From a remote forward operating base in Syria, Joe (Zoe Saldaña) has everything at her command. While Bobby (Jill Wagner) and Two Cups (James Jordan) keep their rifle sights trained on an element of insurgent fighters massing on their perimeter, and Tucker (LaMonica Garrett) stays ready on the .50, Joe is in cellphone contact with her asset, who’s embedded nearby in a heavily-defended ISIS compound. There’s trouble. Her cover’s been blown and she needs a ride out of there, which is initially not seen as a problem. As the threat grows outside their wire and Bobby and Two Cups engage, Joe calls in an airstrike from an A-10 Warthog, freeing up her team to hop in their choppers and head for the compound. Even when her asset is hauled into the open and fully compromised, Joe still has options. “I’ll never say no,” Bobby tells her over comms; the team will fight until their boss commands otherwise. But the chances have been spent. With her asset burned, to protect the rest of her people and the sanctity of this covert CIA operation, Joe calls in a reaper drone. And the UAV drops a missile on the compound with her operative still inside.
Welcome to the life-or-death metrics at play in Special Ops: Lioness, a new eight-episode slice of ever more powerful writer and director Taylor Sheridan’s TV universe. Saldaña stars as the field chief of a special spy program that accesses high-value targets by locating and befriending their wives, daughters and girlfriends. Lioness earns trust, it gets close, and it kills the target. That’s on a good day. But when an operation goes south, like it did in Syria, Joe has to answer for it back at Langley, where her supervisor Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) and CIA Deputy Director Donald Westfield (Michael Kelly) aren’t happy. And there’s tension at home in suburban Virginia, too, where Joe’s husband Neil (Dave Annable) is holding it down with their two children. “I hate it when she’s here,” her older daughter says, not mincing any words.
Lioness is very much a part of the Sheridan-O-Verse. The US military is held up as a noble force constructed to protect those in need, which is exactly what it does when Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira) literally crashes through the doors of a recruitment office while running from her domestic abuser. “The problem’s between me and her,” the jerk protests. “Not anymore. Now it’s between you and the United States Marines,” and in fast succession Cruz joins the corps, aces the written tests, outpaces everyone of any gender in basic training, and accelerates through two tours of Afghanistan as a member of Marine Force Recon before we meet her again at Fort Bragg, where Meade sent Joe to recruit a new asset. Cruz is a “door-kicker,” defiant and tough as hell, but also possesses the high-functioning mind Joe’s Lioness program requires. Cruz speaks fluent Arabic, and her mixed Syrian/Mexican heritage will aid her effective insertion as a covert operative in a Middle East theater. “Knock yourself out, lady, I can stand her all fucking day.” It feels like tense moments are an everyday occurrence in Joe’s life. But she hires Cruz on the spot.
In addition to Saldaña and Kidman, Special Ops: Lioness will feature some serious star power at the executive level with Morgan Freeman, who plays US Secretary of State Edwin Mullins. And Joe’s team, which includes Wagner as the stalwart Bobby, steady Sheridan-O-Verse players Jordan (going for the sweep with roles in Yellowstone, 1883, and Mayor of Kingstown) and Garrett (1883), and Jonah Wharton and Austin Hébert as bearded-up operators Tex and Randy respectively, greet Cruz with the usual mishmash of crass humor, braggadocio, and challenges, a test that Joe notes she passes with flying colors. And with just a few days of travel and staging under her belt as the CIA’s newest Lioness operative, Cruz is inserted into her first undercover.
With the able direction of John Hillcoat (The Road, Triple 9), this introductory episode of Lioness moves at an engaging and brisk pace, managing to fit in a tightly-constructed action sequence, introduce the command structure that’s a reality of Joe’s work in the field – Kelly’s CIA deputy director is an “asshole,” while Kidman’s Meade is Joe’s ally – flashback four years to show us how Cruz overcame an abusive relationship to become a standout Marine, and move us quickly forward, as the team accelerates in an SUV through a ritzy shopping district in Kuwait. Their target is one of the wealthy financiers of an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, and their mark is his daughter; Cruz will befriend her, get close to her, and reveal the target’s operation from the inside. But wait! She doesn’t even know her mark’s name. It’s all too fast! They need to slow down.
Welcome to the CIA, where slowing down isn’t part of the program. She’s not supposed to know any names, Joe tells Cruz. “What if you say her name? Or you say something she hasn’t told you about herself? You’re blind on purpose.” And in a fleeting moment of panic, when the woman asks her new friend what her name is, Cruz freezes. (Joe’s words echo in her head. “If you cover’s blown, there’s no saving you.”) But just a momentary hesitation. Cruz pivots smoothly into her cover story, and Joe observes them move off to another jewelry store, arm in arm. “She’s in,” Joe reports over comms. Lioness is back in business.
Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges
