The first season of Lioness had serious star power but fizzled out quickly. While Zoe Saldaña commands the screen, big names like Morgan Freeman and Nicole Kidman are heavily touted. However, the two Academy Award-winning actors barely had enough screen time compared to an alum from the game show Wipeout.
That said, I love Jillian Wagner, who is utterly convincing as a kick-ass Black Ops soldier, so that’s not the issue. This season is different. Saldaña simply electrifies in her role as a CIA officer in charge. However, now she has a cast with enough screen time to match her intensity.
Sparks fly alongside Kidman, Freeman, and The Penguin’s Michael Kelly. Series creator Taylor Sheridan crafts dialogue that cuts like verbal daggers across an expensive government conference room table. The stakes are higher, the tension is palpable, and Lioness is even better the second time around.
Pararmount+’s The Lioness Season 2 Review and Synopsis
Joe (Saldaña) is the CIA agent in charge of the agency’s top-secret Lioness program. Her job is to pick a target and recruit female operatives who can infiltrate terrorist cells’ high-profile targets. Last season, they focused on enemies beyond our borders, but now the fight has gone domestic.
This shift happens after a Mexican cartel crosses the Texas border, abducts a Congresswoman, and kills her entire family. Joe is sent in to lead the rescue operation but soon discovers more to the situation than meets the eye. How are enemy countries like Russia or China using the cartels?
That’s what Joe’s boss, Kaitlyn Meade (Kidman), and CIA Deputy Director Byron Westfield (Kelly) reveal to the Secretary of State (Morgan Freeman). Joe then sets her sights on a U.S. Army helicopter pilot (Genesis Rodriguez) with ties to the cartel, aiming to eliminate the country’s latest threat.
The Second Season of Lioness is Action-Packed!
Sheridan’s (Tulsa King) fatal mistake in the first season was not strengthening a story that ultimately failed his cast, which was an embarrassment of riches. Last season, Paramount+ only screened one episode for critics, which came across as an Army recruitment video targeting a particular demographic.
This time around, the second season’s first four episodes were screened for critics. This batch is fully loaded and action-packed, with the premiere showing shades of Sheridan’s Sicario script, starting with a daring shadow operation across the Mexican border.
Sheridan also guest stars, displaying a penchant for giving himself the best lines (as he often did in Yellowstone), including referring to Thad Luckinbill’s Kyle as “Go easy on old spy Barbie.” The first episode, “Beware of the Old Soldier,” is the series’ best and one of the finest the network has ever done.
Is Paramount+’s Lioness Season 2 Worth Watching?
Paramount+’s Lioness is worth watching because there has been a shift to showing the cost of war on the individuals who say to themselves, “I love this country,” and, in particular, on them and their families. For instance, Joe’s husband, a pediatric surgeon, Neal (Dave Annable), faces danger from a job that can strike too close to home.
However, Lioness begins to scratch an itch for modern-day military fiction, with more drones, technology, black ops spycraft, and none of the nonsense that comes with that Prime Video John Krasinski spy vehicle. Some of the best scenes are not of Saldaña taking out the bad guys with her M4A1 Carbine (even though there are plenty of those).
Lioness excels when folding in the political intrigue and critical decisions made at the highest levels of government, along with blistering action that is big, brawny, and magnetic. This impressive Zoe Saldaña vehicle is the next generation of spy thrillers that would make Tom Clancy proud.
You can stream Lioness season 2 only on October 27th.
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