Radek. Stock appears in several episodes throughout the series.

 

McCall's cocksure style is on display in this episode as he brazenly walks into the Soviet consulate to loudly confront Radek.

 

McCall also helps a teenage boy face a gang of boys who are terrorizing him. His lesson for the boy is not politically correct (not much about McCall is) - he teaches the boy that rather than run or hide from a fight, he must learn to defend himself in a fight.

 

This is the first time we see McCall play the piano in his apartment. Woodward joked in an interview that McCall thinks he can play the piano but isn't very good.

 

1.04 The Lock Box

Air date: October 9, 1985

Director: Russ Mayberry

Teleplay by: Frank Military, Joel Surnow, Maurice Hurley

Story by: Frank Military

Series and guest stars: J.T. Walsh, Maureen Anderman, Paige Price, Adam Ant, Jaime Tirelli, Sara Botsford, Luis Guzman, Bob Maroff

 

This is one of the more disturbing episodes of the series. A 17-year-old girl is kidnapped and forced into prostitution. The distraught parents seek out McCall's help. He searches through the muck of the prostitution world to find her.

 

The mother gets McCall's ad from a derelict man sitting next to her at the police station who sees that she is distraught.

 

The character of Dana makes his first appearance in this episode (but isn't seen again after the first season). He is a quirky always-perky man who conducts intelligence for the Agency in the sex trade which he uses to stock up on blackmail material against various politicians and other powerful figures.

 

Dana always refers to McCall as "Bob", much to McCall's quiet chagrin. McCall goes to Dana to learn about the sex trade to find his client's daughter. Dana gladly complies though with some concern:

McCall: I'm looking for a girl.
Dana: Aren't we all?
McCall: Caldrin, I need a tour of the cesspool, so naturally I thought of you. Show it to me.
Dana: Am I supposed to be talking to you, McCall?
McCall: No, no, no. Apparently I am a threat to the security of this country.
Dana: Yeah, I thought I heard something about that.

 

Yes, Adam Ant is in this episode. That's all anyone need say about it.

 

The very talented Maureen Anderman guest stars as the girl's mother. Later, starting in the third season, Anderman would appear occasionally as a former associate of McCall's, Pete O'Phelan. Anderman is married to Frank Guthrie Converse, who appeared as Guthrie Browne in the first season episode, "Back Home".

After a night of desperately searching for his daughter in vain, the father talks to McCall who tries to provide some comfort to him. McCall tells him, "I knew a man once. Some people called him a hero. And he fought, and he faced dangers. He had ideals. Those ideals led me into anything. You see, I didn't care about dying. I only cared about the cause - the cause was everything. And I fooled everybody. Everybody. They all thought that I was fearless which was false. I was so frightened of showing the slightest bit of myself, the smallest amount of affection. You see, Sam, I was as frightened then to the same degree as you are now, only in a different way. I was no hero. No hero. But then I suppose being a hero is not the most important thing, is it?"

 

McCall's habit of recording his thoughts about a case on a tape recorder is introduced in this episode.

 

In an amusing scene, McCall mimes the "services" he wishes to procure to a henchman of DeGraumont, the man he believes has his client's daughter. McCall poses as a Mr. Macklin to con his way into the "Lock Box". McCall uses a spring-loaded knife to try to take down DeGraumont but the father ends up helping McCall take out DeGraumont.

 

McCall again uses his government credentials to gain access where he would otherwise be barred.

 

Sara Botsford guest stars as Angelica, McCall's girlfriend, who calls him "the great stoneface." This is the first episode in which we see McCall in a relationship. Angelica jokes that they should make love with the blinds open to shock his "yuppie neighbors." He asks if she is perverted. She says he's as bad as anyone. 

 

Angelica asks him not to disappear, that it took too long to find him again. He says he won't, but he becomes so wrapped up in his client's case that he blows her off, showing the thoughtlessness in his relationships that results from his work-over-people priorities. She complains to him, "I understand you've got this thing every two or three weeks where you disappear." She also jabs, "I thought you English were supposed to be classy."

 

In the end, McCall and Angelica make up, strolling through Central Park observing a hawk living in the park, but we never see her again.

 

1.05 Lady Cop

Air date: October 16, 1985

Director: Russ Mayberry

Teleplay by: Maurice Hurley, Joel Surnow

Story by: Kathryn Bigelow, Maurice Hurley, Joel Surnow

Series and guest stars: Steven Williams, Karen Young, Will Patton, Esai Morales, Bruce McVittie, William Hickey, and Adam Redfield

 

This is one of the better episodes from the first season. McCall is called for help by a young policewoman, portrayed well by Karen Young, who must deal with fraud and intimidation from her partners. This episode is rather famous among fans for McCall's searing "I do not forgive!" scene with the character Braxton (Will Patton).

The episode begins with a jazz number and several vignettes of New York City. The song is being played by a DJ who wants McCall to help him with a loan shark. McCall refuses because he put himself in the bad situation himself. The DJ says he did a show on the Equalizer so he is already becoming known in the city.

 

And we meet yet another of McCall's former colleagues who will moonlight for him throughout the series. Jimmy, played wonderfully by Mark Margolis, is an older agent with severe divorce problems which he feels free to inform McCall about at every turn. Along with Mickey, he is one of McCall's closer colleagues, in his own dour way. He complains that the Agency is paying late and blames Reagan.

 

Adam Redfield makes his second of two appearances as an Agency hacker who helps out McCall. Later on, McCall's Agency hacker of choice was Jonah, played by Austin Pendleton.

 

This episode offers the earliest strong indication that McCall finds his often lethal skills and talents repugnant and has great difficulty reconciling them with his principles. He and Control have a drunken conversation at the end of the episode that is very revealing, showing the different views each of them has of their work.

 

McCall: It is still there.

Control: What?

McCall: Oh, the...evil.

Control: McCall, it's not evil. It's a craft, it's cunning, it's an ability. But as long as the objective is sane, it is not evil.

McCall: Oh, yes. Yes.

 

 

1.06 The Confirmation Day

Air date: October 23, 1985

Director: Richard Colla

Teleplay by: Edward Adler, Heywood Gould

Story by: Eric Blakeney, Gene Miller

Series and guest stars: Steven Williams, Burt Young, Lois Smith, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Joseph Wiseman, Anne Jackson

 

Burt Young is very affecting as a hapless small-time crook who steals more than he bargained for. McCall navigates treacherous territory with the mobster who wants his goods back. This episode is an early instance of several to come in which a child reaches out to McCall to help their family.

McCall also helps an old stage actress everyone dismisses as paranoid from a mysterious person after her "treasure."

 

This is the first time we hear Robert McCall sing, albeit briefly, when he helps the seemingly paranoid senior actress who once graced Broadway's stages. McCall displays great patience and compassion for her when no one else bothers anymore.

 

 

1.07 The Children's Song

Air date: October 30, 1985

Director: Richard Compton

Teleplay by: Howard Chesley, Joel Surnow, Maurice Hurley

Story by: Howard Chesley

Series and guest stars: William Zabka, Bradley Whitford, Dana Barron, Perry Lang, Ed O'Neill

 

This can be a fun episode if not taken at all seriously. It strikes one as too much in the category of a "what if" episode - as in, hey, what if McCall and his son go camping and they get attacked by violent young men and have to go all MacGyver and create bombs out of stuff in the cabin? We do get treated to a great father-son wood-chopping battle, and Bradley Whitford and Ed O'Neill make appearances. It's fun to watch Whitford as a New York hick.

 

In an early conversation, Scott tells his father that his place looks great now that all the boxes are unpacked. In the pilot episode, McCall's apartment is different. The one he lives in after the pilot remains unchanged for the duration of the series (though it does mysteriously develop "back stairs" and an extra hallway). The set had two functioning fireplaces and was rather lavishly furnished. McCall clearly has money, something he explains in the second season opener, "Prelude".

 

1.08 The Distant Fire

Air date: November 6, 1985

Director: Alan Metzger

Teleplay by: Robert Sabaroff, Joel Surnow, Maurice Hurley

Story by: Robert Sabaroff

Series and guest stars: Jon De Vries (aka Jon DeVries), Alberta Watson, Saul Rubinek, Mark Margolis, Anthony Caso

 

This episode introduces a very painful character named Jason, a powerful, arrogant prat who is stirring things up at the Company. In a great scene, McCall gives Jason an attitude adjustment.

 

McCall's espionage past is touched on as an old colleague cum assassin-for-hire, Michael Rosa, convinces him to help him save a woman, Carla, they both loved and who is now married to a world leader who is targeted for assassination. McCall has no apparent qualms about briefly rekindling his romance with the woman, justifying her husband's suspicions about McCall entering her life again, albeit briefly.

 

1.09 Mama's Boy

Air date: November 13, 1985

Director: James Sheldon

Written by: Heywood Gould

Series and guest stars: Christine Baranski, Adam Horovitz, Mark Soper, Jim Dale

 

McCall takes on the persona of a drug dealer to stop a charismatic young pusher who has recruited the son of McCall's client. This episode creates some background for McCall as we learn that he spent some time in Japan, learning the language, customs, and some martial arts. The client's son is played by Adam Horovitz of The Beastie Boys.

 

1.10 Bump And Run

Air date: November 20, 1985

Director: Richard Compton

Teleplay by: Maurice Hurley & Joel Surnow

Story by: Jim Trombetta

Series and guest stars: Brian Bedford, Laura Ashton, Charles Brown, Keith Szarabajka, Mark Margolis, Meat Loaf

 

McCall comes to the aid of a woman being threatened by a pair of vengeful thugs. Mickey helps out and draws McCall's ire by becoming close to his client while the situation is still dangerous for her.

 

There is an interesting scene between McCall, a detective, and a defense attorney (Bedford) discussing the problems of the criminal justice system.

 

Meat Loaf appears in a fun cameo.

 

I've read that Bedford is the silhouette of McCall at the end of the opening sequence until it cuts to Woodward. I have no substantiation for that bit of trivia, however.

 

1.11 Desperately

Air date: December 4, 1985

Director: Donald Petrie

Written by: Charles Grant Craig

Series and guest stars: Blanche Baker, Ray Baker, David Margulies, Tovah Feldshuh, Ray Sharkey, Luke Reilly

 

In a lengthy opener, a young, bored housewife in the suburbs goes into the city to meet a friend and ends up getting entangled with a professional killer. McCall, battling a cold (and a daft drug store clerk), guides her through reporting to the police and even standing with her as she tries to explain what happened to her testy husband.

 

We get to see McCall's excellent taste in safe houses, which his clients never manage to stay in for long. He must have upgraded after feeling guilty about the dump he put his clients into in "The Confirmation Day".

 

As revealed in the earlier episode, "Lady Cop", this episode shows that while McCall is quite capable of killing, he does not care for it at all. McCall never gloats when he is forced to injure or kill someone. The series was never about revenge on McCall's part or testing how many people he could kill in 20 seconds.

 

At the end of the episode, McCall, sporting once again his stylish pajamas and robe, tries to reach his son Scott in France.

 

1.12 Reign Of Terror

Air date: December 11, 1985

Director: Richard Compton

Teleplay by: Steve Bello and Coleman Luck

Story by: Steve Bello

Series and guest stars: Lonette McKee, Fred Williamson, Tomas Milian, Lester Rawlins, Rosemary De Angelis, Begonya Plaza

 

The more I watch this episode, the more I like it. Yes, the peculiar, even goofy, garb of the "gang" may not have been in step even for the mid-80's. However, the scenes between McCall and the Cuban man, Immanuel Pena, are very powerful and the episode does capture very well the trap that vicious gangs can put neighborhoods into. We also see McCall struggle with his continuing use of guns, challenged both by his client and by Pena to stop carrying one.

 

In a post about the passing of Edward Woodward, Coleman Luck wrote on his blog that several early episodes had to be rewritten and this was one of them. Luck discusses developing the storyline and states that with this episode, Woodward's general unease with his character subsided.

 

The story of a former Cuban intelligence officer, Pena, with whom McCall has had dealings in the past and who now lives a simple life as a pet store owner, has great interest in providing a knowledgeable and thoughtful peer, so to speak, to cause McCall to question himself. Tomas Milian is very powerful in the role of Pena.

 

McCall tells Pena that he has a recurring nightmare in which there are shadows all around him, but he can't catch them. McCall says that in the nightmare he is afraid. Pena sagely tells McCall, "I think I know what is haunting you, my friend. There is one shadow behind all others. You are haunted by the man you might have been."

 

McCall tells Pena that because of his work with the Agency, people represented either terror or boredom to him and that life was like "dealing with a series of targets."

 

There's also a moment when McCall picks up a kitten in the pet store, a touch of gentleness in the midst of a scene about the brutal realities of their pasts.

McCall's client insists that he not use his gun to help her, saying the city doesn't need another man with a gun, and he decides, very reluctantly, to abide by her demand.

1.13 Back Home

Air date: December 18, 1985

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Teleplay by: Joel Surnow & Maurice Hurley

Story by: Neil Cohen

Series and guest stars: Frank Converse, Charles Hallahan (George Cook), Anne Pitoniak, Allen Swift, Marisa Berenson, Fred Williamson (Lt. Mason Warren), Irving Metzman (Sterno)

 

This is one of only two Christmas episodes on the show. "Back Home" is an enjoyable story about McCall’s assistance to residents of an apartment complex being slowly forced out by the owner who wants to build expensive apartments in their place.

 

McCall brings in friend George Cook, arguably his most likeable helper, to act as protector to an elderly couple in the apartment building. His nonplussed manner with the thugs who have been hired to harass the apartment residents is highly entertaining. How McCall knows Cook is not explained though based on where he finds him, it may be a fairly casual acquaintance developed at a bar over drinks and loudly sung bar songs. This is the second time we hear Woodward, who recorded several albums in the 1970’s, sing in the show. Fortunately, it is not the last either. Producers wanted to use his singing voice but worried that a “singing Equalizer” wouldn’t be quite as intimidating.

 

We again see McCall’s wily tactics in play as he executes a scheme for pressuring the building owner, Guthrie Browne, to do right by the residents. He also takes on his old Jewish man guise again, as first seen in the episode “The Defector”.

 

1.14 Out Of The Past

Air date: January 15, 1986

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Cyrus Nowrasteh

Series and guest stars: Sandy Dennis (Kay Wesley), Stephen McHattie, Barry Primus, Brad Dourif, James Gammon (Cub)

 

This episode introduces McCall’s ex-wife, Kay. She is remarried and very concerned about her husband, Walter Wesley, who is facing an ex-con, Eddie Washburn, bent on revenge because Walter helped put him in jail. Walter buys a gun to protect himself. She tells him he couldn’t kill anyone. He asks how she knows. She says she just does. When we see her meet McCall and learn she is his ex-wife, we understand how she could know such a thing about a man. When she decides to call McCall, she pulls his ad out of an envelope in a desk. She knows he is the Equalizer. When they first meet in the episode, she says she just wants to be another client to him and that, "You've always been the best in what you do."

 

McCall reluctantly helps Walter. When Walter becomes involved in helping McCall, Kay is disgusted at what she calls “the two most arrogant men” she knows. She ends up waiting at McCall’s apartment, their safe house, while McCall helps them, as they try to work things out with Washburn. McCall tells Walt that he and Kay were like "gasoline and matches" and that Kay has "an unfathomable depth of understanding."

 

In an early scene with Kay, they have an argument and it is revealed that they also had a daughter who died from an illness at a very early age. They are both clearly still stung by that loss, and it has left possibly the greatest rift between them, his work and his single-minded devotion to it playing a central role. At one point she says he may hate her. Her replies emphatically, “How could I hate you? You’re the mother of my son.”

 

The episode ends on an awkward but positive note for McCall and Kay. Sandy Dennis as Kay is completely convincing as the kind of woman who would have married McCall but ultimately found his commitment to his work more than she could accept.

 

 

1.15 Dead Drop

Air date: January 22, 1986

Directed by: Donald Petrie

Written by: Maurice Hurley and Joel Surnow

Series and guest stars: Mark Margolis, Keith Szarabajka, Saul Ribinek (Jason Masur), Robert Lansing, James Murtaugh, Robin Curtis, Roy Baker (Dana), Irving Metzman (Sterno), David Leary

 

Sterno, Jimmy, and Mickey all return to assist McCall help a flower shop clerk get untangled from a dead drop gang. Also helping out is Ginger (Robin Curtis), who is never seen again on the show. She and Mickey apparently had a messy operation that they blame each other for. McCall sets them straight that neither of them knows enough about that operation to be at each other’s throats.

 

Jason makes a surprise visit to McCall’s apartment while the team are at work to threaten them with their jobs if they continue to work for McCall. A nervous Jimmy caves when the others blow off Jason’s threat. McCall clearly has a strong bond with his colleagues but is also very clearly in charge and they all easily accept his leadership. We get insight into his operational methods.

 

At the end of the episode, McCall makes a subtle but potent threat against Jason who has been harassing Control.

 

1.16 Wash-Up

Air date: January 29, 1986

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Mark Frost

Series and guest stars: Robert Davi, Yvonne Wilder (Lettie), Bill Cwikowski, Brian Tarantina, Michael O’Hare, Mark Margolis, Irving Metzman, Ron O’Neal (Lt. Isadore Smalls)

 

We meet McCall’s housekeeper, Lettie, who appears in a number of episodes and provides an amusing foil and surprising confidante to McCall.

 

McCall helps two men, window washers, who are caught between a dangerous boss, played by Robert Davi, spiraling out of control and a union vote. While first meeting the two men on a rooftop, McCall reveals a great unease with heights. The men have a little fun at his expense for this. Davi exudes a rough New York attitude, not afraid of McCall's threats until it's too late.

 

1.17 Torn

Air date: February 5, 1986

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Teleplay by: Carleton Eastlake

Story by: Joel Surnow & Maurice Hurley

Series and guest stars: Ron O’Neal, Yvonne Wilder (Lettie), Zohra Lampert, Caitlin Clarke, Saul Rubinek, Charles Robinson (Brian), Richard Grusin (Shumway), Melissa Joan Hart, Patricia Richardson

 

The arrogant Jason, who has been bullying his way around the Company, engages McCall directly, offering him the opportunity for revenge against a traitor who caused the death of a woman who was in McCall’s care. There is a flashback to this episode from McCall’s past, somewhere that appears to be war-torn Eastern Europe, in a Warsaw Pact country. He trusts a colleague named Brian to provide transport for McCall to help the woman escape, but she is captured and dragged away while McCall watches helplessly.

 

This is the first episode where McCall’s ad is answered by a child, in this case a little girl who is worried about her abusive father’s imminent release from prison. The mother accepts McCall’s help but is unconvinced that McCall will be able to do anything.

 

Ultimately, McCall must make a choice between capturing Brian and saving the girl and her mother when the girl’s father is released early. McCall chooses saving the girl and family, much to Jason’s aggravation. McCall makes it clear that he knows Jason had some other purpose for offering up Brian. As often happens between Jason and McCall, Jason ends up looking quite nervous.

 

1.18 Unnatural Causes

Air date: February 12, 1986

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Teleplay by: Susan Woollen and Coleman Luck & Scott Sheperd

Story by: Susan Woollen

Series and guest stars: Gwen Verdon (Kelly Sterling), Kim Delaney, Bobby Di Cicco, Kevin Geer, Mark Margolis, Ron O’Neal, Alice Spivak (Acting Teacher)

 

As this episode begins, McCall is researching counterintelligence during the Civil War for a paper he is writing. One wonders how he presents himself as an expert to a military history journal. Do they know who he is or does he have a cover that includes extensive military expertise (he did serve in the British Army, but it isn’t clear how long he served). The lady at the library helping him ends up victim to a famous serial killer in the city who targets lonely middle-aged women.

 

The constant shots of headlines about the serial killer get tiresome but are not at all unrealistic. McCall recruits a retired colleague, Kelly Sterling, played by Gwen Verdon, to help him catch the killer on a hunch after he breaks into the library to find a clue. Sterling is clearly very fond of McCall though apparently he showed up a bit late to a prior operation which leaves her just a bit nervous.

 

When McCall first visits the library after the librarian's murder, he asks Lt. Smalls for information. Smalls balks, not because he worries about McCall telling anyone in the press but because he knows McCall is going to "go after this guy." Smalls tells McCall to leave because the chief is on his way up and the last thing they need is for him to find the Equalizer snooping around.

 

Meanwhile, McCall helps a young actress (played by Kim Delaney) who has become a prostitute extricate herself from her unintended side job.

 

1.19 Breakpoint

Air date: February 19, 1986

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Teleplay by: Scott Shepherd and Don Carlos Dunaway

Story by: Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: Patricia Clarkson, Richard Hamilton, Ron Frazier, Tony Shalhoub, Keith Szarabajka

 

This episode also falls into the goofy “what if” category – here, what if McCall is unarmed at a gathering and terrorists burst in and take over the event? If you can get past that vibe, it is a fun episode because the audience is waiting for McCall to make his move (as Mickey, on the outside, says he certainly will) and when he does, it’s just fun to watch. He must wait out some very ugly moments first, choosing his one moment to act without getting any of the other hostages killed.

 

An interesting element to this episode is seeing the mysterious McCall out in public, at a wedding, with a group of people, some of whom who know exactly who he is. In this case, the bride is the daughter of a former, deceased colleague of McCall’s who is herself apparently studying terrorism and probably following in her father’s footsteps. She’s a pretty tough character who tries to collaborate with McCall, but he makes it clear that the bride is to “do nothing.” It is her wedding day, after all, and combat moves are probably not advisable in a wedding dress.

 

This is the first time we hear McCall’s cover story of being an insurance salesman.

 

In the end, Mickey doesn't show up where and when McCall expects him to, forcing McCall to improvise with grisly results.

 

1.20 No Conscience

Air date: March 5, 1986

Director: Richard Compton

Written by: Mark Frost

Series and guest stars: Laurie Metcalf, D.W. Moffett, Linda Thorson, Mark Margolis, Kelly Curtis

 

McCall gets dragged into the life of a relentless lethario who somehow has come into possession of something that someone wants very badly. He has hours to find it, whatever it is, or faces dire consequences.

 

McCall mentions his mother for the first time, recalling that she used to say, "the first step in learning not to hurt others is to stop hurting yourself."

 

1.21 Unpunished Crimes

Air date: April 1, 1986

Director: Alan Metzger

Written by: John Burke and Grenville Case

Series and guest stars: Dan Hedaya, Regina Baff, John Cameron Mitchell, Cameron Johann, John Cullum (Stuart Cane), Jon Polito, Irving Metzman (Sterno), August Schellenberg

 

This may be the edgiest episode of the series with the possible exception of first season episode “Lock Box”. Morally, McCall’s actions with Stuart Cane (John Cullum) are questionable, kidnapping Cane and creating a scenario in which he believes he is about to be killed in order to get a taped confession from him. But McCall does draw a line…when things go badly, he yells at a cohort, “No one was supposed to die!”

 

The story of the family of struggling inventor Rick Donahue is interesting and we see McCall get a little more involved in helping them as a family than he seems comfortable with. He tells them early on that he “does not do family therapy” but that’s exactly what he ends up doing. His mocking treatment of the father who is clearly contemplating suicide is especially tough but effective.

 

1.22 Pretenders

Air date: April 8, 1986

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: Tony Musante, Chad Redding (Beth Mackie), Philip Bosco, Albert Macklin, Ron O’Neal, Robert Lansing, Mark Margolis

 

This episode introduces actress Chad Redding to the show. She returns for the rest of the series starting in Season 2 as Detective Sgt. Alice Shepard, McCall’s chief ally in the NYPD. In this episode she plays Beth Mackie, a likeable but almost unbelievably eager reporter seeking the big story to help advance her career. She’s not crass but rather trying hard to get a better life so she can be reunited with her son who was taken from her.

 

Tony Musante is great as a mysterious figure, Parker, who turns out to be an assassin. Control makes an appearance protecting Parker’s target.

 

Control refers to the character Jason, and it's the last we ever hear of him.

 

We see some levity between McCall and Control, showing that they know each other quite well and are capable of dropping the super-seriousness of their work for brief moments. Control, having nearly botched security for a visiting dignitary, tells McCall, “Maybe I’m getting too old to see the signs.” McCall replies, “If you’re getting too old, where does that leave me?” Control lets that go, which McCall notices, saying, “You didn’t answer my question.” Control replies, “You don’t want the answer to that question.”

 

Season 2

 

2.01 Prelude

Air date: October 8, 1986

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Carleton Eastlake

Series and guest stars: William Zabka, Lori Loughlin, Martin Shakar, Robert Joy (Jacob Stock), Robert Lansing, James Rebhorn (Eric), Jesse Doran (Stossner), Tim De Zarn (Stoller)

 

This was not the first episode filmed for the season but was chosen to open the second season, which I think is the best of the show. This episode makes a good season opener as it explores more of McCall’s past work with The Agency and forces both McCall and his son to confront that past head-on. There are repercussions for his work with the Agency that force him to clean up later.

 

McCall is flying home from some unknown trip or mission at the outset of the episode. We never learn exactly what he was doing. He packed very lightly and one item in his bag is his massive handgun (sorry, no good with gun names/models). We seem him making his way through the city at night in a cab on the way home. When he arrives, he is startled by his son’s presence in his home.

 

A young woman (played by Lori Loughlin), whose father has been kidnapped by Latin American men, calls McCall for help. McCall, who has gotten off to a rough start with Scott, invites him along to speak with the woman. The man is a reporter with whom McCall is familiar from his days facilitating a coup in Latin America that brought a man named Astiz to power. At first, the reporter’s daughter suspects the worst of McCall based on what her father knows about him and has told her. At the least, she knows that McCall may be able to get her father back since she believes McCall works for Astiz.

 

There is a powerful argument between McCall and his son over his work and what he did for men like Astiz. McCall angrily asks his son, “Who the hell are you to even attempt to judge me?”

 

2.02 Nocturne

Air date: October 15, 1986

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Carleton Eastlake

Series and guest stars: Jessica Harper, Michael Parks (Logan), Ron Frazier, Ron O’Neal, Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson, Thomas A. Carlin

 

McCall recruits a depressed former colleague named Logan to help a new client, a blind woman who hears the man who assaulted her years ago. Logan is reluctant but McCall knows that helping someone who has a lot to complain about but doesn't will help turn Logan around.

 

This episode features a performance by Ashford & Simpson.

 

2.03 A Community of Civilized Men

Air date: October 22, 1986

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Daniel Pyne & Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: Tammy Grimes, Jennifer Grey, Lewis J. Stadlen, Lewis Van Bergen (Zahn), Robert Lansing

 

Tammy Grimes, who starred with Edward Woodward in Noel Coward’s musical “High Spirits” on Broadway in 1964, plays McCall’s client, a widow with money troubles who is struggling to save her clothing store. McCall brings in an IRS inspector to hassle the loan shark harassing his client.

 

There are several scenes of the fashion district in this episode.

 

McCall's client, Julia, suggests a date. He hesitantly but sincerely takes her up on it but tragedy intervenes. His client’s daughter, Valerie, played by Jennifer Grey, has serious reservations about McCall but allows him to help her solve her mother’s murder.

 

Julia asks McCall how a man like him ends up doing this line of work. McCall replies, "he just sinks into it."

 

A ghost from the past turns out to be in the center of the killing, a hit man named Zahn. Zahn attacks the Agency with a bombing and kills several people. McCall takes him out with a car bomb, which is not his typical M.O. He must have thought it a fitting end to a man who killed many innocent people with bombs. Perhaps there's even a degree of payback for the attack on the Agency.

Control tries repeatedly to get a list of names from McCall about people involved in an operation code-named Genesis nine years earlier. McCall is very hesitant to provide this information. They meet at an adult entertainment venue to talk discretely. When McCall asks why the information is so important now, Control tells him he can't tell him that because McCall is persona non grata, "hands off." McCall says, "this is hands off?" Control replies, "this is as off as it gets."

 

Zahn suggests to McCall that they are cut from the same cloth. When Valerie asks if this is true, McCall expresses doubt. Valerie has grave concern about who he is, frightened by the implications of what little she has learned about him. She is angry that he didn't warn her about who he is and let her decide whether to use his services, suggesting that letting him "help" her may have actually put her in greater danger. She is also angry that he didn't warn her mother either. He tells her he never lies though admits he left some information out. In an interview, Woodward said the McCall never lies but is always lying to himself.

 

There is a great scene, albeit sad, at the end of the episode between Control and McCall, acknowledging their regrets over what they've missed out on because of their jobs. Control refers to his ex-wife as Susan. We never hear him refer to anyone in his family by name again. For that matter, we never hear his real name.

 

Grimes’s real-life daughter, Amanda Plummer, guest starred in the third season episode, “A Dance On The Dark Side”.

 

2.04 Joyride

Air date: October 29, 1986

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Jim Trombetta & Charles Grant Craig

Series and guest stars: Cleavant Derricks, Christian Slater, Eddie Jones, Kristen Vigard, Ron O’Neal, Mark Margolis

 

After staying out all night on the town, two teen boys have the bad idea to peel out in a hearse after thugs chase after them. The hearse carries a load of drugs that gets the boys in serious trouble. The parents of one of the boys, played by a very young Christian Slater, call on McCall to get him out of trouble. McCall makes it clear that he will not help the boy if he is dealing drugs. Along the way, McCall traverses the tragic world of teen drug use.

 

As in "Nocturne", we see McCall helping an agent. He pays off one of agent Sonny Raines's bookies and gives Sonny a stern warning that Control is bound to find out about his gambling problem and can him. Yes, his name is Sonny Raines. While McCall may have great contempt for the Agency, he cares about certain agents and helps them out.

 

2.05 Shades of Darkness

Air date: November 5, 1986

Directed by: Donald Petrie

Written by: Jack V. Fogarty

Series and guest stars: Lenny von Dohlen, William Sadler, Caroline Kava, Emily Heebner, Edward Binns (Father Martin O’Donohugh)

 

Edward Binns guest stars in this episode as a priest who has ties to McCall from his days of working in Vietnam. Binns plays Father O’Donohugh, who keeps an eye out for soldiers and veterans. When a National Guardsman witnesses a murder but ends up as the main suspect, O’Donohugh guides McCall through altogether too legitimate mercenary-for-hire business. When the actual murderer suffers a breakdown, O’Donohugh tells McCall, “I pray for all soldiers. Including you.”

 

O'Donohugh jokes McCall about McCall's need for control. McCall insists that O'Donohugh not try to psychoanalyze him.

 

2.06 Nightscape

Air date: November 12, 1986

Directed by: Aaron Lipstadt

Written by: Carleton Eastlake

Series and guest stars: Frances Fisher, Thomas G. Waites, Madeleine Potter, Austin Pendleton

 

No episode of the series offers as searing an insight into the fractured soul of McCall as this one. McCall’s client is a woman who is raped by three men on the subway. She fears her husband, racked by guilt because he was with another woman while his wife was attacked, will try to find and kill the men. McCall finds her husband and in the end kills the three rapists. He intervenes just in time as his client’s friend is about to be attacked by the same men. As she flees, leaving him to confront the men, she hears three gunshots and freezes for a moment. It is a powerful scene directed with great impact.

 

At the beginning of the episode, McCall is out on a first date with a woman named Allison, a friend of McCall's ex-wife, Kay. Allison tells him that they've spent all evening together and she still doesn't know what he does. He tries his cover of being in insurance which she doesn't buy. When he mentions how dry it would be to discuss actuarial tables and life expectancies, she says she might believe that. She also says that Kay wouldn't tell her anything about him because she "wouldn't believe it." Allison is quite intrigued and seems to instinctively realize there's something edgy about him.

 

At the end, McCall does something uncharacteristic, speaking frankly about his work with Allison, whom he doesn’t know very well. She listens but is clearly very unsettled by the confessions of the drunk, despairing McCall.

 

2.07 Counterfire

Air date: November 19, 1986

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Scott Shepherd & Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Vincent D’Onofrio, Lisa Pelikan, Charles Cioffi, Leonardo Cimino, William Hickley, Robert Lansing, Sully Boyar, Mickey Freeman, Jihmi Kennedy

 

The tables are turned on McCall as someone ensnares him in a plot to frame him for murder. McCall is arrested and receives a visit from Control who finds the situation too amusing for McCall’s mood. Control stages an escape but dumps McCall on the street with a few hundred dollars and a contact that may help him.

Among the most entertaining scenes of the series, McCall steals a cab to get out of the city where his face is all over the newspapers which are reporting him as the runaway killer of a blind man. Jihmi Kennedy is terrific as the cab driver, even making a brief second appearance in another second season episode "Coal Black Soul" where we learn that McCall has made amends by getting him a job in the limousine business. Kennedy also makes an appearance in the third season as a different character in the Apartheid-themed episode "The Day of the Covenant".

Vincent D’Onofrio makes the first of two appearances on the show, this time as the pyromaniac son of the man seeking to set up McCall who is about to testify against him in a criminal trial.

 

2.08 The Line

Air date: November 28, 1986

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Steve Volpe

Series and guest stars: David Leary, Bill Cwikowski, Novella Nelson, Mark Margolis

 

McCall is called in by the mother of a black teenager killed by a neighborhood watch group. The watch group tries to cover up what happened, and McCall undermines them strategically until one of them finally confesses.

 

In a couple of scenes in which McCall tries to convince his client’s other son not to resort to violence, he reveals a messianic quality to his life and work. The boy questions what McCall wants since he doesn’t accept any money to help. McCall says, “My services in particular come with a very high price, but you see, I’ve already paid it.” Later on, when McCall intervenes in the boy’s attempt to buy a gun, McCall again reflects the same theme of having paid the price for the boy already. McCall also tells the boy that every time he has had to use his gun, he has never forgotten the face of the victim.

 

2.09 Tip on a Sure Thing

Air date: December 3, 1986

Directed by: Donald Petrie

Written by: Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: Paul Gleason, Daniel Faraldo, Ted Ross, Roberts Blossom, Robert O’Reilly, Warner Wolf, Cleavant Derricks, Denise Dumont, Carlos Ocasio

 

The young son of a jockey preparing to ride a long shot in a popular horse race with heavy betting is kidnapped to force the jockey to throw the race. McCall makes use of a former colleague with a very bad gambling problem, Sonny Raines, to root out which bookie is behind the kidnapping. McCall gets a touch swept up in the frenzy over the horse race and puts a whole dollar down on his client’s horse.

 

When McCall seeks out Sonny’s help, he finds him racing giant cockroaches on his kitchen table. Sonny appeared in “Joyride” as well where McCall bails him out with a testy bookie. Sonny has lost his job due to his gambling problem just as McCall had warned him could happen.

 

2.10 The Cup

Air date: 10 Dec. 1986

Directed by: Mario DiLeo

Teleplay by: David Jackson and Carleton Eastlake

Story by: Andrew Sipes and Carleton Eastlake

Series and guest stars: Dennis Christopher (Nicholas Kostmayer), Caris Corfman, Jaroslav Stremien, Earl Hindman, Keither Szarabajka

 

Mickey Kostmayer’s brother Nicholas, a priest, stands by his vows after a man confesses to an impending crime and is then gunned down in front of the church. Mickey and Nicholas take entirely different routes to doing the right thing. Nicholas does not care at all for Mickey’s (and McCall’s) line of work. McCall helps Mickey come to terms with letting his brother do what he believes he must even if it may cause him to be hurt or killed. In the meantime, McCall and Mickey find their own path to the truth.

 

2.11 Heartstrings

Air date: 17 Dec. 1986

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Loraine Despres

Series and guest stars: Michele Dotrice, Keith Szarabajka, David Margulies, Robert Lansing, Jana Schneider

 

Michele Dotrice, Edward Woodward’s second wife, guest starred in this episode as his client. She plays a widow whose baby has been kidnapped, and McCall crosses swords with Control when he learns that the buyer is under the Agency’s protection. Ultimately, McCall wins the moral argument and Control assists with capturing the buyer.

 

Early in the episode, McCall picks up Mickey from the airport, showing the close friendship between them. Mickey has been on assignment out of the country and asks McCall how the Knicks are doing. McCall couldn't care less how the Knicks are doing. McCall also brings an item Mickey requested - bubble gum. Mickey later provides a silly distraction involving bowling balls.

 

2.12 High Performance

Air date: 7 Jan. 1987

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Jack V. Fogarty

Series and guest stars: James Remar, Patricia Charbonneau, Michael Wincott, Doris Belack, Charles Cioffi, Keith Szarabajka, Ed Zang

 

McCall helps a female construction worker who witnesses a murder. We learn that McCall has a fear of heights, something Mickey finds amusing and perplexing given that they had parachuted in an operation. Charles Cioffi, whom I  remember from his guest appearances on the original Hawaii Five-O, returns as a surly detective who never takes McCall at face value.

 

Mickey provides yet another obnoxious distraction that McCall finds questionable, telling Mickey, "you were rather free with my money."

 

2.13 Beyond Control

Air date: 14 Jan. 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Robert Lansing, Keith Szarabajka, Liane Curtis, Brian Bedford, Philip Kraus, Dan Ziskie

 

Control requests to be McCall’s client when an independent organization he’s involved with suffers a serious leak. This episode deepens not only the bond between these two men but also the intrigue. Control’s actions and his manipulation of McCall leaves a strong sense of uncertainty about how much and how often Control may be using McCall for his own ends despite their apparent friendship.

 

2.14 Carnal Persuasion

Air date: 21 Jan. 1987

Directed by: Leon Ichaso

Written by: Dennis Manuel

Series and guest stars: John Cullum, Keith Szarabajka, Mark Margolis, Maria Holvoe, Ray Serra, Cynthia Harris, John Laughlin

 

John Cullum portrays a creepy and corrupt federal judge who abuses women and the justice system while on the dole of a powerful hoodlum. McCall zeroes in on him for a client whose husband has been framed for drug possession.

 

2.15 Memories of Manon: Part 1

Air date: February 4, 1987

Directed by: Tony Wharmby

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Anthony Zerbe, Melissa Sue Anderson, Keith Szarabajka, Robert Lansing, George DiCenzo, Jon Polito, Maurice Hines, David Shuman

 

This two-part episode is a favorite of mine. Coleman Luck deepens McCall’s intriguing past with the story of a young woman forced to find out who her police detective father’s snitch is who is bringing down mob families all along the East coast. Fortunately for her, Control is her godfather. She discreetly seeks his help, and he asks McCall to take on the problem. McCall is reluctant until Control reveals to him that the woman, Yvette Marcel, is the daughter of a woman named Manon, a colleague with whom McCall had a close relationship in the past. It’s the long-held secret that Control chooses not to reveal to McCall that comes between them as McCall questions Control’s choices and if he used McCall and Manon for his own questionable purposes.

 

The great Anthony Zerbe plays the young woman’s father, Detective Philip Marcel. Melissa Sue Anderson plays Yvette.

 

2.16 Memories of Manon: Part 2

Air date: February 11, 1987

Directed by: Tony Wharmby

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Anthony Zerbe, Melissa Sue Anderson, Keith Szarabajka, Robert Lansing, George DiCenzo, Jon Polito, David Shuman, Kate Dezina

 

McCall outwits some local heavies to save Yvette who ends up believing he is trying to use her for his own profit. In the end, McCall must make a very painful decision.

 

2.17 Solo

Air date: February 18, 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Carleton Eastlake

Series and guest stars: Kevin Spacey, Lindsay Crouse, Austin Pendleton, Leon Russom, Bruce Hubbard, Thomas Quinn

 

Carleton Eastlake wrote two other standout episodes for the second season, “Prelude” and the disturbing “Nightscape”. With “Solo”, he puts McCall through the wringer. Not only does McCall get dumped at the beginning of the episode, he then stops an armed robbery at the bar where he is taking solace, then falls hard and fast for a questionable client, Sara Magee, who leads him to shoot a police officer (a nasty Kevin Spacey) who subsequently captures and beats the hell out of him. I think McCall’s experiences in this episode can be summed up with the Flogging Molly song “The Worst Day Since Yesterday”.

 

When Sara prepares to move on with her life at the end of the episode, she asks McCall when he’s going to stop doing the work he does. He says for as long as it takes to balance the books. She tells him, “you’re too hard on yourself, way too hard.”

 

2.18 A Place to Stay

Air date: February 25, 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Teleplay by: Marc Rubin and Carleton Eastlake & Coleman Luck

Story by: Marc Rubin

Series and guest stars: Chad Redding, Ann McDonough, Alyson Kirk, Margaret Walsh, Trey Wilson

 

This is another teen-girl-lost-in-New-York-City story, similar to “Lock Box” from the first season. The girl runs away from an abusive family and ends up quickly in the clutches of a child pornographer.

 

McCall recruits Sgt. Alice Shepard to help him find the girl when her parents call him in a panic. Shepard, played by Chad Redding, proves to be McCall’s greatest ally at the NYPD for the remainder of the show, albeit with a certain weariness and some uncertainty at times about McCall’s methods and instincts.

 

A haunting song is featured at the beginning and end of the episode. It is "Running For Our Lives" by Marianne Faithfull.

 

2.19 Coal Black Soul

Air date: May 6, 1987

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: Patricia Kalember, Mitchell Lichtenstein, Lois Smith, Earl Hindman, Chris Elliott

 

One of my favorite episodes. McCall is contacted by a serial killer pleading to McCall to kill him, the only cure he thinks there is to his homicidal habit. McCall also takes on a client - a woman named Stephanie with a Peeping Tom problem.

 

This is Kalember's second appearance on the show (as a different character). She appeared in the Pilot as a woman seeking McCall's help with a relentless stalker. Plans were afoot to bring Kalember's character from this episode back in another episode. A script was written but unfortunately due to Woodward's heart attack, the episode never came to fruition. The script was titled "Second Sight".

 

This episode features a romance between McCall and Stephanie. They have a dance in Central Park. There's coy avoiding what McCall's past work entailed. Ultimately, McCall is too fixated on stopping the killer for the relationship to grow. The episode cleverly features the cab driver, Clarence, whose cab McCall stole from the earlier episode "Counterfire". McCall has helped him out by getting him into the limo business.

 

2.20 First Light

Air date: May 13, 1987

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Jack V. Fogarty

Series and guest stars: William Zabka, Lori Loughlin, Mike Nussbaum, Robert Lansing, Quentin Crisp, Marco St. John

 

This is an odd episode about a man seeking revenge wrongfully against a former fellow soldier from a prison camp in WWII. There's fun in McCall's son helping him with the case since the victim of revenge is a friend of his, a shop owner. Also featured in this episode is the return of the journalist's daughter from the second season premiere episode "Prelude", played by Lori Loughlin.

 

2.21 Hand And Glove

Air date: May 20, 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: William Zabka, Barbara Garrick, Mark Soper, Nancy Fish, William H. Macy

 

McCall's son Scott tries to help a friend confined to a wheelchair who is being tormented. William H. Macy appears as a psychologist. In the climax, McCall is shot but still somehow climbs up to a second floor window. There is some enjoyable banter between McCall and Scott.

 

2.22 Re-Entry

Air date: May 27, 1987

Directed by: Aaron Lipstadt

Teleplay by: Scott Shepherd

Story by: Dennis Manuel

Series and guest stars: John Goodman, Stewart Copeland, Steve Buscemi, Keith Szarabajka, Cameron Johann, David Johansen, Joe Morton, Graham Beckel

 

John Goodman guest stars in this episode as a father suffering very hard times who succumbs to a plot to break in to his former employer’s business. Steve Buscemi also guest stars as an electronics store clerk with scruples for sale.

 

Stewart Copeland makes an appearance as a pickpocket who has to deal with McCall.

 

Season 3

 

3.01 Blood & Wine: Part 1

3.02 Blood & Wine: Part 2

Air date: September 23, 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, William Atherton (Martin “Alpha” Loeber), Moira Sinise, Tom Atkins, Christopher Murney (Rudy Bagler), Elizabeth Franz, Robert Lansing, Telly Savalas (Brother Joseph Heiden)

 

The third season opens with a very good two-hour episode by Coleman Luck about a notorious terrorist, Martin Loeber, calling himself Alpha and carrying out attacks in New York City. Confronting him nearly proves fatal for McCall and tests even McCall’s skills and experience.

 

Telly Savalas guest stars, offering a compelling performance as Brother Joseph Heiden, who has reformed from his past as a terrorist with ties to Loeber and with whom McCall is disgusted to work to catch Alpha. McCall is especially disgusted with Heiden for causing the death of a colleague years ago. McCall possibly sees a little too much of himself in Heiden, a man with a dark past who seeks to atone for it. Perhaps McCall doubts his own efforts in this regard and resists any acceptance that Heiden has transformed himself from true evil to good. In a powerful conclusion, McCall is deeply affected if not transformed himself as events unfold and Heiden's sacrifice. I have always found the end of this episode stunning emotionally.

 

Elizabeth Franz also guest stars as McCall’s client who is concerned about the man (Loeber) that her daughter is dating. Franz is the widow of actor Edward Binns who also guest starred, in the season 2 episode “Shades of Darkness”. Moira Harris, now the wife of actor Gary Sinise, also appears as the deluded young woman dating Loeber.

 

3.03 Suspicion of Innocence

Air date: September 30, 1987

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: Vincent D’Onofrio, Charles Cioffi (Lieutenant Kramer), William Converse-Roberts, Mark Margolis, Ann Wedgeworth, John Randolph

 

Vincent D’Onofrio offers a sincere portrayal of a mentally disabled young man, Davy Baylor, who has been calling McCall from time to time for advice. Apparently McCall has patiently talked to Davy on these occasions. This time, Davy calls him when he is suspected of murder. McCall helps him, dodging the police along the way, including the skeptical Lt. Kramer (Charles Cioffi making another appearance).

 

Jimmy is at first reluctant to help McCall look after Davy but once Davy proves himself a capable card player, Jimmy is won over.

               

3.04 In The Money

Air date: October 7, 1987                   

Directed by: Aaron Lipstadt

Written by: Ed Waters & Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: John Heard, Keith Szarabajka, Ashley Crow, Dennis Boutsikaris, Paul Perri, Patricia Richardson, Oliver Platt

 

McCall enters the world of Wall Street and high rolling brokers to help his accidental client solve  her friend’s murder and save her from the same fate. McCall, while out fishing with Kostmayer and returning to his cabin, spots his soon-to-be client’s body floating near the shore. McCall’s strategy for getting to the truth is a bit of stretch, setting up a rigging to catch his client when she takes a staged fall from the roof of a tall building.

 

Patricia Richardson has a fun appearance as a jaded purveyor of stock information who decides in the end she doesn’t want a lecture on her sad predicament from McCall. Oliver Platt also appears.

 

3.05 Encounter In A Closed Room

Air date: October 14, 1987

Directed by: Jim Johnston

Teleplay by: Ann Lewis Hamilton

Story by: Ann Lewis Hamilton & Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: Michael Moriarty, Maureen Mueller, Chad Redding (Sgt. Alice Shepard), Robert Lansing, George Gerdes, Adam LeFevre, Jamey Sheridan

 

A high-profile scientist defects in New York. Foreign agents seek to terminate him by threatening a friend he has turned to for help. In a rare instance, McCall ends up in a tight bind but, in a McGyver-esque moment, employs some basic electrical principles to get away.

 

Meanwhile, McCall crosses swords once again with Control because his client's cause conflicts with the Company's interests. Cut off by Control from his usual sources of information, McCall recruits Sgt. Alice Shepard to help him. She doesn't approve of McCall breaking into an apartment in search of clues to the whereabouts of his client's kidnapped parents. "As for as you're concerned, I had a key," he tells Alice. She replies, "I didn't see a key. Want to show it to me?"

 

3.06 Mission: McCall: Part 1

Air date: October 28, 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Ed Waters & Scott Shepherd

Series and guest stars: Robert Mitchum (Richard Dyson), Keith Szarabajka, William Zabka, Richard Jordan, Frances Fisher, Frankie Faison

 

With the sixth episode, the third season takes an unusual turn for several episodes. Due to star Edward Woodward’s heart attack while working in England during the show’s hiatus, he was unable to work very many hours on the show for some time. The two-hour episode “Mission: McCall” provides the setup for a colleague named Harley Gage, played rather ineffectively by Richard Jordan, to help out McCall with his business while McCall recovers form a grave injury.

 

The episode begins with Scott McCall’s worst nightmare come true – he visits his father to find him missing and his usually immaculate, posh apartment wrecked. Scott follows a procedure that his father has prepared for him in just such an instance. He meets with Control who tries to send him away to Bermuda and offers no answers to the panicked Scott. Control has yet to learn, but soon will, that Scott takes very much after his father as to stubbornness and resourcefulness. Scott finds a video his father has left for him instructing him to seek out Mickey Kostmayer and to use a code phrase that will help him.

 

Kostmayer leads Scott to a man named Richard Dyson, played by one of the great tough guys of American cinema, Robert Mitchum. Dyson doesn’t share McCall’s enthusiasm for helping others but out of pure respect, he helps Scott figure out what has happened to his father. In the process, the motives of Control come into serious question, and Dyson recruits the bitter, surly Gage to help out. Gage is convinced that McCall is the one who put him in prison and would rather kill him than help him. Dyson persuades him otherwise.

 

Ultimately, Control reveals that McCall is the exchange for agents of the Company that have been taken by the KGB. Before Control can get the insistent Scott to where he is hiding McCall, the KGB find and kidnap McCall. In the process, McCall is very badly wounded, shot in the back with a shotgun by one of the agents.

 

3.07 Mission: McCall: Part 2

Air date: November 4, 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Teleplay by: Ed Waters & Scott Shepherd & Robert Eisele

Story by: Ed Waters & Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Robert Mitchum (Richard Dyson), Keith Szarabajka, William Zabka, Richard Jordan, Ludmilla Bokievsky, Frederick Neumann

 

Part Two is not as compelling or intriguing as Part One, as we watch Dyson and Gage (who was never a likeable or interesting character at all) find their way into the KGB facility where McCall is being held pending transport to an approaching Russian freighter. Control tries to convince Scott to let him go so he can help McCall. Scott doesn’t believe him but Control manages to get the upper hand anyway and just in time.

 

All scenes between Dyson and McCall were shot separately and Woodward and Mitchum never actually met.

 

3.08 Shadow Play

Air date: November 11, 1987

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Richard Jordan, J.T. Walsh, Chad Redding, Christopher Murney, Tomas Milian

 

McCall, recovering from his injuries, “three nasty pieces of metal” in his back, as he puts it, is in a foul mood and declares that perhaps it is time for him to call it quits. However, a glimmer of McCall’s true self still comes through as he offers Gage, now free of prison but penniless, a place to stay while he tries to get back on his feet and find his way.

 

Gage ends up helping Kostmayer and Alice protect a man testifying about overseas activities of the government. The plot is a bit convoluted, but we are treated to a return of Bagler, who allows Gage to put the fees for Bagler's services on McCall's tab.

 

McCall ends up overcoming his reservations about his future by finding some critical information for Gage and Alice. In the end, he still manages to save the day, prompting Gage to tell him, “this isn’t exactly sitting in the park, Robert.”

 

Tomas Milian returns to guest star on the show after his great appearance in the first season episode “Reign of Terror”.

 

3.09 Inner View

Air date: November 18, 1987

Directed by: Marc Laub

Written by: Jim Trombetta

Series and guest stars: Terrance Mann, Keith Szarabajka, Richard Jordan, Katherine Cortez, Toni Kalem

 

McCall’s clients are two women with a connection to a serial killer, Shadow Man, played by Terrance Mann. One of the women has had a very real, frightening encounter with him and the other has had what she claims are premonitions of his killings.

 

Gage is utterly skeptical of her claims but gradually sees things from her perspective.

3.10 The Rehearsal

Air date: December 2, 1987

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: George Morfogen, Jenniver Van Dyck, Ned Eisenberg, Chris Cooper, Richard Jordan, John Garson

 

This Phantom of the Opera-styled episode, about a vengeful, disfigured actor who terrorizes a theater production, is the one I like least. McCall is visiting one of the actresses, whom he has inexplicably known for many years, during rehearsal when bizarre events begin to unfold.

 

3.11 Christmas Presence

Air date: December 16, 1987

Directed by: Michael O’Herlihy

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Jacqueline Brookes, Martin Shakar, Corey Carrier, Richard Jordan, Maureen Anderman (Pete O’Phelan), Joseph Hindy

 

This episode, one of the most touching and sentimental of the series, introduces Maureen Anderman as Pete O’Phelan, a woman who once worked with the Company and also, based on her conversation with McCall early in the episode, dated McCall at one time before marrying another agent that McCall didn’t care for at the time. This episode also introduces the restaurant O’Phelan’s as a common meeting place for McCall, his colleagues, and his clients. McCall reopens the restaurant as half-owner, giving the other half to Pete who becomes a much needed companion and confidante to McCall until early in the fourth season. One wonders if the producers intended Pete and McCall to get back together at some point.

 

This is the first episode directed by the great TV director Michael O'Herlihy who directed countless episodes of the original Hawaii Five-O and whose brother Dan appeared as McCall's lifelong nemesis in the standout fourth season episode, "Prisoners of Conscience".

 

Young Corey Carrier affectingly portrays a little boy with AIDS, Mickey, who is hatefully shunned and attacked by residents of his neighborhood. McCall assigns Gage to meet the boy after Gage laughs at the boy's call to the Equalizer, and McCall accuses Gage of thinking that what McCall is doing as the Equalizer is a joke.

 

Mickey idolizes the Equalizer and thrilled to finally meet him. Throughout the episode, McCall calls out Gage for his cynicism and serves as a sort of moral mentor and guide. The end of the episode reveals in full light the great kindness McCall possesses for the innocent, especially children.

 

 

3.12 A Dance On The Dark Side

Air date: January 13, 1988

Directed by: Jonathan Perry

Written by: David Lightstone

Series and guest stars: Amanda Plummer, David Andres, Chad Redding, George DiCenzo, Madeleine Potter, Maureen Anderman (Pete O’Phelan), John Seitz

 

McCall ends up tangling directly with the police when his client, a police department operator, overhears a confession by someone in the department about the death of an undercover officer. Even Sgt. Alice Shepard, one of McCall’s greatest allies in the department, is hesitant to go along with his theories of which officer is guilty of murder.

 

 

3.13 The Child Broker

Air date: January 20, 1988

Directed by: Mark Sobel

Written by: Mick Curran

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Richard Jordan, Frank Whaley, Christopher Collet, Thomas G. Waites, Mary-Joan Negro, Jerry O'Connell, Frances Ruffelle, Sam Rockwell

 

An unusual episode about a criminal who manipulates teen boys into a gang that does his dirty work for him, primarily thefts at local stores. Jerry O'Connell and Sam Rockwell make early appearances in their careers. The gang leader's mother desperately turns to McCall as she worries that her son is getting into something very bad, yet McCall has to convince her how bad it is. He counsels her to use tough love with her son to try and break him free of the path he is on. McCall's ploy at the end may go too far with the boys, terrorizing them with the reality of the man they blindly follow.

 

3.14 Video Games

Air date: January 27, 1988

Directed by: James A. Contner

Written by: Peter McCabe

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Richard Jordan, Daniel Davis, Vanessa Angel, Andreas Katsulas, John Bedford Lloyd, Maureen Anderman (Pete O’Phelan)

 

Guest star Daniel Davis portrays a man obsessed with helping call girls and finding the man who led his daughter into that profession. His wife turns to McCall when he disappears for days. McCall and Gage track him down and help him confront the man he has been seeking and wants to kill. Gage works with the D.A. on the case and ends up agreeing to help him in his cause. This is the last we ever see or hear of Gage, which is a good thing.

 

3.15 Something Green

Air date: February 10, 1988

Directed by: Luis Soto

Written by: Kevin Droney

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Jon DeVries, Lisa Eichhorn, Leon Russom, Ronald Hunter, Macaulay Culkin

 

A corrupt foreign dignitary from France, Raymond Gephardt, played by Jon DeVries, uses his office to profit from an illegal financial scheme. In an attempt to make a clean getaway, he kidnaps his own son (played by the very young Macaulay Culkin).

 

Gephardt’s ex-wife becomes McCall’s client when her son goes missing and she has no doubt about who has taken him. This episode takes McCall to the French embassy which he says he knows very well. This appears to be a reference to the fact established in the episode “Memories of Manon” that McCall worked as an operative for a time in France, presumably leading him to interaction at the embassy.

 

DeVries played the creepy assassin in the first season episode “The Distant Fire”.

 

3.16 The Mystery Of Manon: Part 1

Air date: February 17, 1988

Directed by: Bradford May

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Robert Lansing, Keith Szarabajka, Melissa Sue Anderson, Anthony Zerbe, Anne Heywood (Manon Brevard Marcel), William Zabka, Mark Margolis, Irving Metzman

 

McCall’s past relationship with a beautiful French colleague returns to haunt him again, this time in the form of a woman who appears to be Manon, who he thought to have died in a plane crash. McCall and Control clash over the truth of what happened to Manon. McCall questions Control’s part in her death. Control tells McCall that he sent her to rescind a death order the Agency placed on him. In the end, McCall is left just as uncertain of this story as he is of whether the mysterious woman is Manon. He works to keep his daughter Yvette calm. They still have an uneasy relationship.

 

3.17 The Mystery Of Manon: Part 2

Air date: February 24, 1988

Directed by: Bradford May

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Robert Lansing, Keith Szarabajka, Melissa Sue Anderson, Lawrence Dane, Anne Heywood, William Zabka, Irving Metzman

 

Scott McCall is pulled into what turns out to be a revenge plot from an opposition agent with a grudge against Robert McCall. After Scott is taken, McCall allows himself to also be taken. In the end, he allows the woman who claims to be Manon to go free. Control asks him whether he believes she was really Manon, casting further doubt on his own account of her death.

 

3.18 No Place Like Home

Air date: March 16, 1988

Directed by: Tobe Hooper

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Michael Rooker, Michael Lerner, Kelly Curtis, Leo Burmester, Mark Margolis, Ed Lauter

 

Director Tobe Hooper directed this episode about a homeless family struggling to get back on their feet. The episode is at turns sentimental and brutally honest about families dealing with homelessness. McCall helps the family when they are harassed by thugs who want them to take part in a scam.

 

3.19 Last Call

Air date: March 23, 1988

Directed by: Michael O’Herlihy

Written by: Robert Crais

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Michael Cerveris, Maureen Anderman, Joe Maruzzo, David Schramm, James Rebhorn, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Charles Keating

 

Michael Cerveris is familiar to fans of Fringe as the Observer called September. He guest stars in this episode as Frank Fipps, the kind younger brother of a malicious sociopath, Lewis Fipps, who takes over Pete O’Phelan’s when a hit man tracks him down. James Rebhorn plays the mysterious hit man named Gant. McCall and Gant have crossed paths during McCall’s Agency work. Mickey, trapped at O’Phelan’s with Pete during Fipps’s siege, convinces Fipps to call on McCall to resolve the standoff.

 

McCall hunts down the man, played by Charles Keating, whose hefty bounty Gant wants to collect by killing Fipps.

 

3.20 Regrets Only

Air date: March 30, 1988

Directed by: James A. Contner

Written by: Robert Crais

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, J. Smith-Cameron, Philip Kraus, Maureen Anderman, Jean De Baer (aka Jean DeBaer)

 

McCall is called by a divorced woman named Susan Foxworth being tormented by her ex-husband. McCall is skeptical at first, especially after a visit with the ex-husband seems to indicate he is the sane one and she is the one having mental health issues. It isn’t the first time McCall ends up apologizing to a client for misjudging the situation.

 

As he helps her trap her ex-husband in his disturbing behavior, McCall and Susan develop affection for each other. However, in the end, despite Pete’s advice to give her a call, McCall doesn’t, afraid that once again it will not work out. Pete says to him, “take it from me, she won’t mind” hearing from him. Pete seems to be saying she wouldn’t mind either. She also tells McCall that he's one of the best men she knows and she hates to see him lonely. He retorts that he is not lonely. This is probably another instance of McCall lying to himself.

 

3.21 Target Of Choice

Air date: April 6, 1988

Directed by: Mark Sobel

Written by: Kevin Droney

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Michael Parks, Verna Bloom, Maureen Anderman, Mark Margolis, John Bedford Lloyd, Kevin Geer

 

Michael Parks makes his second appearance on the show as a man being threatened by an ex-convict who wants revenge on him for testifying against him years earlier. Parks's prior appearance was as McCall’s troubled colleague Logan in the second season episode “Nocturne”.

 

McCall struggles again to keep a young son from sinking into notions of revenge. The son in this case turns McCall’s argument around on him with an unsettling question that McCall doesn’t answer.

 

3.22 Always A Lady

Air date: May 4, 1988

Directed by: Marc Laub

Story by: Scott Shepherd

Teleplay by: Peter McCabe

Series and guest stars: Robert Lansing, Keith Szarabajka, Maureen Anderman, Anne Twomey (Meredith), Joseph Mascolo, Lewis Van Bergen, Chad Redding

 

A sad episode to end the third season, McCall confronts the demise of a former colleague and lover, Meredith. McCall and Meredith worked together in Latin America where she was offered up as a pawn by Southern Control. McCall learned of this plot at the last minute and rescued her only after she had been tortured. The impact on her leads her to a life of vice, working as a madam at a casino.

 

Early in the episode, McCall and Pete have been out on the town and McCall rants about what is properly deemed “theatre” when he gets a call from Meredith who says she is in danger. She tells him that the man who runs the casino believes she has stolen money from him. McCall shows up to her place to find her dead, victim of a shotgun blast to the face. On her ankle is a bracelet he gave her when they were together. He remembers her trying to get him to leave the Agency, telling him that the Agency owns him.

 

Control, Mickey, and Pete work together to protect McCall from him own deep feelings of regret and guilt about Meredith’s corrupted life and terrible murder. They effectively circle the wagons in concern for their friend as he acts out to solve what happened to Meredith. The truth proves even more devastating than he thought.

 

Season 4

 

4.01 The Last Campaign

Air date: October 26, 1988

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Lee Batchler & Janet Scott Batchler

Series and guest stars: E.G. Marshall, Stanley Tucci, Maureen Anderman, Laila Robins, Irving Metzman, Jay Patterson, Isabell O’Connor, Wendell Pierce (Dr. Wolff)

 

McCall helps a woman whose boss, an Assemblyman, seeks to take a Senator’s seat through blackmail. The Assemblyman, played by Stanley Tucci, sets her up in a mental institution, that he sits on the Board of, as a drug addict where McCall and Pete keep an eye on her. McCall enlists a psychiatrist named Dr. Wolff to place himself and Pete at the institution. When the doctor at the institution asks him about his background, he says that he is part of an international network of spies. Who would believe that?

 

E.G. Marshall guest stars as the Senator who must choose between quietly retiring or stopping the Assemblyman.

 

Sadly, this is the last time we see Pete O'Phelan.

 

 

4.02 Sea Of Fire

Air date: November 2, 1988

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Teleplay by: Peter McCabe and Coleman Luck

Story by: Peter McCabe

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Chad Redding, Seret Scott, Keith David, David Strathairn, Reginald VelJohnson, Lucy Vargas, Tito Nunez

 

McCall helps a school administrator whose high school is being overtaken by a gang of students with criminal ties. After they rape a student on campus, the administrator desperately turns to McCall. She tells him she was hesitant to call on him because of his reputation for violence. He seems a bit surprised or taken aback by this but doesn’t have the opportunity to reply.

 

She allows him, with some blowback from other administration officials, to teach a class. The class is about death, a subject McCall is very qualified to teach. He takes the students, selected for the class from the gang members, to the morgue to observe an autopsy. They are clearly unsettled by this. McCall also has them listen to a man, a former criminal, talk about an after-life experience in which he witnessed a horrific sea of fire.

 

Ultimately, after these rounds of psychological warfare on the gang, McCall zeroes in on their weaknesses and brings them down.

 

4.03 Riding The Elephant

Air date: November 9, 1988

Directed by: Donald Petrie

Written by:  M.K. Lorens

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Robert Lansing, James Hong, Russell Wong, Mako, Elizabeth Sung

 

Control and McCall meet early on in the episode at O’Phelan’s where Control has to remind McCall that it is McCall’s birthday. While he doesn't remember his own birthday (his son Scott is apparently not attentive), he does remember every agent he's ever worked with. McCall asks Control why he's come to see him, suggesting that Control has a job too touchy for his "usual gang of misfits."

 

Control gives McCall a gift from Africa that he asked a friend to bring back from Dar es Salaam. Despite this, they once again cross swords due to McCall’s new client, a young woman whose boyfriend has ventured into the dangerous world of a drug lord who will not set her free unless he helps move the drugs.

 

McCall knows the drug lord, Thanarat, played by Mako, from his Agency days and is disgusted (though not surprised) to find that the Agency is protecting his operation in exchange for critical intelligence in Asia. McCall has serious questions about whether Control used him to get at Thanarat. Russell Wong and the great James Hong appear as father and son, struggling with tradition and brutal realities.

 

 

4.04 Eighteen With A Bullet

Air date: November 16, 1988

Directed by: Richard Compton

Written by: Bruce A. Taylor

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Colleen Ann Fitzpatrick, Bruce Payne, Amy Morton, Caroline Lagerfelt, Terrence Mann (Graham)

 

The mother of a young woman under the spell of a manipulative music producer turns to McCall. Terrence Mann makes his second appearance on the show as a former radio DJ who helps McCall and Mickey put the producer out of business.

 

In the end, McCall tells the young singer, “Keep singing. It’s good for the soul.” We also hear him sing a bit while listening to a song by another young singer who also fell victim to the producer.

 

4.05 The Day Of The Covenant

Air date: December 7, 1988

Directed by: James A. Contner

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, William Zabka, Theodore Bikel, Kasi Lemmons, David Leary, Jihmi Kennedy, Michael Genet

 

Scott McCall’s musician girlfriend turns out to be a South African terrorist. Early in the episode, she appears to have used Scott’s father’s influence at the State Department to have her immigration status with the U.S. approved. McCall and son once again work out their differences of opinion in a confrontational fashion as McCall struggles to convince his son that his girlfriend is not what she seems. Scott ends up helping his father intercede when his girlfriend attempts to carry out an act of personal vengeance.

 

4.06 Splinters

Air date: December 14, 1988

Directed by: Paul Krasny

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Robert Lansing, Kevin Conway, Richard Bright, Tom Klunis, Tracy Kolls, Christopher Meloni

 

Coleman Luck wrote this episode which reveals the long history and unbreakable friendship between Mickey and McCall. The mechanism used against Mickey is nearly an exact replication of the mind-altering contraption used in the series pilot for the original Hawaii Five-O back in 1968. After his capture during an operation gone wrong, Mickey is subjected to a reprogramming process involving total sensory deprivation and tapes played to alter his perception of time and, ultimately, the truth. Tapes of McCall’s voice are used to brainwash Mickey into believing that McCall thinks he is a traitor.

 

This is a means to an end – a KGB operative’s attempt to prove to his Kremlin bosses that his techniques are effective. He chooses McCall and Mickey because of McCall’s reputation and the clearly strong bond between McCall and Mickey.

 

McCall must first navigate a coup in the Agency in which Control is injured and determine who is responsible. He pulls no punches in gathering intelligence and exacting payback on the new Agency leader.

 

During the course of Mickey’s torment, we learn that he had been convicted and sent to Leavenworth for a death in his unit during the Vietnam war. McCall reviewed the case and proved Mickey’s innocence. Despite this bond, the reprogramming he has received causes Mickey to shoot McCall.

 

When McCall is done and has once again liberated Mickey, Control tells him the Director is very impressed with his actions and wants him back in the Agency. Not surprisingly, McCall is unimpressed by this offer.

 

4.07 The Making Of A Martyr

Air date: January 11, 1989

Directed by: Bradford May

Written by: Wayne Powers & Donna Dottley Powers

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Chad Redding, Tom Noonan, Barbara Williams, William Converse-Roberts, Sally Jessy Raphael (as herself)

 

A gun control advocate is helped by McCall after she is threatened by a man with an obsession with guns. She does not wish to have McCall’s help given his own use of guns but her husband calls him in to help. McCall and Mickey discuss their history with guns and the country’s irrational views and laws regarding guns. McCall says he has been a soldier for thirty years and guns have been the tools of his trade so it is too late for him, but he hopes that it isn’t too late for the country to get smart about the issue.

 

Sally Jessy Raphael appears as a TV host interviewing the advocate when the man stalking her makes an attempt on her life.

 

4.08 The Sins Of Our Fathers

Air date: January 18, 1989

Directed by: Paul Krasny

Written by: Tom Towler

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Austin Pendleton, Joe Morton, J. Smith-Cameron, Al Shannon, Yvonne Wilder (Lettie)

 

McCall gives his confounded housekeeper Lettie a Shakespeare lesson and tackles a Shakespearean family tragedy of a mobster and his wife whose little boy is kidnapped. Austin Pendleton returns as the Agency computer wizard Jonah who has helped McCall several times.

 

We also meet a sketchy agent named Carter Brock played by Joe Morton who planned and carried out the abduction and has no reservations about telling McCall and Kostmayer how proud he is of his team’s flawless execution. McCall summons Brock from the dark side to help him find the child.

 

While it makes him a little nervous to be called in by a mobster’s wife, McCall ultimately shows a bold willingness to take him down, especially after he learns why the child was kidnapped.

 

4.09 The Visitation

Air date: February 1, 1989

Directed by: Bradford May

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Jenny Agutter (Laruen Demeter), James Tolkan, Leonardo Cimino, Martin Shakar, Eddie Jones, Randie Mell, Joseph Ragno, Harsh Nayyarwsa

 

Robert Eisele wrote this sad tale about a woman, a very accomplished doctor named Lauren Demeter, whom McCall loves very much and hopes to persuade to join his life again on a long-term basis. However, she conceals from him until the bitter end the reason that can’t be.

 

Meanwhile, a scare over the potentially devastating spread of a highly contagious hemorrhagic disease calls Demeter and McCall into action. Over the course of investigating the case, Demeter and McCall reveal old conflicts about their different approaches to life. She says to him, “You’ll never change, will you?” to which he candidly replies, “Well, probably not.” Yet she does confess that he was “the only one with an ounce of compassion. The rest tore across the country and killed the very people I tried to heal..."

 

4.10 Past Imperfect

Air date: February 15, 1989

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Gail Morgan Hickman

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Mark Margolis, Robert Lansing, Hector Elizondo, Katherine Cortez, Eddie Jones, Brad Sullivan, Jose Edwin Soto, Rudolph Wilrich

 

Co-producer Gail Morgan Hickman wrote this episode about an agent in danger not only of losing his life when his deep cover takes a dangerous turn but also his relationship with his son who thought he was dead.

 

McCall reaches out to the agent, Ray Quintero, played by Hector Elizondo, who is deeply skeptical of him. But a conversation about their mutual losses and deep regrets as agents allows Quintero to trust McCall and start to set things right. We also see Jimmy providing a big brother helping hand to Quintero’s son and wife.

 

4.11 Trial By Ordeal

Air date: March 1, 1989

Directed by: Marc Laub

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Robert Lansing, Sylvia Sidney, Roy Dotrice

 

Coleman Luck again explores the dark intrigue of the Company and McCall’s role in it with this episode in which Control is tried by the Company for treason. McCall is guilty by association. The complex relationship between Control and McCall is reviewed (this episode is partly a retrospective of prior episodes that focused on their association). The story is a clever play on the viewer’s ongoing suspicions of Control’s priorities and motives, especially as they involve McCall. However, by episode end, that suspicion may finally be laid to rest.

 

Actor Roy Dotrice plays the prosecutor, a cool, exacting foil to the mercurial McCall. Roy Dotrice is the father of Michele Dotrice, Edward Woodward’s second wife.

 

4.12 Silent Fury

Air date: March 8, 1989

Directed by: Russ Mayberry

Written by: Donna Dottley Powers & Wayne Powers

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Howie Seago, John Polito, Paul McCrane, Eddie Jones, Cynthia Nixon

 

The deaf community is being preyed upon by a group of thieves. When they are attacked by the thieves, a deaf couple reaches out to McCall who experiences some hostility from the deaf man. McCall brushes up on sonic principles to put an ironic twist on his capture of the thieves.

 

In an example of the bond he develops with many of his clients, McCall attends the couple’s wedding.

 

4.13 Lullaby Of Darkness

Air date: March 30, 1989

Directed by: David Jackson

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Chad Redding, Mary-Joan Negro, Ellen Hamilton Latzen (Mindy Morrison), Jacqueline Brookes (Dr. Grayson), Robert Modica, Vivian Nathan, Stephen Lang, Kate Dezina

 

Coleman Luck delivers a sad tale of child and spousal abuse with this episode. An elderly woman hopes McCall can help stop the loud, frightening domestic abuse she regularly hears from the apartment upstairs. The abusive father and husband is quite sadistic and portrayed without any sympathy.

 

The little girl escapes from the brutal trap through her imagination, engaging in conversations with her dolls, and climbing the fire escape to an abandoned attic.

 

McCall is distraught at what he witnesses, even breaking into the family’s home when he hears a terrible altercation. This gets him a restraining order and a lecture by a judge. This does not stop him from doing everything he can to help the girl and her mother.

 

4.14 17 Zebra

Air date: April 6, 1989

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Jacqueline Zambrano

Series and guest stars: Robert Joy (Jacob Stock), William Atherton, Joe Seneca, Cordelia Gonzalez, Leonardo Cimino, P.J. Brown, Stephen Payne

 

William Atherton, who played the disturbing Martin Loeber in the third season premiere “Blood and Wine”, returns to the show with a tragic portrayal of a burned-out veteran paramedic, Gideon, who is haunted by the death of a little girl he couldn’t save.

 

McCall learns of Gideon’s deep troubles when a minister at a soup kitchen calls him and tells him about some suspicious deaths of a few homeless men. At first, the minister assumes the worst of McCall, believing that he doesn’t care about the down and out. McCall sets him straight, of course, even managing to quote some scripture from memory. McCall brings in a reluctant Stock to help on the case.

 

4.15 Starfire

Air date: April 13, 1989

Directed by: Bradford May

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Wendell Pierce, Michael Moriarty (Wayne “Seti” Virgil), George Plimpton, Angela Goethais (Amber), Deborah Hedwall

 

Michael Moriarty plays a mentally disturbed man who calls himself Seti and lives a fantasy life. A little girl who is drawn into his odd life becomes McCall's client when she asks him to help Seti. Despite his apparent certainty that Seti is just plain nuts, McCall persists and helps him back to the real life he is so desperate to avoid.

 

4.16 Time Present, Time Past

Air date: April 20, 1989

Directed by: Gordon Hessler

Written by: Tom Towler

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, William Zabka, Joe Morton, Shirley Knight (Kay), Brian Bedford (Harold Ross), Dennis Boutsikaris

 

McCall's son Scott takes a huge leap closer to following in his father's footsteps in this episode. When Scott manages to escape from an embassy where he and a friend, Harold Ross (played by Brian Bedford), are being kept, he demands to join the team, led by McCall, that is going back in to rescue Ross. McCall is extremely reluctant but surprisingly allows it. Scott must first face the gauntlet of training with Mickey and Brock. They both acknowledge to a nervous McCall that Scott has talent.

 

Meanwhile, McCall confronts his ex-wife Kay. He concedes to her that he should have left Agency long before he did. In the first season episode "Out Of The Past", McCall defended himself to her, saying that when their daughter died, he was there. Here he falls apart when trying to stage the same defense to her as they worry about the fate of their only surviving child.

 

During the raid on the embassy, Scott ends up shooting the man who kidnapped him and Ross. It is a stunning moment for him and for his father and clearly sets Scott on a darker path.

 

We never get to see what becomes of Scott but this episode takes him perhaps irreversibly into his father's work. McCall, in the end, seems resigned to this and so does Kay. I like to think Scott took over the Equalizer mantle when his father retired.

 

4.17 Prisoners Of Conscience

Air date: April 27, 1989

Directed by: Marc Laub

Written by: Robert Eisele

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Robert Lansing, Tim Woodward (William McCall), Pat Hingle (Waldo Jarrell), Dan O’Herlihy (Randall Payne), Tom Mardirosian, George McGrath

 

Though it comes about two-thirds into the final season, this episode is the moral conclusion of the show and reveals essential facts about McCall's past that bring to light the foundation of his convictions and unshakeable thirst for justice even though it causes him the pain of "the evil" within him that enables him to destroy those who commit great injustices.

 

When a poet in exile from his country is captured and tortured, McCall helps the young man's friend, a literature professor, played by the wonderful Pat Hingle, find him before it is too late. McCall learns early in the case that the man holding the poet is Randall Payne, played with unnerving, cold malice by Dan O'Herlihy, who killed McCall's father many years ago. McCall had thought him dead but the Agency, in perhaps its most traitorous act against McCall, hid the fact that Payne is still alive.

 

Control is concerned because he knows that McCall wants to kill Payne. There are clearly many things about McCall's past that even Control did not know. McCall says that he joined the British Army at 19 so he could serve like his father, William McCall. They served together in Egypt, but McCall's father was murdered by renegade soldiers after he confronted them about their unprincipled tactics in collecting information. This single fact, along with his mother's early death during which his father was absent, exposes the deep roots of the fury that has driven McCall all his life. McCall also reveals that his mother was an American entertainer and that his father suffered from familial and societal attitudes for having married her.

 

During the course of pursuing Payne, McCall has flashbacks of his father, played to great effect by Edward Woodward's son, Tim Woodward. In a powerful scene, McCall talks to his father about getting vengeance on Payne. His father tells him he cannot do this. When McCall finally confronts Payne, he has the choice of killing him and clearly comes very close to doing so, but he does not.

 

4.18 The Caper

Air date: May 4, 1989

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Tom Towler

Series and guest stars: Chad Redding, Maureen Stapleton (Emmy), Laura San Giacomo (Trudy Collins), Richard Hamilton, Michael Wincott, Alberta Watson, Lewis J. Stadien, Zach Grenier, Al Sheppard

 

Maureen Stapleton guest stars in an episode that strikes me as a mockery of the fluff that was Murder She Wrote. Stapleton plays Emmy, a senior obsessed with murder novels and who has a habit of thinking she sees a murder plot in random events she observes. However, she gets in way too deep for real and McCall tries to save her from herself as much as those who are after her.

 

Laura San Giacomo appears as a young Agency operative suggested to McCall by Kostmayer. Her unprofessional demeanor and dress unnerve McCall, but she proves more useful than she seems at first. This relationship bears a resemblance to the one in the show that Edward Woodward did after The Equalizer for CBS called Over My Dead Body which did not advance beyond its initial thirteen episodes.

 

4.19 Heart Of Justice

Air date: May 11, 1989

Directed by: Bradford May

Written by: Gail Morgan Hickman

Series and guest stars: Robert Joy, John Shepherd, Paul Guilfoyle, Joseph Hindy, Margaret Klenck, Eddie Jones, Judith Malina, Philip Bosco

 

McCall helps a young man, Michael, move beyond revenge as he pursues the men who have left his pregnant wife in a hopeless state and who get away on a technicality. The wife's sister turns to McCall fearing what her brother-in-law might do.

 

McCall walks a thin line with the police when they suspect Michael of murdering one of the men. When Michael expresses that he doesn't want to go on living, McCall chides him bluntly for his self-pity. In another scene of raw honesty, McCall must convince Michael to accept what has happened. McCall tells him about his daughter's death and says, "she must not be your only reason for living." In the end, McCall attends the baptism of Michael's daughter.

 

Along the way, McCall discovers a serial killer lost in a tragic cycle of revenge. McCall engages in a brutal game of psychological warfare with the killer despite having compassion for what triggered his "reign of terror."

 

Robert Joy returns as Jacob Stock, an Agency man who helps McCall from time to time. Paul Guilfoyle guests as an agent that McCall threatens for an analysis of recent crimes he believes to be the work of a vigilante.

 

4.20 Race Traitors

Air date: May 25, 1989

Directed by: Robert E. Warren

Written by: Donna Dottley Powers & Wayne Powers and Gail Morgan Hickman

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Robert Joy, Caroline Kava, Laurence Fishburne, David Andrews, Verna Bloom, Aleta Mitchell, Bruce Hubbard, Morgan H. Margolis, Michael Cerveris

 

McCall and Mickey help a young African-American couple (Laurence Fishburne guest stars as the husband) who are being dangerously harassed by racists. Mickey struggles with the assignment in his old neighborhood and confronts a friend who has changed dramatically.

 

Series regular Mark Margolis’s son Morgan plays a skinhead in this episode.

 

4.21 Endgame

Air date: August 10, 1989

Directed by: Alan Metzger

Written by: Coleman Luck

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Chad Redding, Elizabeth Berridge (Susan Wilhite), Amy Morton (Linda Wilhite), Lewis Van Bergen, Martin Shakar, Josef Sommer, Philip Kraus, Al Sheppard

 

Coleman Luck’s last episode pays homage to the British TV series Callan which starred Woodward as the title character. Woodward gained great fame in the UK and Australia through the show, which aired from 1967-1972. In Callan, Woodward’s spy had a great passion for war games.

 

McCall helps two sisters solve a murder for which one of them is suspected and a pattern of manipulation comes to light. The mastermind of this real-life war game is a man who engages in war games and has a room filled with the same kind of large game battlefield seen occasionally in Callan.

 

This episode and the following (last) episode aired in the fall of 1989.

 

4.22 Suicide Squad

Air date: August 24, 1989

Directed by: Marc Laub

Written by: Jacqueline Zambrano

Series and guest stars: Keith Szarabajka, Joe Morton, Ving Rhames, Adam Coleman Howard, Robert Swan, David Harris, Alyson Kirk, Regina Baff, Leo Burmester, Dan Moran

 

The season ends with a less-than-stellar episode about a young football player who turns to a vicious gang led by a thug played by Ving Rhames. McCall teaches the boy a brutal lesson about the path he is on.