The Equalizer Season 5 Episode 4, “Sacrifice,” starts by showing us what happened three months ago during Harry (Adam Goldberg) and Fisk’s (Donal Logue) secret mission. The two were hacking the bad guys’ computers to get the information they needed to stop the cyberweapon from going live. However, they get intercepted and have to run away from gunshots. As they escape, Harry falls, and one of the guys catches up to him. Luckily, Fisk comes back to save him.
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In the present time, Robyn (Queen Latifah), Aunt Vi (Lorraine Toussaint) and Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes) are talking about her going to her friend’s party or staying home to work on her college essay. During the day, Aunt Vi checks in on Dee and finds her frustrated, not knowing what to write in her essay.
Later that night, Delilah tells them she has realized she doesn’t have writer’s block but has life’s block. She feels stuck, always doing the right thing and being responsible. Now, she has decided to use her senior year as the time to be reckless.
The Equalizer, “Sacrifice”
After three months, Harry finally cracks the encrypted drive but discovers someone has introduced a distress signal, saying they are in danger and asking for help. When he tells Fisk about it, he tells him to forget about the person and focus on how the hacking program works and how to stop it.
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Later, Harry shares the same information with our Equalizer. He explains there is an SOS code and that the hacker is probably working against his own will. He tells her the codes the hacker has written and how he is fooling whoever has him and stalling the system. When Fisk shows up, he tells them those messages are from three months ago, so the hacker is probably dead by now, and the program is finished.
However, after that, we see the hacker being kept in a cage with multiple computers while being watched by several armed men. One of the men (the one who has the key to the cage) tells him if the program isn’t finished that day, he will be killed.
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Harry continues to argue with Fisk about saving the young man. Even though Fisk wants to focus on finding the bad guys, Harry feels connected to the hacker because he was once like that. He tells them when he was young, bad people discovered his skills and used them against him. The only way to escape everything was to enlist in the army. So, he wants to save the kid and will go against Fisk’s orders.
Mel’s Progress
While Harry is trying to decipher the code, Mel (Liza Lapira) and Robyn are talking about Mel’s time in therapy. She doesn’t want to keep going, but Robyn tells her it helped her once, so she should give it another shot. However, things don’t go as Robyn planned.
During her therapy session, Mel talks about the military and her family not wanting her to enlist. When the therapist pushes to find out why Mel truly joined the military, she gets upset and walks out.
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As she walks back into the bar, she runs into Fisk and asks him what he’s doing there. Fisk refuses to tell her about the case because she is no longer part of the team. Extremely upset, Mel goes down to Harry’s cave for the first time since she decided not to be a part of the team anymore. At first, Harry hesitates to tell her what’s going on because of her recovery.
A Bad Idea
Once Harry starts telling her about the Hacker, she understands he wants to help because he sees himself reflected in this kid. The two begin brainstorming ideas on how to find him and narrow down the evidence. By doing this, they discover a prescription under his name in a pharmacy in town.
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When they have the address, Mel says she will go with Harry but quickly realizes that might be a bad idea. Instead, she watches Robyn and Harry through the cameras. Even though she cannot see them breaking into the room and getting the kid out of the cage, she can see the bad guys arriving. Because Harry doesn’t answer his phone, she decides to grab the gun from the bar and go to their rescue on The Equalizer Season 5 Episode 4, “Sacrifice.”
Fisk’s Trust Issues
As the men discover the hacker isn’t in his cage, Robyn and Harry start shooting their way out of the warehouse. They hide behind cars and discover they are out of bullets. That is when Mel shows up to save the day. She shoots most of the bad guys and drives Harry and Jason away.
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Mel, Harry and Jason meet Fish and Robyn at a different location. When they arrive, Jason realizes that his CIA contact has been Fisk. He recruited Jason to infiltrate the Dragonfly Collective and get his hands on their Bitcoin. This discovery leads Robyn and Harry to argue with Fisk about his trust issues and how he should have trusted them. Even though he knows they are right, Fisk claims he has to keep everything to himself as lonely as it is because it’s the only way to save everyone.
The Exchange
After this conversation, Jason says he stalled as much as possible but had to finish the cyberweapon. The only way to find out what the bad guys are doing is to hack them again, and they discover the program he created has already been sold. Following Harry’s suggestion, they go through the last DMs and find where the exchange will be.
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Even though Harry doesn’t want Jason near the exchange, they convince him to stay with Jason nearby because he has to ID the man doing the transaction. As the two of them are locked in a room, Harry says he sees himself in Jason and advises him to get out of the online world and find real friends. That is when Jason sees the guy who had locked him up.
At first, they believe they have to catch that guy to get the hard drive, but they soon realize there is an exchange happening right in front of them. When they make their presence known, they start fighting the bad guys, so Harry has to leave Jason alone to help the rest of the team.
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Jason in Danger
The man who purchased the hard drive is dead, but Jason is upset that the man who kidnapped him is getting away. He decides to follow him into the pier. Harry, Mel and Robyn go after Jason, while Fisk says he needs to get the hard drive to a safe location.
While the trio tries to get a shot of the bad guy, Fisk shows up and says he will exchange the hard drive for the kid. The only way the man agrees to let Jason go is if Fisk brings the hard drive and becomes his shield. Robyn has to tie Fisk’s hands, and that is when he tells her he always has a plan.
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As we see him get on a boat with the bad guys, Harry says he doesn’t understand why Fisk would give himself and the hard drive when he said it was so important to protect him. At the same time that Robyn screams for Fisk, we see the bad guy pulling a bomb out of the bag Fisk gave him and the boat exploding with him in it.
Later, the three of them are at the bar with Jason, talking about how they can’t believe Fisk is gone. They all conclude that he would always do anything for the greater good, including sacrificing himself. As they continue discussing the case, Mel announces she is ready to return to The Equalizer team.
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Dante Is Back in Town
Right before the case starts on The Equalizer, Dante (Tory Kittles) shows up at Mel’s bar and tells Robyn that he came into town because his father isn’t doing great. Before the two of them can talk any further, Dante leaves for the hospital, but Mel points out that there’s something special about him coming to see Robyn first.
Robyn skips her lunch with Miles — telling him a friend needs her help — to visit Dante in the hospital. The two of them talk about his father and how he believes he will be dying soon. Robyn encourages him to speak to his father about his feelings even if he thinks he isn’t listening.
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Moments later, the doctor tells Dante that his father is awake. When Dante walks into his room, his father doesn’t recognize him. He stays in the hospital, explaining to his dad who he is and the family he has. When his father asks if the two of them are close and if he could share memories of them, Dante tells him to rest instead.
After closing the case, Robyn shows up at the hospital again. While Dante believes this is another chance his father gets to escape his past, Robyn tells him it might be a sign to use this as a fresh start and build the relationship he always wanted with his father. However, Dante says it might be a chance to walk away and never look back.
Later, when Robyn gets home and tells Aunt Vi about her canceled lunch with Miles, Aunt Vi tells her to take care of her feelings. She believes Dante is too much like Robyn and always puts other people’s needs above his own.
The Equalizer airs on Sundays on CBS.
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