Protect and Serve

The onetime action-hungry sharpshooter Mel (Liza Lapira) has taken her finger off the trigger in the premiere of The Equalizer‘s fifth installment.

The series picks up two months after she quit the equalizing team led by Robyn McCall (Queen Latifah) in the May finale after the trauma of being kidnapped and nearly killed by two brothers avenging the death of their father. They believed Mel had shot him without reason in a wartime raid. To get Mel back in the game, “it would have to be life or death. She would have to be backed up against the wall,” reveals Lapira. Not an unlikely scenario in this fast-moving drama.

The actress previewed the new season for us during a break from filming the action drama on a Brooklyn pier.

In the premiere, McCall, the “defender of the defenseless” races to rescue two siblings who run into trouble after stealing a grocery truck carrying firearms. Does Mel get involved?

Liza Lapira: In the first episode, Mel’s still in healing mode [doing meditation, yoga, attending her veterans’ support group, and tending her successful New York bar] and is very separate and apart from the case. She’s working on herself. So, it’s not a quick thing where it’s solved in one or two episodes. It’s all kinds of unsafe for her to come back. It’s emotionally unsafe. It’s physically unsafe because she’s not emotionally ready. She’s not on her game as a sharpshooter. If her hands are trembling, she’s endangering her life. If she’s hesitant to pull the trigger while protecting her friends and her husband, that risks their life.

Can Mel really keep out of the action?

Robyn has a great line pretty early on that says, “There’s no way Mel’s going to stay away for very long. Helping people is in that woman’s DNA.” I love that line because it’s true and it foreshadows what happens. It’s just her personality. It’s just a matter of how and when.

Does Mel have the full support of her husband, hacker Harry (Adam Goldberg) who’s still working for the equalizer?

Harry is very supportive. As much as he values the work that they all do with Robyn, his relationship with Mel has been a priority for him — for both of them. They are very good at compartmentalizing their marriage versus the work.

The fourth installment ended with Robyn’s love interest, Det. Marcus Dante (Tory Kittles), leaving town, with her tearful blessing, for a new job. Is it hard for Robyn not to lean on Mel?

Robyn wants Mel to be a hundred percent emotionally healthy, but at the same time, McCall’s losing her right-hand woman quite literally. Someone that helps save her life, protect her life. It makes Robyn, physically vulnerable, emotionally vulnerable, and then there’s all that other stuff with Detective Marcus that’s going on. So yeah, I think Robin’s definitely starting in a vulnerable state as well.

How do Mel’s other relationships change? 

Mel and Dee [Laya DeLeon Hayes], [Robyn’s daughter] share a common way of dealing with trauma. They bond over it and hang out more.

Did you talk to the series writers about this storyline?

We talked about how people deal with trauma or post-traumatic stress. What support is available to them? We also talked about therapy and how Mel would react to that. I don’t think it’s going to go the way people imagine.

Could you draw from any personal experience?

I come from a family of helpers. My mother used to run a bereavement group. I firsthand know the power of a group of people sharing that devastating shared experience and the healing that can come just from amongst people. That translates. It’s nice for Mel to get help from the [support group] that she started. Sometimes when people are so used to helping the helpers, they don’t know how to receive the help, or it feels disjointed to them. They’re so used to being on the giving end.

Considering one of Mel’s attackers had been undercover in that group, is it hard for her to go back?

She feels safe. The greater good of it is that looms larger. He was an anomaly. There’s not a lot of fear. just her emotional vulnerability.

What was your reaction last season when you first learned about this traumatic shooting from Mel’s military past?

I loved the discovery. I had already assumed there were a lot of things in the back of her mind. I just invented the terrible circumstances, the reasons she left [the military]. When the writers told me that this was a skeleton in the closet, I was excited. I love the idea of normalizing getting help when you are not feeling right. When you’re physically not feeling right, it’s normalized to go see someone. When you’re mentally not feeling right — still in this day and age — it’s a stigma. Any story I can be a part of where it’s normalized and validated, that the pain is real and needs to be addressed, is a treat. I don’t know where this is going to go [for Mel]. Grief, trauma, stress. It’s not a linear upward line. There’s ups and downs.

You mentioned that it would take a specific “how and when” to have Mel jump back into the action. Can you hint about what would look like?

Post-traumatic stress or trauma is not solved in a day [but] we don’t have that much runway as a show to have this character — that protects the equalizer — fully heal. It has to be that Mel jumps in sooner than she’d like. And then we’d have to see the repercussions of A) when she does it, B) how she does it, C) does it go well, and D) does she do it again or is it just a one-time thing? That storyline will be really intriguing as it unfolds throughout the season.

The Equalizer, Season 5 Premiere, Sunday, October 20, 9:30/8:30c, CBS