26

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Well I didn't see that coming. I am now onboard with @WilliamDrakeMcGregor suggestion in his spoiler.

27

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

2x7. Not my favorite episode - too much drama - but okay overall.

With only one episode remaining this season, I have no idea how they'll bring it to a satisfying conclusion! smile

28

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

lighton wrote:

2x7. Not my favorite episode - too much drama - but okay overall.

With only one episode remaining this season, I have no idea how they'll bring it to a satisfying conclusion! smile

+1

29

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

lighton wrote:

With only one episode remaining this season, I have no idea how they'll bring it to a satisfying conclusion! smile

...but - lo and behold - they did it! yikes yikes

Turns out the https://next-episode.net/narcos side story I had expected wasn't even needed...

Spoiler

...and we got TONS of fighting! Looked expensive. smile <3

30

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Well this series finished with a bang. 2x8 made up for 2x7.

31

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Found this on https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/ … on-3-news/ :

Zoe Saldaña told Vanity Fair in November that she “signed up for three seasons at least,” which also hints that a third season might be underway. Details are yet to be confirmed.

I hope season 3 gets confirmed ASAP! smile

32

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

The last episode was certainly entertaining, and it definitely fullfilled my action requirements smile
So for all intents and purposes the season was good.

Even though he was only in three episodes, best character for me was Cody (Taylor Sheridan). He played his role perfectly.

On the other hand, the story lacked a bit...

The last episode

Spoiler

came down to a big firefight. They are operating already under questionable orders and what do they do? They allow Joe on the operation, who is not fit for duty at all, and also use Cruise as a Gunner...who has no experience at all as Gunner?
Since this became a purely military operation in the end, it would only make sense to sent in people best suited for the job...Neither Joe nor Cruise had to be there for that.

Maybye, if they had used an experienced Gunner, the convoy would've been eliminated on the first run and the heli wouldn't have gone down?
Coming to think of it, wouldn't it have been better to set an ambush on the ground and use the heli for exfill instead? This way the heli wouldn't have been exposed to fire from the ground...I have no idea of strategy or tactics though...

In the end, apart from the firefight, we didn't get any insight as to what the result of all their efforts and pain was.

Joe's husband forgiving her like that...meh... I wished, after he said "You will always have a place to come home to" and he hugged her he whispers in her ear "I just won't be there to greet you anymore" or something like that.

The season overall

Spoiler

The name change from "Special Ops: Lioness" to just "Lioness" was very misleading. Same goes for the premise.
After all, we hardly got to see a Lioness in action (I wouldn't call Carrillo a Lioness at all).
Actually, it would have been more accurate to scratch the "Lioness" and call it "Special Ops" with this season smile

I never got the feeling that Joe was the Special Agent in charge. Especially in the last episode she basically took a back seat to Dawn Olivieri's character who coordinated the attack.
She was also imho too emotional. I want her to be the hardass she was in Season 1. Here she either cried or lost her temper.

Cruise and Carrillo...seriously? Yes, if there are two LGBTQ characters in a show they have to hook up...impossible to think otherwise....meh.

We never got to see the real bad guy, which I think is important for a show like this.
The uncle was certainly "a" bad guy, but not the orchestrator of the whole situation. His death was also very disappointing.
The blindfolded guy was probably just a middleman.
Without a bad guy it was just soldiers killing soldiers (poor choice of words, but don't know how else to say this). Therefore no real consequences were felt at the end - apart from that stewing phone call...

Deserved more runtime:
Abbys | Dead Like Me | Devs | Firefly | Gangsta. | Jack of all Trades | Kevin (probably) saves the World | Lodge 49 | Mrs. Davis | NYC 22 | Powerless | Roadkill | Special Unit 2 | Stumptown | Surface | The Brave | The Crazy Ones | The Finder | The Middleman | Truth Seekers | Two Weeks to Live | Whiskey Cavalier

https://next-episode.net/user/WilliamDrakeMcGregor/

33

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Lioness’ Officially Renewed for Season 3 After Long Wait:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv … 236389841/

34

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Lioness | Season 3 Official Teaser | Paramount+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNRQ0PR4a8U

6 weeks to go smile

Deserved more runtime:
Abbys | Dead Like Me | Devs | Firefly | Gangsta. | Jack of all Trades | Kevin (probably) saves the World | Lodge 49 | Mrs. Davis | NYC 22 | Powerless | Roadkill | Special Unit 2 | Stumptown | Surface | The Brave | The Crazy Ones | The Finder | The Middleman | Truth Seekers | Two Weeks to Live | Whiskey Cavalier

https://next-episode.net/user/WilliamDrakeMcGregor/

35

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

WilliamDrakeMcGregor wrote:

Lioness | Season 3 Official Teaser | Paramount+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNRQ0PR4a8U

6 weeks to go smile

Thanks, looks promising! smile

36

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

3x1

Impressive! Looked like a huge budget for a single episode. smile

Very small criticism:

Spoiler

- when the bad guys rammed her car from behind, wasn't the obvious solution to hit the gas to get away?
- did they really put an old Dodge pickup truck next to the house in the "Ukrainian" warzone? lol

37 (edited by dmunded 2026-08-02 15:30:14)

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Spoiler

re:

- when the bad guys rammed her car from behind, wasn't the obvious solution to hit the gas to get away?

Yeah, had the same question …

38 (edited by g371 2026-08-02 17:30:47)

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

S03E01, the lovely American logic:

Spoiler

"in a war that has nothing to do with us". 3 min later: pls come to the Hormuz Strait and also help securing our bases against drone attacks, we need help, lmao.

Criticisms more than enough:

Spoiler

Sterile trenches
Unreal hundreds of drones and  none are attacking
Nobody is shooting dogs
Grenades can and do fly in both directions
BS that they cannot hear suppressed fire from 100m
"they are Delta" + lala cringy rambo talk big_smile

From all that battle scene the only realistic thing was North Koreans running WW1 style against machine guns and that artillery don't care about their greatness. Basically if drone operator would see a picture how was shown as they went back into the bunker, they would be dead, those drones don't fly with 10 kmh smile

39

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Season 3, Episode 1...

this was a great opening for the season. The end of the episode had me immediately thinking "Damn, I have to wait 7 days for the next episode?!" smile

Can't wait to see what's happening.

Spoiler

It wasn't just her not hitting the gas, in her position the moment you see a black SUV swirling like that - wouldn't you immediately think something is up? For a viewer this was obvious.

I really like that Joe is presented as a flawed character, but sometimes they overdo it. Like when they were in the trench and she tried to use the LMG and was pulled away. Her yelling at him afterwards was unecessary, I would want to think she would realize her mistake and stay on point.

I said it about the last season already, but this episode has me wondering too if they are done with the whole "Lioness" shtick?

Deserved more runtime:
Abbys | Dead Like Me | Devs | Firefly | Gangsta. | Jack of all Trades | Kevin (probably) saves the World | Lodge 49 | Mrs. Davis | NYC 22 | Powerless | Roadkill | Special Unit 2 | Stumptown | Surface | The Brave | The Crazy Ones | The Finder | The Middleman | Truth Seekers | Two Weeks to Live | Whiskey Cavalier

https://next-episode.net/user/WilliamDrakeMcGregor/

40 (edited by jimslim 2026-08-04 12:04:23)

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

I thought the first episode was totally unrealistic. More or less what g371 said, but even more so.

Felt like I was watching someone playing COD on Ultra-N00b level.

And...no stab-proof vests for the dogs? They should go on strike!

Almost forgot, could there not be a rating for each season?  smile

41 (edited by SgtSaint 2026-08-05 05:42:24)

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Well... I'm not watching scripted entertainment television expecting it to be a documentary.

Watching folks blow sh!t up... dogs castrating bad guys... b00bs in tank tops... The combat guy telling the girl-boss she don't know f.all about what's going on -  KNOWING IT IS SCRIPTED ENTERTAINMENT so I can just decompressed after a long day of the real world...

I found it a fun watch.  I wasn't looking for it to be a news story with an embedded reporter filming real wars.

Sometimes you just want a modernized 80's action flick.  I think its a show where you get out of it appropriate to what you expect of it.  Like dating: Don't have unrealistic expectations and you'll be a lot happier.

42

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

SgtSaint wrote:

Well... I'm not watching scripted entertainment television expecting it to be a documentary.

Watching folks blow sh!t up... dogs castrating bad guys... b00bs in tank tops... The combat guy telling the girl-boss she don't know f.all about what's going on -  KNOWING IT IS SCRIPTED ENTERTAINMENT so I can just decompressed after a long day of the real world...

I found it a fun watch.  I wasn't looking for it to be a news story with an embedded reporter filming real wars.

Sometimes you just want a modernized 80's action flick.  I think its a show where you get out of it appropriate to what you expect of it.  Like dating: Don't have unrealistic expectations and you'll be a lot happier.

True enough, I even had trouble with how close to current events the episode tried to be. We can find this entertaining but others might find this traumatic.

Deserved more runtime:
Abbys | Dead Like Me | Devs | Firefly | Gangsta. | Jack of all Trades | Kevin (probably) saves the World | Lodge 49 | Mrs. Davis | NYC 22 | Powerless | Roadkill | Special Unit 2 | Stumptown | Surface | The Brave | The Crazy Ones | The Finder | The Middleman | Truth Seekers | Two Weeks to Live | Whiskey Cavalier

https://next-episode.net/user/WilliamDrakeMcGregor/

43 (edited by g371 2026-08-05 15:13:11)

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

It is entertaining, this probably will be an interesting season. But not with Ukraine moments. Ukraine is not Iraq or alike where Americans can sell their heroic bs without any fact checking, this is next door, I have on my street war refugees cars parked with UA license plates. And any bravado in UA context by Americans is funny by definition - basically also a form of entertainment. Because that's gen 5 war not bombing people in sandals smile Adequate behavior there had just two - bunker door guy and the leading good luck, have fun, don't die guy. Also that friendly fire confirmation was good, lol.

44

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

g371 wrote:

S03E01

Spoiler

Unreal hundreds of drones and  none are attacking

Oh, yes, forgot about that... That was weird. smile


WilliamDrakeMcGregor wrote:
Spoiler

I really like that Joe is presented as a flawed character, but sometimes they overdo it. Like when they were in the trench and she tried to use the LMG and was pulled away. Her yelling at him afterwards was unecessary, I would want to think she would realize her mistake and stay on point.

Yes!

45 (edited by g371 2026-08-09 22:45:11)

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

Want S03E02 criticism? big_smile

Spoiler

* There is no 3.5 million army, <insert uncersored word how to properly call Russians> cannot mobilize it - maybe will attempt again some mobilization later this year, since are running out of options. 3.5m could me everybody who rotated there + counted in also all plankton sitting, for example, in some Siberia bases etc. Also they don't have 20m to spare and never had - I know that and Vladimir knows that as well, that's why there is no mass mobilizations. Because 20 million with well above 50% chance will go and raid Kremlin instead 1917 style, but Vladimir probably still see Gaddafi treatment in his nightmares, plus characters like Assad also doubt that are optimistic examples.

* Tech is long past $80 Amazon drones and they were not stopped with drones, but primariliy with willingnes to fight, almost every possible weapons system AND many kinds of drones. Artillery is not going anywhere.

* WW3, nukes lala is an ultimate bs in RU context, mostly spread by Russians themselves, aiming at everybody who slept in math and basic geography. They can use nukes any day, a tiny problem that it's 2-in-1 - a suicide as well. Plus won't achieve any strategic goals.

* When they enter rooms etc. is missing one thing - the fact that Russians love to booby trap everything.

* Ultra unlikely that SVR would do any assault operations, they are spies and probably are not even sufficiently trained for it. They same as everybody else have dedicated people for certain type of tasks, there are no universal rambos. It's possible, but that simply would be a very poor planning (of course, also nothing too surprising in RU case). If they knew that she was "Special Activities" they'd have never knocked on that front door - exactly. Also they would not knock on that door without knowing who she is, that's why it makes 0 sense, lol.

* Since when USA do anything about war crimes, it's like begging to open a Pandora box - for example, Bibi is drinking a coffee at White House no problem. War crimes and Guantanamo prison in almost one sentence sounds interesting smile

46

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

I will say this for the show…

In an entertainment landscape where the average season is only 10 episodes this has been content-dense.

We started s03e02 and when the 'previously on' was running my wife asked

My Wife wrote:

So are we up to about episode 4 already?

And I had to tell her… "Nope, this is the start of number 2".  I get it.  Mentally its easy to judge how many episodes by how much has happened.  If `this` much has transpired then that's about 3 episodes.

Episode 1 had enough content that it almost felt like 2 or 3.

Whereas many other shows like "Strange New Worlds" can run their entire season and not feel like you got 1 full season of real 'content'.  Or like how we all felt about For All Mankind being 50% fluff and stretching out the episode but not very content-rich.

I really, really, really, really, really hate these short streamer seasons because it tends to destroy any amount of actual story *arc* - but if a show can maintain this level of content density it takes the sting out of the short seasons.

Can you imagine if Strange New Worlds was written on this level of content density; for example?

47

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

I liked 3x02 - it did not miss a beat and gave me everything I wanted from it.

Although, again, I think that Joe is portrayed...

Spoiler

...way too weak. Remember the special training she put Cruz through in S01? Surely Joe went through similar training.
But here she folds when it gets invasive? For a normal person I can only imagine how traumatic something like this would be, but for a trained CIA special agent I would consider the level she was at as "uncomfortable"...

My only theory so far is that she knew she was going to be kidnapped and this is part of them resolving the first storyline.
If they would've shown only that one scene in episode 1 I wouldn't think that way... but if they continue showing both storylines like that, it makes sense imho.

Isn't Kaitlyn showing up at her house the most telling point for the enemies? The others as well of course but she is a high-ranking CIA agent...

Deserved more runtime:
Abbys | Dead Like Me | Devs | Firefly | Gangsta. | Jack of all Trades | Kevin (probably) saves the World | Lodge 49 | Mrs. Davis | NYC 22 | Powerless | Roadkill | Special Unit 2 | Stumptown | Surface | The Brave | The Crazy Ones | The Finder | The Middleman | Truth Seekers | Two Weeks to Live | Whiskey Cavalier

https://next-episode.net/user/WilliamDrakeMcGregor/

48 (edited by g371 2026-08-16 12:12:09)

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

S03E03

Spoiler

That pyramid was bs-y, but what was spot on is that USA is compromised on every level and universities indeed is a nice target (and on every spectrum, from wokies to hardcore opposite ditch). Whatever fuels the polarization is fantastic.

My personal favourite is Jeffrey Sachs, the American economist and Columbia University professor - it's simply hilarious, the only things which would make it more obvious that he is pushing Russian agenda 24/7 is if he would change name to Ivan and wave some USSR flag, lmao. And it's not some isolated single case.

But that's nothing compared to Mike Moses Johnson blocking weapons deliveries and alike - there is a penetration on way, way higher levels by now smile It's more than funny that when you have a trillion defense budget, you magically start to count peanuts which on top of all are used to directly weaken your enemy, makes total sense smile

Also on that list they forgot to add Israel big_smile Or more precisely did not forget, it simply is a taboo, haha.

49

Re: Lioness (aka: Special Ops: Lioness)

3x03

let's call this the boring episode. Hope it's the only one smile

What was the whole point of...

Spoiler

...telling the team all that in the briefing room? Why does a QRF team working for CIA doesn't know that already... and isn't "Honeypot" a well known method? At least everyone who has watched a TV show about spies knows what it is.

That entire scene confused me...but the banter of the team was good...if only they would've stuck with it a bit longer smile

Another thing, everything that Alexandra said and their reaction to it made them look incompetent. The women next to Joe (I don't think she was ever introduced?) says afterwards "we know that already" so that immediatley killed the suspense they were trying to build...

I know the ending scene wants to tell us otherwise, but I am even more so convincened that she let herself be kidnapped, it's all part of the plan.

Deserved more runtime:
Abbys | Dead Like Me | Devs | Firefly | Gangsta. | Jack of all Trades | Kevin (probably) saves the World | Lodge 49 | Mrs. Davis | NYC 22 | Powerless | Roadkill | Special Unit 2 | Stumptown | Surface | The Brave | The Crazy Ones | The Finder | The Middleman | Truth Seekers | Two Weeks to Live | Whiskey Cavalier

https://next-episode.net/user/WilliamDrakeMcGregor/