Special Ops: Lioness Premiere Review: Taylor Sheridan's Anti-Terrorism Thriller Is Off to a Roaring Start

It's pretty difficult to say with any certainty right now whether or not Special Ops: Lioness, or just Lioness for short, is going to be a great series, because Paramount+ only sent one episode for review, even though it premieres Sunday with two episodes. (The second episode is ready to air, right guys?) But I can say, with some certainty, that Lioness gets off to a solid start and looks like it will be yet another proud notch in the belt of Taylor Sheridan and Paramount+, who have already teamed up for multiple Yellowstone spin-offs, as well as Mayor of Kingstown and Tulsa King, in just a few years. 

With Lioness, the wildly prolific Yellowstone creator hangs up his cowboy hat and moseys back toward material that first got him widely recognized — you know, back in his lazy days when he was merely writing a whole movie once a year. Like the Sheridan-scripted 2015 film Sicario, the action-thriller follows a woman who works for an intelligence agency and isn't always let in on what's really going on. This time it's Locke and Key's Laysla De Oliveira as Cruz Manuelos, a half-Mexican, half-Syrian woman who literally falls into a Marine recruitment office while running away from a bad situation. 

Cruz turns out to be a diamond in the rough, coming seemingly out of nowhere to become the Marines' highest scoring cadet in years. After enlisting, she's contacted by Joe (Zoe Saldaña), the head of a top-secret CIA program called Lioness that recruits women to get close to the wives or daughters of terrorists and snuff out their targets from within, with the help of a helicopter full of beefy special ops. Through the magic of television and Sheridan's wise decision to speed past the unnecessary process that bogs down other similar shows, by the end of the first episode, we've got Cruz's backstory and she's in the Middle East on her first mission.

7.2

Special Ops: Lioness

at Paramount+

Like

• Strong performances by Saldaña and De Oliveira set the tone well
• Things move at a solid pace and emphasize character over plot
• Explosions!

Dislike

• It's unclear if the show can sustain its pace with future episodes
• Only focuses on the glory of the military

Sheridan is tidy here in the 42-minute premiere and keeps the focus where it needs to be, which is on Cruz. Giving her previously squandered potential a second chance and making up for time wasted, she's an easy hero to root for, and even easier as she's beating up the boys while working her way up the ranks in the Marines. What makes her compelling, though, is when she's dropped into the unknown of the job and we see the doubt in her face, showing the vulnerability that she's so often trying to suppress and reinforcing just how dangerous the job is. Don't get me wrong; there's nothing too complex going on here, but she's layered just enough for a show like this, which lies somewhere between a CBS military drama with a blank-check budget and a Showtime thriller that knows how to hit its marks. (Which isn't surprising, given Paramount+'s ties to both networks; in fact, the very CBS-sounding Special Ops was added to the title late.)

Saldaña's Joe gets less screentime than Cruz in the premiere, but it isn't less meaningful. During an impressive opening scene that probably uses about half of the budget for the entire season, you learn all you need to know about her — and the reality of the Lioness program — when she's confronted with a tough decision on the fly. And though Joe thoroughly vets Cruz, the doubt of working with a new agent makes the scenes they share together sizzle with battling bravados. 

While much is made about their castmates Nicole Kidman, who plays a senior supervisor in the CIA, and Morgan Freeman, who plays the U.S. Secretary of State, De Oliveira and Saldaña run the show here, and both are excellent. (Kidman has a short scene in the premiere, and Freeman is absent.) Clearly Lioness flows with an undercurrent of women succeeding in spaces typically dominated by men, and it's De Oliveira and Saldaña who are very much the unquestionable alphas, effortlessly standing strong in their roles. Refreshingly, Sheridan also doesn't parade the fact that they're women around, letting their actions speak for themselves in that Sheridan "show, don't tell" way he's so good at.  

If there's one concern about Lioness, it's its unquestioned love of the military and the United States' intelligence agencies. When Cruz stumbles into the Marine recruitment office, the show all but blatantly states that the armed forces are a place of salvation for those who are downtrodden, financially insecure, and aimless. It's shameless and disgusting, really, especially when we see that it's hooked Cruz, a minority woman who should have enjoyed a successful collegiate athletic career if not for a few obstacles in her life. Joe's team of jarheads are an amicable and charming bunch, spouting Sheridan-isms, playing cards, and drinking beer, which makes the gig look like an exotic campout more than an occupation drenched in blood, PTSD, and questionable politics. We're left hoping that Sheridan dives deeper into the mental pressure and repercussions of the military in subsequent episodes, but we just don't know if we're going to get it or if Lioness only has its sights set on a specific audience that flies flags on the back of their trucks. 

It all adds up to an interesting first episode of a show that can go anywhere. Maybe it's a psychological military thriller like The Hurt Locker, maybe it's a paranoid espionage drama like Homeland, or maybe it's a fancier meat-and-potatoes SEAL Team. The first episode serves as a mostly successful setup, but much of what the show will become remains top secret. There's also a question of how this budget will be spread around; is the opening scene with all its helicopters and explosions a sign of what's to come, or just a big show to get viewers instantly hooked? I don't know, but the intel we do have on the rest of the series says it has some promise.  

Premieres: Sunday, July 23 on Paramount+ (first two episodes, followed by new episodes weekly)
Who's in it: Zoe Saldaña, Laysla De Oliveira, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Kelly
Who's behind it: Taylor Sheridan (creator)
For fans of: CBS procedurals, military thrillers, Taylor Sheridan
How many episodes we watched: 1 of 8