{"id":70015,"date":"2023-07-23T15:53:38","date_gmt":"2023-07-23T14:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pley2win.com\/featured-news\/special-ops-lioness-takes-taylor-sheridan-to-the-world-of-female-spies\/"},"modified":"2023-07-23T15:53:38","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T14:53:38","slug":"special-ops-lioness-takes-taylor-sheridan-to-the-world-of-female-spies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pley2win.com\/?p=70015","title":{"rendered":"Special Ops: Lioness takes Taylor Sheridan to the world of female spies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
\n
Taylor Sheridan\u2019s TV empire conjures up the image of a man on the vast plains of the West, knocking back a (domestic) beer and grunting \u2019murica <\/em>with a mixture of admiration and sadness, before turning his eyes back to a weathered copy of one of Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s celebrated novels. Taylor Sheridan knows America better than you do: its might and its majesty, its joy and sorrow, who it celebrates, and most importantly, who it does not. <\/p>\n
In the new Paramount Plus series Special Ops: Lioness<\/em>, Sheridan turns his contemplative gaze to the women of the armed forces. Supposedly based on a real-life CIA task force, Lioness<\/em> follows a team that places female operatives in the lives of women close to targets for assassination. It\u2019s a nasty subject, the morality of which the show briefly acknowledges while breezily asserting its necessity and launching headfirst into the meat of the show: a character-driven spy thriller. <\/p>\n
Lioness<\/em> orbits around two women: Joe (Zoe Salda\u00f1a), who leads the Lioness team, and new recruit Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira), a driven woman with nowhere to go but the Marines when her abusive boyfriend finally goes too far. Its first episode \u2014 the only one in the two-part premiere made available to critics in advance \u2014 is mostly concerned with grounding its characters in the audience\u2019s mind through moments of crisis. <\/p>\n
Viewers meet Joe during an operation gone wrong, when a Lioness agent gets made by enemy soldiers and Joe decides to drone strike the entire scene, sparing the Lioness from torture and humiliation while also protecting the secrecy of her program and not risking any of her support team in what would\u2019ve likely been an unsuccessful rescue. It immediately signals the kind of person Joe is; while most protagonists on shows like this are willing to cross lines to get the job done, Joe crosses lines to protect her team. Even if others can\u2019t see that\u2019s what she\u2019s doing. <\/p>\n
\n\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/source><\/picture>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photo: Luke Varley\/Paramount Plus<\/cite><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Meanwhile Cruz, fueled by a fury brought on by a life of abuse and denied opportunities, impresses her Marine recruiters with her tenacity and physical prowess and almost immediately gets recommended for the Lioness program. It\u2019s not a natural fit: Joe\u2019s team is clandestine and not built around the oorah<\/em> brotherhood of the Marines, and Cruz bristles at the way Joe holds her at a distance. Her qualms stay limited to technique, though \u2014 for now.<\/p>\n
Granted, the first episode of Lioness<\/em> ends when the actual spying begins, and as Cruz gets embedded with her target, it\u2019s possible that the series could prove more thoughtful than it is in its premiere. As the series progresses, the ugly work of spycraft might expose Cruz to women who were abused and taken advantage of the way she was \u2014 the way she is<\/em> in the Lioness program \u2014 and become a better story for it. As easy it is to paint Sheridan\u2019s work with a broad brush, his TV empire is more complex than the Cabela\u2019s Fourth of July sale it seems like at a distance, occasionally turning to contemplate the storm clouds on the edge of the American Dream. <\/p>\n
For now, Special Ops: Lioness<\/em> is just 24<\/em>-lite, a well-paced drama with plenty of action and a liberal sprinkling of movie stars (Nicole Kidman appears as Joe\u2019s government handler, and Morgan Freeman shows up later). It\u2019s not compelling enough to overcome the shortcomings of this kind of story \u2014 the jingoism, the Foreign Country Piss Filter, and so on \u2014 but strong performances and a tight eight-episode run could add up to something worthwhile. At the very least, it\u2019s nice to watch a Sheridan show that\u2019s not about a goddamn ranch.<\/p>\n
Special Ops: Lioness <\/em><\/small>premieres on Paramount Plus on July 23.<\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"Cruz](\"https:\/\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/thumbor\/ery8R30iCuqWaji086p67p6F66E=\/0x0:2500x1667\/320x0\/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1667):format(webp):no_upscale()\/cdn.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_asset\/file\/24801459\/LNS_108_0207_LV_01290_RT.jpg)
<\/p>\n