When the Game Changes and Lioness Becomes Something Much Bigger! (S03E02-03

It is Saturday night, August 22. I am on an Aegean flight that has already been delayed by an hour, heading to Chania. Unfortunately, I had to travel back to Athens yesterday, Friday, because we had a loss in the family. My father’s brother suffered a heart attack and we lost him. Michael, may you rest in peace and have a good journey to paradise.

So I took the plane to attend the funeral and now I am heading back to Chania to continue my vacation for another week.

So, in the middle of the Aegean delay — damn them — I decided to watch episodes 2 and 3, while episode 4 is coming in just a few hours. The above may not concern you, but never forget, dear reader, that playview.eu is a lifeblog!

There are times when a series manages to keep you glued to the screen not because something huge is happening, but because you feel that every minute is taking you somewhere. That is exactly how I felt watching the latest two episodes of the third season of Lioness!

The second episode, “No Sorrow Like the Survivor,” continues the story after the attack on Joe’s home while also beginning to unravel the mystery surrounding her kidnapping. The third, “The Bear Is Infected,” goes even deeper, putting the pure action aside for a while and placing espionage, geopolitics, and, above all, the question of just how deeply the enemy may have infiltrated the American system at the center of the story.

And this is where, for me, the biggest difference of this season lies.

Season 3 Broke the Pattern

In the first two seasons, there was a pattern that, no matter how different their stories were, remained recognizable. There was a target, there was a mission, there was the preparation, the infiltration, and eventually the execution. Lioness knew exactly what kind of series it was, and it did that very well in its own way.

But here, Taylor Sheridan decides to change the rules.

Season 3 essentially starts by already knowing that Joe has been kidnapped and then takes us back to show us how we got there. As a result, episodes 2 and 3 operate across two timelines, with the past becoming increasingly important because we already know what the outcome will be.

And I really liked that.

Because suddenly, you are not simply watching another mission. You are watching a chain of events while knowing that something has gone terribly wrong, but without yet knowing exactly where things went off the rails.

Joe’s kidnapping is no longer simply a cliffhanger. It is the result of a game that we are watching unfold right in front of us.

And the more we learn, the more we realize that this is much bigger than one (failed or successful — opinions differ) operation in Ukraine.

Joe’s Kidnapping and the Game of Cat and Mouse

One of the elements that works extremely well is the way the series uses Joe’s kidnapping. It does not simply tell us, “She was kidnapped,” and then move on.

It shows us Joe as a captive, takes us back, shows us what happened before, gives us new information, and then returns to the outcome once again.

In the second episode, the Russians try to locate the tracker she is carrying, while her team discovers that she has been kidnapped and begins trying to figure out who is behind the attack. Joe, meanwhile, tries to buy herself time even while in captivity.

The most important thing, however, is that her kidnapping is not presented as a random event.

Little by little, we begin to see how the operation in Ukraine, the abduction of Aleksi Yurimov, the attack on Joe’s home, and the presence of Ukrainian intelligence officer Oleksandra Balakin are all connected.

And this is exactly where Lioness, in my eyes, becomes more interesting than ever.

Joe’s Family Can No Longer Stay Out of the War

On the other side, there is the family.

Season 3 continues something the series has been building since the previous seasons: Joe’s attempt to separate her work from her personal life. Only this time, that separation has disappeared.

The attack comes directly to her home.

Her daughters now clearly see that their mother’s job is not simply a dangerous career. It is something that can cost them their lives.

The family essentially stages an intervention with Joe and asks her to leave the CIA. Her response is one of those moments that explains her character better than almost anything else. For Joe, leaving the job does not mean that the threat disappears. It simply means leaving the fight unfinished.

And here we have an interesting paradox.

Joe believes she is protecting her family by protecting her country. Her family, however, is beginning to see that perhaps this very mission is what is putting all of them in danger.

There is no easy answer.

And that makes the conflict much more interesting than a simple “career or family” dilemma.

Nicole Kidman and the Conversation That Opens Up the Geopolitical Side

One of the moments that particularly stayed with me from the third episode is the conversation between Kaitlyn Meade and her husband, Errol.

Nicole Kidman’s character is deeply involved in the CIA game and understands very well how geopolitics works. Yet the conversation with Errol acts as a different window into the situation.

Their discussion moves through Russia and China and, more importantly, through the very different ways the two countries approach their competition with the United States.

Russia is presented more as a power that operates through confrontation, recruitment, and exploiting opportunities, while China is presented as a power that thinks more long-term, economically and through intelligence.

I liked this scene precisely because it was not simply “another Nicole Kidman scene.”

It provided the context for everything that was about to follow.

And then Oleksandra arrives and makes that particular framework even clearer.

The Bear, the Tiger and the Pack of Wolves

If there is one scene from these two episodes that I think deserves to stick with you, it is Oleksandra’s briefing to the team.

The Ukrainian agent explains the way she sees the conflict using three animals.

Russia is the pack of wolves.
China is the tiger.
The United States is the bear.

The logic is simple but quite powerful as a television metaphor: neither the pack of wolves nor the tiger can easily kill the bear through a direct attack. So they do not need to confront it head-on.

They need to make it sick.

“Disease kills the bear.”

And this is where the series moves from classic espionage action into something much bigger.

The “disease” is infiltration.

It is people who can be blackmailed. Politicians who can be influenced. People in positions that may seem insignificant on their own but, when placed in exactly the right position within the system, can influence much more.

And suddenly, Lioness is no longer simply about agents hunting other agents.

It is about a system that may already be infected.

That, for me, was one of the most interesting elements of the episode.

And Joe Realizes She Is Chasing Something Much Bigger

Oleksandra is not simply a suspicious operative.

She knows too much.

She understands how Lioness operates, recognizes faces, knows about previous operations, and reveals to the team that foreign intelligence has gathered far more information about them than they ever realized. She claims that Russia has created a network of people inside the United States using blackmail, financial influence, and honeypot operations.

And this is where the story becomes genuinely interesting.

Because Joe does not simply want to find the traitor.

She wants to find the entire network.

And this leads her to the idea of using Oleksandra herself as bait.

They will announce that they have a Russian agent in custody and wait to see who reacts.

In other words, let the network expose itself.

It is exactly the kind of game I enjoy in Lioness: you do not necessarily win because you have more power. You win because you manage to make your opponent react.

The Big Twist at the End

And then comes the ending of the third episode.

Until that point, we are trying to understand who Oleksandra really is, who betrayed Joe, and what exactly the network they are looking for looks like. Then the series takes us back once again to the timeline of Joe’s captivity.

And we see Joe.

Tied to a bed.

Her captors are using sleep deprivation as torture, with water continuously dripping on her while the public announcement made by the American side plays over and over again on a screen.

And this is where the great irony lies.

Joe is trying to set a trap to flush the Russians out of hiding.

But perhaps the trap worked in the opposite direction as well.

The announcement itself may have given her enemies a reason to keep her alive and try to understand exactly what the Americans know.

We still do not have all the answers, and that is exactly the right place for an episode to stop.

What Audiences and Critics Are Saying

The reaction to the season so far is quite interesting because it seems to split right along the lines of what I personally liked the most.

On one side, there are positive reactions to the fact that the series is expanding the game and going deeper into strategy, espionage, and geopolitics. Several viewers have particularly singled out the bear, tiger, and wolves metaphor and the fact that the season spends more time showing how intelligence agencies think rather than simply showing them shooting at people.

On the other hand, there has also been criticism of the amount of exposition through dialogue. Some viewers feel that certain pieces of information are explained too directly, while others find some of the theories and geopolitical analysis a little too “Sheridan.” The animal metaphor itself, as strong as it may be as an idea, has also received criticism from those who feel that it becomes a little too didactic.

And there is another criticism worth mentioning: the fact that Season 3 appears to be moving quite far away from the status quo of the first two seasons. For some, that is exactly what makes it better. For others, it creates the feeling that the series is abandoning part of the identity it had built.

Personally, at this point, I am firmly in the first camp.

If I had to put everything into one sentence, I would say that Lioness has shown us that this time the mission is not to find a target. It is to discover who has already infiltrated the system.

Joe survives the attack on her home, the team finds evidence leading toward Russia, Oleksandra is captured and interrogated, and gradually reveals a much larger network of influence. Joe realizes that there are people inside the United States who have been recruited or blackmailed and decides to use a public announcement as a trap.

At the same time, however, we see that she is already in Russian hands.

And so the series does something very clever: it makes us wonder whether we are watching Joe’s attempt to expose the trap or the flashback that explains exactly how she fell into one herself.

My View

From what I have seen so far, Season 3 is, for me, the best season of Lioness.

And I am saying this having seen only the first three episodes, so obviously my final opinion may change by the end. But what I am seeing right now is a series that decided not to repeat itself.

And that was the biggest risk it could have taken.

Because if it had continued with another mission, another target, and another Lioness who had to infiltrate someone’s life in order to take them out, at some point it would have become predictable.

Instead, Sheridan took the familiar formula and opened it up.

Now we have kidnappings, double agents, geopolitics, information warfare, financial influence, honeypots, blackmail, and a game where it is no longer clear who is hunting whom.

And most importantly: Joe is no longer the hunter. She is also the prey.

That changes everything.

I also really like the fact that the series is not afraid to talk. These two episodes have several scenes where the characters simply sit down and talk. Normally, that could slow the pace down. Here, however, because the information being delivered changes the picture we have of the entire story, it works.

The scene with the bear, the tiger, and the pack of wolves is a perfect example. Someone might find it excessive or even a little too “Sheridan,” but personally I found it extremely interesting because, within a few minutes, it explains what this season is really trying to do.

It is no longer just hunting terrorists.

It is hunting the very idea of a system being corrupted from within.

And somehow, from a series about special operations, Lioness is beginning to feel much more like a large-scale espionage thriller.

Three episodes in, then, and I already have the feeling that this season could be something very different from the previous two.

And the best part?

I have absolutely no idea how the hell Joe is going to get out of there.