It follows Marine Corps veteran and retired DIA officer Robert McCall as he sets out on a path of revenge after one of his friends is murdered.

After taking down Pushkin's operations,[a] Robert McCall works as a driver for Lyft and assists the less fortunate with the help of his close friend and former DIA colleague Susan Plummer.

With the assistance of Susan, Robert gathers information for Sam Rubinstein, an elderly Holocaust survivor looking to recover a painting of his long-dead sister.

After Robert returns home to find that his apartment's courtyard has been vandalized, he accepts an offer from Miles Whittaker, a troubled teen resident with artistic talent, to paint a mural on the walls.

Susan and DIA officer Dave York, Robert's former partner, are called to investigate the murder-suicide of an agency affiliate and his wife in Brussels.

Robert determines that the expertly delivered fatal knifing means that Susan was targeted and that the murder-suicide was also staged, informing Dave of his findings.

Monitoring the apartment via webcams, Robert directs Miles to hide in a secret safe room and makes a call to Dave to lure him away.

Dave deduces that Robert has gone to his evacuated stormy seaside hometown (ostensibly, Brant Rock, Massachusetts).

Once there, Kovac, Ari, and Resnik start searching the town in hurricane winds while Dave positions himself on top of the watchtower.

Miles finishes painting the mural on the apartment complex's brick wall, returns to school, and focuses on his art.

On February 24, 2014, seven months before the release of The Equalizer, it was announced that Sony Pictures and Escape Artists were planning a sequel, with Richard Wenk penning the script again.

[4][5] In early October 2014, Antoine Fuqua stated that there would be a sequel to the film only if audiences and Denzel Washington wanted it.

[10] On August 24, 2017, Ashton Sanders joined the film to play a character who comes to consider Washington's McCall a father figure.

The website's critical consensus reads: "The Equalizer 2 delivers the visceral charge of a standard vigilante thriller, but this reunion of trusted talents ultimately proves a disappointing case study in diminishing returns.

[2] David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a "C−", saying: "The good news is that fans of Antoine Fuqua's The Equalizer—a bland and pulpy 2014 riff on the '80s TV series of the same name—are in for more of the same.

"[27] In August 2018, Fuqua announced his plans to continue the film series, expressing interest in the plot taking place in an international setting.