Star Tory Kittles On The Equalizer's Massive Plot Twist & Confronting Dante And McCall's Relationship

Warning: SPOILERS for The Equalizer season 4, episode 8.

Summary Actor Tory Kittles talks about Dante's emotional struggles in The Equalizer over a secret sibling and father's betrayal.

The show often delves into complex relationships and character choices, with season 4 hitting particularly hard.

The Equalizer has already been renewed for season 5, allowing the stories to simmer.

The most recent installment of The Equalizer features guest star Danny Johnson as Big Ben, who reveals a family secret that may permanently dismantle his relationship with Dante. Believing that he will succumb to his gunshot wound, Big Ben explains his absence during Dante's childhood, admitting that he has another son. The news comes as a shock to Tory Kittles' character and makes the detective question his professional abilities.

Kittles was made aware of the plot twist early on and was excited to explore Big Ben and Dante's dynamic further. The father-son relationship was already strained, and the actor admits that Dante may never get past the extensive lie. However, Kittles teases that more will be revealed about Dante's secret sibling as the season continues.

Related The Equalizer Season 5: Confirmation & Everything We Know The Queen Latifah-led action series The Equalizer has already seen four explosive seasons so far, and now it returns for season 5.

Screen Rant interviewed Tory Kittles about Dante's relationship with Big Ben, confronting Dante's truth serum confession, and pushing the envelope in upcoming seasons of The Equalizer.

Dante Is "At A Crossroads" With His Father

Screen Rant: Congratulations on being renewed for season 5!

Tory Kittles: It's very exciting news. The whole team is excited about that, and the fans have been letting us know that they're excited about that. So it's a win-win for everyone.

This was a big episode for Dante. What was your reaction when you got the script?

Tory Kittles: As always, the writers are so great on our show. Joe Wilson leads a great team of writers, and they come up with these amazing ideas. Before the season started, Joe and I talked about bringing Big Ben back into the fray and how they were going to do it. I thought it was just an amazing opportunity for Dante to get deeper into it with his father. We have the great Danny Johnson, who plays Big Ben, and it's always a joy and a pleasure to work with him. So to be able to dig deeper into the scenes with him was pretty special.

Speaking of Big Ben, Dante obviously has very complicated feelings towards his father. What were your thoughts on their relationship prior to this reveal?

Tory Kittles: Dante was already hesitant to let his father back into his life. His father has let him down so many times growing up, but now, as Dante is a father looking out for his kids, Big Ben has let Dante's kids down. And that's the thing that Dante can't allow. That's really the struggle of, "I want my father to be a part of my children's lives, but I know who my father is, and my father is not someone who's reliable. And because he is the way he is, I don't want him around my children. I have to protect them." That's the first thing. But you don't get to choose your family. You just have to deal with them or not deal with them. And that's where Dante is at a crossroads, deciding whether or not having this relationship with his father is worth it.

Dante May Never Be Able To Forgive Big Ben's Betrayal

A huge bombshell dropped in this episode. Did you know Dante had a brother ahead of time, or did you find out as you were reading the script?

Tory Kittles: I knew ahead of time. I knew going in that it was going to come up at some point in the scope of this season. And then when it showed up, I was like, "Oh, this is so great." Dante is trying to do a good thing by taking his father to the funeral of his former partner, and then they're ambushed by these suspicious attackers, and both of their paths come back to haunt him in this moment. So while there's this action-packed movement happening throughout the story, you get this emotional catharsis that's also unfolding. And then that's met with this secret that just upends Dante's whole thinking about who his father is. Who is his father? What does he really mean to him? His whole idea of who he thought his father was has just gotten more complex.

If Dante had grown up knowing he had a brother, do you think that may have changed his relationship with his father for the better?

Tory Kittles: I don't necessarily know if it would have changed for the better, but I think, given the time, if he would have found out this secret earlier, he could have processed it in a different way by now. Growing up knowing you have a brother, even if you don't have a relationship, but that seed of, "Hey, I have someone who's my brother out there," maybe Dante would have gotten the chance to even reach out to this person and have a relationship, or at least get to meet them. But that's been taken away from him because of a lie, and that's a betrayal that Dante can't forgive. It's a shock to him when he learns this—that this person, this man, who even though Dante knows is unreliable, even though he knows he's not trustworthy while the stakes have been raised, he's kept this tremendously huge secret away from you. But it also informs everything about the relationship that you have with him. He wasn't there for you, but he was there for somebody else. All those nights that you thought he was at work, he was with an entirely different family. That's a lot to make sense of, and that's where Dante is left. Even at the end of this episode, he's trying to make sense of his relationship with his father because they have no trust. Everything has been blown up in this episode.

Dante says he feels like a fool. I can't imagine anyone predicting they have a secret sibling, so could you give some insight into why he thinks that about himself?

Tory Kittles: Him feeling like a fool relates to him being a detective, him following facts, him following human behavior. You do assessments as a detective, you do assessments on people, personalities, human behavior, even with your relatives and your family. He feels like a fool because, even though he knew all of these things about his father, he knew about his corruption when he was a detective, he knew that he wasn't a person who he could trust he. His father never really showed up for him. But even in that, he could never think that there was an entirely different situation going on outside of the work scope. So learning that, Dante is like, "How could I have missed that? How could I have missed this thing that now actually make sense?" But then that speaks to how great of a liar Big Ben has been.

Will we learn more about Dante's brother in upcoming episodes?

Tory Kittles: We will.

The Equalizer Will Finally Confront Dante's Truth Serum Confession About McCall

There are some really heavy action scenes in this episode, from shootouts to car chases. Can you give any behind-the-scenes insight on filming those?

Tory Kittles: We took some really big swings with the action in this episode. We have an amazing stunt team who came in. We did this huge car chase scene, we're whipping in and out and around cars, and things are flying at us. It's very action-packed. That's a tribute to the producers on the show who said, "Hey, let's go there. Let's make this as big as we can possibly make it." And then our stunt team and everybody came in and just said, "Alright, let's get it done." It all came together in a magnificent way.

McCall says the life that she's chosen doesn't leave room for relationships, but I would say a rather good point is made about a certain detective relating to her lifestyle. What could this mean for McCall and Dante?

Tory Kittles: You are very astute. Going forward, they are going to finally confront Dante's truth serum confession. They're going to figure out what comes next. What I love about the way we've built up to this is that myself and Queen Latifah have been getting it every time we're in the streets. People want to know, "Alright, enough is enough. What's going to happen with McCall and Dante? We want them to get together. We want to know." So we're finally going to confront that. And I can't tell you what's going to happen, but I can tell you that it's going to be very revealing for both of them. But they both are going to have to take leaps of faith, and they're going to have to make big, big choices about their futures.

Now that you've been renewed for season 5, is there a plotline that you would like to see explored for Dante that hasn't been done yet?

Tory Kittles: We actually have talked about some things that we can get into. Joe Wilson, our showrunner, is such a great collaborator. We have such great producers, starting with Queen Latifah and her team at Flavor Unit, and Debra Martin Chase, and everybody at CBS. We're going to push the envelope, and we're going to continue to open up the scope of the show. We realize that this is an international show, and we're speaking to millions across the globe. We really want to continue to ride that wave and give audiences what they want. I look forward to that. I look forward to getting bigger and better and continuing to find the nuance in each of these characters.

About The Equalizer

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The Equalizer is a reimagining of the classic series starring Academy Award® nominee and multi-hyphenate Queen Latifah (“Chicago,” “Bessie”) as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills as a former CIA operative to help those with nowhere else to turn. McCall presents to most as an average single mom who is quietly raising her teenage daughter. But to a trusted few, she is The Equalizer – an anonymous guardian angel and defender of the downtrodden, who’s also dogged in her pursuit of personal redemption.

The Equalizer airs Sundays at 8pm ET on CBS.