Lioness: Seasons 1 & 2

This was my first experience with the Sheridanverse. At least in its Paramount+, world-building iteration. I just didn’t want to jump back in time or whatever the heck is going on in Yellowstone and its multitude of spin-offs, so figured this was an easier entry point. What can I say, the dude is prolific. But Lioness felt more doable, more familiar and universal. On its surface, it aligns with shows like Homeland. Broad spy thrillers, but with a very military bent. Way more guns and shootouts and explosions than your average espionage and spy-craft type show. Which seems to be Sheridan’s thing. When in doubt, don’t talk, negotiate or even obfuscate your way out of a mess. No, shoot, bomb and stab your way out. So many guns. So much shooting. Many, many dead bodies. Nothing here is subtle or nuanced, nor even particularly spy-like. Nope, Sheridan’s CIA is a well-armed unit of dudes and dudettes who just love to lay down fire.

The lioness in Lioness refers to a program run by CIA agent, Joe McNamara (Zoe Saldaña), that embeds a woman in a situation with international bad guys in order to break up terrorist or drug rings. I think? Because we establish that in the first season, as she places a marine, Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), in a situation where she can become best gal-pals with the daughter of a big financier to the world of terrorists. Which, in and of itself, seems like an odd choice considering Cruz is clearly Latina and they want her to pretend to be Middle Eastern? As if there aren’t any actual women in the military who are actually Syrian or Jordanian or from anywhere in the Middle East who might actually speak Arabic and better pass for being from the region — which is a large part of her deep cover. Whatever the case, this “program” has way more flaws than its recruiting practices (which just seems to be predicated on picking very fit, good-looking ladies). The entire success of the program depends on Cruz connecting with this mark, Aaliyah (Stephanie Nur), under the flimsiest of circumstances. Cruz, who to this point, is depicted as a pretty anti-social, hardened psychopath. But, no, Cruz basically just walks up to her mark with a silly story and it’s done. She’s in. And while Sheridan doesn’t seem like he might be the best at either naming women — going as far as giving Saldaña’s character a downright male name — he also looks at two very attractive female characters with seemingly no past of lesbianism and is like, well of course they’re also going to hook up! As if two pretty ladies in distress can’t help but turn to each other sexually and can’t maintain a nice professional, plutonic relationship. They must get some. Not that I’m complaining per se, but this is his universe, I guess.

Also, along the way Joe renders Cruz, absolutely torturing her and beating the absolute shit out of her — leaving marks on her body and face for the remainder of the season that she has to awkwardly and unconvincingly explain to Aaliyah and everyone else who is staring at her beat-up face. All to basically prove that Cruz could take being tortured should it come down to it? This is the beginning of my pretty strong feeling that Joe is not good at her job. And she’s a shitty mom and wife. Soldaña plays her in a humorless, incredibly earnest way that I imagine was what was asked for, but is, at times, eye-rollingly over-the-top. And coded incredibly male. Like Sheridan could have just changed Joe to… Well, to Joe, made her husband the put-upon wife and just run the script as is. Which, great, he’s all for women being as bad-ass as the men, but there’s not a whole lot of nuance there.

And then we hit season two and the whole lioness concept pretty much goes out the window. Again, the idea is to surreptitiously embed a female CIA agent with another human being connected to some sort of organization the CIA is trying to take down. In season two, we have the world’s most attractive helicopter pilot, whose name is oddly also Jo (Genesis Rodriguez), who happens to be the daughter of a high-level Mexican drug cartel guy and whose uncle is a super-baddy. So… not embedded, and after two seconds of being in front of her dad the whole thing is blown and the season just turns into a battle in Iraq and a bunch of other stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the lioness program or Jo’s involvement therein. As if Sheridan just got bored with the concept and was like… man, I really would love to have more shootouts and stuff and maybe some cool scenes of a Black Hawk picking off a cadre of Arab convoys. All the while we have their boss, Nicole Kidman, have some nonsensical, boring conversations with her incredibly dull husband about global economics. Which seems to be Sheridan’s way to bloviate about his cynical take on what the war on terror and war on drugs are about. Maybe? Also, we have yet another attractive woman in Jo who just can’t resist a roll in the hay with our friend from season one, Cruz. Though, after some gratuitous nudity, their relationship is never… consummated due to some ridiculous cock blocking.

Ultimately the series is a little bit of a mess. Albeit a somewhat entertaining one. Even if you’re kind of second screening it. Which, weirdly, seems like the intention. You can sit there and scroll and look up every once in a while when a shirt comes off or something explodes. Or someone starts yelling a lot. Because the plots are just a bit of nonsense and mostly inconsequential. As if Sheridan and team are just kind of hoping you’re not paying that much attention to what’s going on and are distracted by the shooting, yelling and occasional nudity. Sheridan — based on my subsequent watch of Landman between seasons one and two of Lioness — definitely has a point of view about things. America is a land of gruff assholes who are pretty much nihilistic absolutists. Joe can’t have a family and save the United States. Nicole Kidman’s character can’t be a powerful woman and have a loving marriage. None of the people on this show can have it all. They sacrifice any semblance of a life to protect the country. Which sounds incredibly earnest, but it’s not. It’s more of a why-even-try to pretend I might not die any minute, this is the life I chose and what it takes to be on the front line. There is no higher calling or recognition of their situation. They all expect to basically die on the job and seemingly have no future plans. It’s bleak and animalistic. There is no deeper reflection. There is no four-dimensional chess. It all feels like a giant death wish. Which I guess keeps Sheridan’s universe from getting too into the weeds. Or from building out fully realized characters. The whole thing feels a bit like Aliens set on Earth in modern times. Joe is Ripley and her gang of misfits have one wise-cracker, one butt-kicking marine, one tough chick and a couple other white dudes who are generally interchangeable. And, of course, the Paul Reiser character on the backend trying to undermine her. I don’t know. The show had some fun moments. And some insanely stupid ones. I didn’t not enjoy it, but know it could have been better if Sheridan actually stuck to the lioness concept on a show called Lioness. Yes, that would have been good.