Special Ops: Lioness

By: Ilaria Masselli

Personally, I really love Taylor Sheridan’s work since the days of “Yellowstone,” “1923” and the film Sicario, just to mention some of his most famous works. With his latest release, “Special Ops: Lioness,” Sheridan has outdone himself. With an amazing cast he really created a precious gemstone where he has managed to combine a perfect balance of love, fear and courage with that constant feeling of suspense, a typical of the style of Sheridan.

“Special Ops: Lioness” is a spy thriller television series created by Taylor Sheridan that aired on the Paramount+ network. “Lioness” was inspired by a real-life CIA program that used military women in the beginning to search for endangered women in Iraq and Afghanistan and later to distribute information among them. Joe (Zoe Saldana) is an experienced marine in charge of the Lionesses, an undercover all-female unit which targets wives, sisters and daughters of important terrorists and finds out information about them. In this season Joe recruits a new Lioness for her team, Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), a woman with a difficult past but with strong abilities. After several physical and psychological tests, she joins the Lioness team for a mission where she is with an alternate identity to become the best friend of the target daughter’s, Aaliyah (Stephanie Nur). As the mission progresses, Cruz’s feelings will be put to the test, igniting an impossible love but at the same time real and extremely intense. All the missions are monitored by Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman), who is a high-ranking CIA official in this Lioness program and Joe’s boss.

This show is very intense and intriguing. I really appreciated how the human aspect is highlighted. Sometimes we can forget that these invisible people who are brave, who are not afraid to participate in a war but, in the end, are only human. They are wives, daughters and women who have their own personal life, their own weaknesses to live with. They can fall in love and this can happen even when they are in mission because love doesn’t hide behind any mask. I was really surprised by Stephanie Nur who plays Aaliyah Amrohi, the daughter of a suspected terrorist. She a very talented actress with a unique beauty. She was able to give to her character an unparalleled empathic depth. Not to mention the great performance of Laysla De Oliveira in the role of Cruz Manuelos, in which she masterfully explores the pain of a woman with a difficult life who rediscovers the sweetness of an intense and unexpected love. I was really touched by her interpretation and how she can express the pain and suffering of a woman who is not used to receiving affection. It is all united in a difficult but wonderful love story that moved me and made me cry and fall in love, too.

Taylor Sheridan also in this case has made it clear that he knows very well what he is doing. He did such a great job at focusing on this real military program called “Team Lioness” and then giving them fictionalized background stories without filters but at the same time touching. I can really say that the only negative thing is that there are also only eight episodes for a single season!! I was hoping to see more, but the result at the end is still outstanding.

Personally, I really recommend watching this series, especially now which is available not only on Paramount + but also on Prime Video, so you can enjoy all the episodes in a row without any kind of waiting. If you like thriller television series with strong women in action, you are in the right place. I love to see brave women not only because they can fight or because they know how to use a gun, but especially because they can handle any aspect of ordinary life that most of the time people take for granted. I really hope to have the news soon for a possible second season.