Equals: Patricia Kalember
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Welcome to Equals, the ongoing column that takes a surprising amount of interest in guest stars from Edward Woodward's 1980s series The Equalizer.
Actor: Patricia Kalember
Role: Carlene Randall
Episode: Pilot (1985)
Best known for: Georgie on Sisters (1991-96)
Currently playing: Kate Egan in Power
Has she appeared on Law & Order?: Hell yes. She played "Leslie DeSantis" on an episode of Special Victims Unit in 2001 and went to appear as "Judge Taten" on nine more episodes from 2004-2010.
Robert Urich check: Kalember and Urich appeared together on Final Run (1999): "A new computer-controlled train loses control due to an error in the system and speeds out of control while Urich attempts to stop it." 3.9/10
These days, television pilots have an unseemly amount of work to do. There's a world to build, characters to introduce, and a plot that will keep audiences interested for at least a season. Even the flimsiest network procedurals have to Wire up their game or risk being blown away in the blizzard of Peak TV.
Welcome to the '80s, people. The Equalizer has no time for your medieval slashfests or superhero support dramas. In the pilot episode alone, The Equalizer, aka Robert McCall (Edward Woodward), helps not one but two people (he even squeezes in time to repair his relationship with his estranged son). The first mystery functions largely as a device to drag in McCall's buddies from The Agency and establish his bona fides as an International Man of Mystery. The second mystery establishes him as a Man of Honour who likes to protect women and children. Enter Patricia Kalember as successful Manhattan single mother Carlene Randall. She's being stalked by a floppy-haired hipster named Steve (Scott Burkholder).
Steve doesn't have the internet to stalk his prey with, so he resorts to analogue methods: phone calls, hanging out at her grocery store, breaking in and leaving messages in lipstick. The police are unhelpful, so she turns to The Equalizer for help.
For a one-off character, Carlene gets nearly as much screen time as McCall, and their paths don't even intersect for nearly half an hour. This gives us plenty of opportunities to watch Kalember to go from calm to unhinged in the space of a second. The acting is theatrical by modern television standards, but my god does she go for it. There's nothing quite like watching her scream "I'll stab you in the heart!" in the grocery store checkout line as the nefarious Steve the Gaslighter General looks on in feigned befuddlement.
The treatment of Kalember's character is not what you'd call woke. Although she points out that her situation is a basic nightmare ("Why should I have to change my whole life? He's the one who's destroying it"), the responsibility for dealing with Steve is handed off to a paternalistic McCall. "Look at me, Carlene. Look at me," he commands. "I. Will. Protect you."
In today's television arena, Carlene would have taken a course in self-defense, spent some time in the gym and beaten the living snot out of Steve. But since it's 1985, she spends most of her time weeping and throwing herself at The Equalizer, who brushes off her advances. "I'd like to get you know better," she says. "No you don't," The Equalizer replies dangerously.
Kalember also popped up in season two for "Coal Black Soul" as Dr. Stephanie Davis, in which she plays a potential love interest and therapist for McCall. Here's hoping she turns out to be an evil mastermind in the vein of Root.
