New York’s toughest vigilante is hanging up her badge. CBS yanked the plug on The Equalizer, the Queen Latifah-led crime drama, after five seasons, with the ax falling just two days before its May 4, 2025, finale. The announcement hit fans like a sucker punch, especially after the show topped a USA TODAY poll where 47% of voters begged for a sixth season. But the network’s decision was final, and the episode titled “Decisions” will now serve as the series’ last stand.
Latifah, who starred as Robyn McCall—a former CIA operative doling out justice to the desperate—didn’t stay quiet. On Instagram, she poured her heart out to her 8.2 million followers, posting a photo of McCall in action, backed by Cleo Sol’s soulful Know That You Are Loved. “Stepping into a kick-ass role like Robyn was everything I hoped it would be,” she wrote. She called the show’s five-season run “surreal” and said it “blew past every dream” she and her producing partner, Shakim Compere, had at their company, Flavor Unit. Her message wasn’t just a goodbye—she threw in a promise: “Don’t worry—I’ll be back kicking ass in something new real soon.”
The show, a gritty reboot of the 1980s series, premiered in 2021 after the Super Bowl, filmed in Latifah’s home turf of New Jersey—Jersey City, Paterson, and the Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford. It was a hit out the gate, with Latifah breaking barriers as only the fourth Black woman to headline a primetime network drama. Alongside co-stars Tory Kittles, Adam Goldberg, Liza Lapira, Laya DeLeon Hayes, and Lorraine Toussaint, she tackled social justice issues through McCall’s missions, helping those with nowhere else to turn. But ratings slipped over time, landing the show mid-pack among CBS’s lineup this season, despite producers slashing the budget and Latifah herself reportedly taking a pay cut to keep it alive.
Talks of a sixth season—a shortened 13-episode farewell—had been swirling, but CBS passed. A spinoff starring Titus Welliver and Juani Feliz, teased in an April 20 episode, also got the boot. The network’s 2025-26 slate, set to be unveiled on May 7, will lean on new shows like Sheriff Country, Boston Blue, CIA, and DMV, while veterans like Blue Bloods, S.W.A.T., and FBI: Most Wanted also face the chopping block.
Latifah, a Newark native and Emmy winner, thanked the cast, crew, writers, and fans, calling them “so loyal, so loud, and so ride-or-die.” Fans can stream all five seasons on Paramount+, with the finale airing Sunday at 10 p.m. ET. Whether McCall’s story gets picked up elsewhere or rebooted again, one thing’s clear: Queen Latifah’s not done fighting.