The Equalizer Season 5 Episode 9, “Stolen Angel,” starts with a woman who arrives at a house that is seemingly not hers and starts yelling for her friend. At the same time, we see her friends being taken out the back door by a masked person.
The next morning, Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes) walks into the kitchen and asks her mom if she can go to Cam’s pop-up sale, but Robyn (Queen Latifah) says no, and the teenager storms off. Shortly after, Robyn leaves for her breakfast date with Dante (Tory Kittles). Even though the date is cut short because of work, Dante tells her he read his father’s letters. He’s meeting with his brother.
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The Equalizer, “Stolen Angel”
Later that day, Robyn meets with the woman who suspects her friend Maya has been taken. Maya reached out to her friend and asked her to come home for a while. The friend says that she has already spoken to the police but has a feeling they won’t do much. There’s not a lot of support for women working on turning their lives around.
Harry (Adam Goldberg) starts looking into Maya’s life. He discusses possibilities of what might have happened to her with Mel (Liza Lapira) before she meets Robyn at Maya’s house. Once there, Mel finds a syringe and wonders if Maya could be using again. However, that theory is quickly forgotten as Robyn finds medication for preeclampsia and a stash of diapers and baby items in the cupboard.
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Even though there’s no security footage of what happened to Maya, the team does find she has been receiving money from a charity that helps low-income pregnant women. Maya has also been attending all prenatal checkups at a nearby clinic.
Mel and Robyn Teaming Up
When Mel and Robyn approach the doctor at the clinic, he doesn’t give them any information. However, an eavesdropping nurse tells them Maya has an extreme case of preeclampsia. She needs to be found immediately. She also tells them that at her last appointment, there was a man arguing with Maya about money. To find out who the man is, the two women steal the check-in signing sheet.
Once they figure out who the man is, Robyn and Mel show up at his apartment. As they find him blindfolded and tied to a chair, a group of men shows up, pointing their guns at the two women. The duo fights the men and wins the battle, so they get to interrogate the other man about Maya. He claims they were arguing because he asked Maya for money, but she never showed up when the money needed to be delivered.
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Later, Harry finds footage of Maya arriving at a café followed by a blonde woman. While the woman wants to talk to her, Maya runs away, terrified. The trio tracks down the woman and finds out she is married to a man who has been paying the same charity giving Maya money for her pregnancy.
An Illegal Adoption of Stolen Angels
Mel and Robyn approach the couple about following Maya and their funds into the charity. The two say they are adopting Maya’s baby and have been paying for prenatal care. The woman admits she shouldn’t have approached Maya because it was a closed adoption, but when she called her lawyer about it, he said everything was fine, and the baby was being delivered that night.
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When Harry finds the name of the lawyer the couple mentioned, he discovers he is connected to five other adoptions related to the same charity. The women meet with one of the moms on the list and discover she believes her son is dead. She mentions the clinic called her because they were worried about her tests, and when she arrived, they told her the baby needed to be delivered. The woman had an emergency c-section, and when she woke up, they told her her baby was stillborn.
She also mentions it’s her fault her baby died because she was an addict; it was the clinic that got this idea into her mind. By the time they’re done talking to her, Robyn and Mel come to the conclusion that her baby is probably alive and what the lawyer and the clinic are doing is stealing babies from women with substance abuse issues.
Nurse Regina
Mel and Robyn confront the doctor again, but he denies knowing what’s going on. When Robyn pulls a gun on him, he confesses that everything was nurse Regina’s idea and he did it because he believed the babies would have a better life. Because it wasn’t his decision to make, Mel tells him NYPD is on their way to arrest him.
Harry quickly finds the place where Maya is being kept. By the time the duo arrives, Robyn hears Regina saying they will kill Maya because nobody cares about her. When Robyn tries to reason with her, Regina confesses she’s been doing this because her mother was a drug addict, and she doesn’t want the same for the baby. That is when Mel shoots Regina, and Robyn stops the lawyer from escaping.
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Later that night, Robyn visits Maya, her baby and friend at the hospital. Maya shares that she got into college and is taking online classes because she wants to take care of her baby. Robyn promises they’re doing everything they can to find the other babies and reunite them with their mothers.
Dante Meeting James
The first thing Dante and his brother do when they meet is argue about who knows what’s best for their father. The argument is cut short when Big Ben appears, seemingly happy to see his boys finally together. As their father complains about the food in the new facility, Dante tells him not to worry because he won’t be there long.
James pulls his brother away to discuss this statement, but before they can come to an agreement, they realize their father is missing. Dante asks for Harry’s help, and all he can find is footage of Big Ben getting into a subway. When Dante shares this information with James, they realize their father might be going to a park he used to take them.
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The Next Step
As the two men arrive at the park, they start talking about a pizza place their father used to take them to. They realize their experiences with their father are completely different. Dante still holds Big Ben’s past over him, but James has chosen to forgive him because he always knew his father loved him. He also mentions Big Ben always praised Dante, but when Dante asks why James never reached out as an adult, he says he wanted nothing to do with the man who didn’t visit their father in prison.
Ultimately, Big Ben is at the pizza shop. He mentions seeing the two of them together triggered a memory and all he could do was find his way to that pizza place. He remembers bringing them there separately. As the memories slowly start coming back, Big Ben apologizes for letting them down.
After returning their father to the facility, the brothers decide to figure out the next step together. Dante also invites James to meet his sons whenever his schedule allows it.
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Delilah’s Temper
Aunt Vi (Lorraine Toussaint) and Delilah are cooking when their neighbor knocks on the door to complain about the smell. Instead of talking to him, Delilah goes off on a rant about everything he always complains about. When Aunt Vi tries to speak to her about it, the teenager storms off to her room.
Later, Aunt Vi goes into her room and asks her what’s going on. Even though she claims not to know, Delilah starts talking about the big decisions she has to make regarding college. She feels overwhelmed and is scared by all the new things coming. While Aunt Vi validates her feelings, she also tells her it’s wrong to take out her frustration on others.
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Once dinner is ready, the neighbor knocks on their door again to complain about their music. Instead of arguing with him, Delilah asks about what he used to do before he retired. That leads to her asking for his help with a switch in the bathroom and promising to spread the word about an electrician in the neighborhood. As a thank you for helping them out, she asks him to stay for dinner.
By the time Robyn arrives home, Delilah heads to bed. Aunt Vi tells her niece that Delilah is going through growing pains. The night ends with Robyn and Dante talking about his day with his brother on the phone.
The Equalizer airs on Sundays on CBS.
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