Taylor Sheridan is back at it again. You have to admire the ever-growing body of work he’s brought to the television/streaming screens. He’s really the first one to dominate that landscape the way the likes of Dick Wolf and Steven Bochco have dominated our network television screens for decades. As a writer I often find him a little weak in plots and overall storytelling. But what he does very well is world-building and creating authentic and compelling characters. He did it with the likes of Kevin Costner in Yellowstone. There’s Jeremy Renner in The Mayor Of Kingstown and Sylvester Stallone in Tulsa King. He has the ability to bring the best actors to these projects because they know he’s going to create something compelling and fun to watch. He talked Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren into doing the awesome Yellowstone spinoff 1923. Once again Sheridan has put together a top-notch cast and put them into authentic environments that we just can’t look away from. This time he’s bringing those talents to the military and the special forces kind of series. The result is Special Ops: Lioness, and it’s another winner.
Zoe Saldana plays Joe, a special forces expert who is in charge of a program called Operation: Lioness. She works with her own rapid-response team in the Middle East where she fights terrorists from the inside. She recruits women to get close to a target and pretty much set them up for a surgical strike. As the series begins, we discover there’s a downside to her work. One of her operatives failed to disclose a tattoo she had, and Joe didn’t verify the fact. It led to her Lioness becoming compromised, and she had to make the horrible choice of launching missiles against the location, killing her operative. She’s deep in guilt, but the show must go on. There’s another target on the list, and she has to recruit a new Lioness.
Enter Laysla De Oliveira as Cruz. Cruz has been living with a dirtbag gangbanger and working at a donut shop. She finally reached her limit of abuse and makes a run for it, only to be chased by her “boyfriend”. She ends up in a Marine recruitment center where a strong officer offered her protection. It inspires her to join, and she becomes one of those hardworking overachievers. So when Joe is looking for someone special, Cruz finds herself on her radar. Her mission is to get close to Aaliyah, played by Stephanie Nur. She’s the daughter of a high-value terrorist who has eluded detection for a long time. But her daughter is getting married, and the hope is he will come out of hiding for the wedding. But the date and location is a highly guarded secret, even from the bride-to-be. The two become very close, and Cruz starts to question what she’s doing and carries a ton of guilt about the job. The truth is she starts to love the mark, and it starts to complicate the mission. These complications are going to weigh heavy on Joe, who begins to fear another lost soldier.
The response team is made up of some seasoned operatives. Bobby, played by fellow producer Jill Wagner, is the tough-as-nails leader of the team. Randy is played by Austin Hebert, and he’s the requisite tech expert on the team. Tucker, played by LaMonica Garrett, is the heavy weapons specialist. Two Cups, played by James Jordan, is the wiseacre of the group and often the comic relief. Finally there’s Tex, played by Jonah Wharton, and he’s the muscle man, although all of them are pretty tough. They are a tight group who aren’t afraid to go into a bar and start it up with higher-ups who they thing are messing with a member of the team and quickly come to Cruz’s aid when the brass think she needs to be tested. A lot of the show centers on the tight team and their attempts to back up Cruz and come to the rescue when the time comes.
We also get more than a small glimpse into Joe’s personal life. She’s married to a cancer surgeon, Neal, played by Dave Annable. It’s a bit of a flip-flop from the family stuff we normally see. He’s a man with a stressful and emotional career who has to deal with their daughter and keep things together while Joe is off on missions he knows to be dangerous and has to deal with knowing little more than that. It’s actually an impressive dynamic and serves to balance all of the hard-edge military material that by necessity dominates the series.
Again Sheridan makes things look incredibly real. The Morocco locations add quite a bit of realism to the Middle East, and it certainly brings out the best in the characters. It’s easy to act when you’re given this much training and massive sets. Everything is realistic, from the weapons to their tactics, and you just won’t find a more compelling version of this kind of show. Often television people talk about how they’re making a movie each week, and most of the time it’s standard BS. That’s not true here. This has the production values and cast of a film from top to bottom. You get a few nice extras including a Behind The Story for each episode. There are eight episodes on three discs with incredible audio and video.
I still question Sheridan’s ability to tell a story. The plot beats aren’t particularly unique here. You’ve seen it a hundred times before. But he throws characters and authenticity at us so strongly that you find yourself less worried about the story and more compelled to follow these characters in these situations. “Am I making myself clear?”
