This case reunites Robyn with Dante, and it’s difficult to overstate how much more interesting that relationship is than the one between Robyn and William. If they’re not going to be believed anyway, aren’t they better preserving whatever they can? Maya’s father, for instance, runs the gamut from murderous rage to being presented with more money than he has ever seen in his life – “The Room Where It Happens” does a good job of rationalizing why so many would embrace the lie rather than the truth.

That’s not to say it isn’t vital, obviously, but the episode recognizes that it has to approach the topic from a slightly new angle, and it chooses to focus particularly on how creeps like Reade target ambitious and vulnerable young women and how the cycle of public shame and the allure of life-changing bribes contribute to a culture of silence. Obviously, sexual assault in the workplace, particularly in a culture like politics where power and influence can be absolute, is nothing new as thematic territory. The real crux of The Equalizer episode 6 comes down to whether she’s willing to jeopardize her political future by airing out this dirty laundry – which of course she is. (Melanie has a particularly close connection to this case, it seems, though “The Room Where it Happens” doesn’t go into it) join the dots between one slim brunette woman and the next, they also learn that Keller herself was one of his first victims.

Maya is the latest, but she was far from the first, and as Robyn and co. Petrus is on Reade’s payroll and presumably has been forever, helping to cover up a litany of naïve young political interns who Reade coerced, raped, and silenced with non-disclosure agreements and hefty payouts.

Petrus is known to employ his heavy-handed tactics on the campaign trail, which only makes sense since Maya was interning in the office of Sinead Keller, an AOC-style beacon of progressivism who is intimately tied to a political consultant named Elijah Reade whose nickname is “The Queenmaker” thanks to his diligent efforts in empowering female candidates. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened to Maya, especially after the discovery of her contact with an ex-cop turned fixer named Zev Petrus.

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