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- Paramount+
- Jul 22, 2023
- Paramount+
- Jul 22, 2023
Summary The Taylor Sheridan series inspired by the real-life CIA program centers on Marine Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), who is recruited to join the Lioness Engagement Team to go undercover in a terrorist organization.
Created By: Taylor Sheridan
- Paramount+
- Jul 22, 2023
- Paramount+
- Jul 22, 2023
Summary The Taylor Sheridan series inspired by the real-life CIA program centers on Marine Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), who is recruited to join the Lioness Engagement Team to go undercover in a terrorist organization.
Created By: Taylor Sheridan
Where to Watch
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Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
56
26% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
68% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
5% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 Critic Reviews
56
26% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
68% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
5% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
De Oliveira might not be in their [Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman's] league yet, but if her performance here is anything to go by, she will be. Her Manuelos is a combination of barely suppressed rage and eagerness to please, and she’s very handy with a frying pan – as a weapon rather than an item of cookware. She also conveys an air of emotional vulnerability. You’re rooting for her within 90 seconds of her introduction.
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.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 User Ratings
4.4
42% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
13% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
46% Negative
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 User Ratings
4.4
42% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
13% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
46% Negative
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
The show is good at what it does. The military sequences are well directed, the camaraderie of the team is well drawn, and each episode leaves you keen to see what happens next. It’s an effective action thriller, albeit one that only goes skin deep – there is none of Homeland’s complexity and the dialogue is cheesy in a Top Gun sort of way.
With how the premiere is setting up the season across its eight episodes, there will be plenty of twists and turns along the way with potential room for a riveting thriller that keeps us at the edge of our seats. But as it stands now, more work needs to be done.
This one shrugs off any misgivings about its characters’ mission with the reasoning that “if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” Which sounds good coming out of a soldier’s mouth, as long as you don’t think too hard about how that line of thinking might play out in practice. But that seems to be par for the course for a series enamored more of impossible ideals than actual human nature or lived experience.
There’s a place for what amounts to meat-and-potatoes TV, even in the prestige-conscious streaming world. Nevertheless, when it comes to training an audience to come back week after week, “Special Ops: Lioness” feels about as basic as it gets.
It is perhaps predictable that the Sheridan take on pop feminism would weaponize women’s liberation in service of the military industrial complex. After all, that rhetorical sleight of hand is as much a cliché as the rest of “Lioness,” which shows the strain of a single writer cranking out scripts for each of his half-dozen shows on air. “Lioness” may be a first for its creator in some respects, but in others, it’s more of the same.