Verdict
Summary
This is some good stuff, taking shows like 24 and The Unit up a notch with no holds barred action and dramatic gravitas.
Plot: A recent recruit for the Marines is handpicked for a special ops joint team effort that sees her becoming the tip of the spear in potentially eliminating a terrorist.
Review: CIA spy Joe (Zoe Saldana) is mostly an absentee wife and mother while navigating a very dangerous career in eliminating terrorists and altering the balance of world powers, but she tries her best to come home as often as possible to her husband, a surgeon (Dave Annable), and her two daughters, one of which is a rebellious 14-year old who is pushing to become a woman far too soon for her own good. Joe’s last mission ended successfully, but resulted in the death of her undercover operative in the new “Lioness” program that sees her training a female recruit to infiltrate a terrorist cell in order to eliminate a high priority target, a process that takes months of painstaking effort.
Joe is given another chance with the program, and her bosses (played by a very intense Nicole Kidman and Michael Kelly) make sure she does it right this time. Joe recruits a very ambitious and impressive new Marine recruit, a young woman with a rough past named Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira), who swears she will do anything and everything required of her, which in this case means befriending the daughter (played by Stephanie Nur) of an oil baron who happens to be a terrorist, and getting close enough to eventually be able to have just one opportunity to meet her father and kill him.
The role Cruz must play turns into a mind-bending and soul crushing ordeal as she and the young woman develop a complicated friendship and love affair in the weeks leading up to the woman’s marriage to a Middle Eastern tycoon, culminating in an elaborate gathering for her wedding in Spain, which would potentially be the place where Cruz and Joe’s special ops team can do what they’ve originally set out to do, but with so many moving parts and potential disastrous possibilities that could end with Cruz’s death, the White House gets involved, making things even more complicated and precarious.
From creator and series writer Taylor Sheridan and series filmmakers John Hillcoat (4 episodes), Anthony Byrne and Paul Cameron (2 episodes each), Special Ops: Lioness – Season 1 is a hell of a crackling show with a cinematic approach. Each episode feels like a movie itself with completely engrossing characters and a plot that maintains its tension from one episode to the next. The acting is superlative, and you most definitely want to see these characters return for another operation at some point in the future. The final episode had me literally on the edge of my couch, and I like the way every episode ends on the perfect note. This is some good stuff, taking shows like 24 and The Unit up a notch with no holds barred action and dramatic gravitas.
Paramount has just released Special Ops: Lioness – Season 1 on DVD and Blu-ray, and every episode comes with a special feature option, going into the episode at length, totaling in over 90 minutes of bonus content.
