Lioness (American TV series)

• 1. Introduction

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  Lioness is an American spy thriller created by Taylor Sheridan, and its central idea is a CIA unit built around women. The agents in that unit are called Lionesses. They go undercover in the war on terror, and a senior officer recruits them and sends them in. The series premiered on Paramount+ on the 23rd of July 2023. Its title points to a real group of women from the Iraq war, and that raises the first question. What happened to the soldiers who inspired it? Other questions follow. Who fills the show's crowded cast, and how did a streaming service assemble it? Why did reviewers divide so sharply over the first season, and how many people ended up watching?

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• 2. Team Lioness

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  In Iraq in 2003, American forces made a decision to send female soldiers out with their patrols. The reason was practical. Insurgents were exploiting women to smuggle material, and male US soldiers found it hard to search Muslim women. The women who filled that gap became known as Team Lioness.

  Those teams soon met direct combat. That put them in violation of the Combat Exclusion Policy, which was changed only a decade later. The consequence reached past the battlefield. Because their fighting sat outside the rules, the soldiers struggled to claim veteran benefits once they came home.

  The television series borrows only the loosest outline of this history. Its Lionesses belong to a CIA program rather than to infantry patrols, and its drama centers on the officer who runs the program and the household she goes home to.

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• 3. Inside the Program

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  Zoe Saldaña plays Joe McNamara, a CIA senior case officer in charge of the Lioness program. Her home life pulls against her work. Her husband, Dr. Neal McNamara, is a pediatric oncology surgeon, played by Dave Annable. Their daughters are Kate, a teenager played by Hannah Love Lanier, and the younger Charlie, played by Celestina Harris.

  Laysla De Oliveira plays Cruz Manuelos, a Force Recon Marine who serves as a Lioness operative in the first season. By the second season Cruz has become a U.S. Army Delta Force operator attached to G Squadron. She is also the handler for a new recruit.

  That recruit is Captain Josephina Carrillo, played by Genesis Rodriguez. Josephina flies a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk for the U.S. Army. The program wants her because her family is tied to the Mexican cartel that kidnapped an American congresswoman.

  Backing the operatives is a quick reaction force led by Bobby, played by Jill Wagner. Its members include Tucker, a former U.S. Marine played by LaMonica Garrett, along with Two Cups, Randy and Tex.

  Nicole Kidman plays Kaitlyn Meade, a CIA Clandestine Service supervisor and Joe's boss. Kaitlyn answers to Byron Westfield, the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations, played by Michael Kelly. Morgan Freeman plays Edwin Mullins, the U.S. Secretary of State.

  In the first season the mission circles a young woman named Aaliyah Amrohi, played by Stephanie Nur. She is the daughter of a suspected terrorist financier. Her father, Asmar Ali Amrohi, is an Iraqi financier played by Bassem Youssef, and he is the new ace of spades on the most wanted playing cards.

  Season two also brings a DEA Special Agent named Raymond Gutierrez, played by Kirk Acevedo, into the circle.

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• 4. Sheridan's Studio

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  In September 2020, Lioness was named in the first plans for the Paramount+ programming slate. That service grew out of the 2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, and the Paramount+ brand launched in 2021. Taylor Sheridan, the creator of Yellowstone, was attached as creator. He also became an executive producer through his Bosque Ranch Productions banner, alongside Yellowstone co-producer 101 Studios.

  In February 2022, Zoe Saldaña was cast in the lead. She joined as an executive producer, working alongside Nicole Kidman. Laysla De Oliveira signed on the following month. In June, Sheridan took over as showrunner from Thomas Brady, after the writers' room finished its work.

  September brought Dave Annable, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton and Hannah Love Lanier. In January 2023, Kidman and Michael Kelly joined the cast alongside Morgan Freeman. Sheridan wrote all 16 episodes of the first two seasons himself.

  On the 9th of May 2024, reports named Saldaña, De Oliveira, Kelly and Kidman as returning for season two. Freeman was promoted to series regular. The renewal became official the same day, and De Oliveira shared her excitement on Instagram. On the 17th of May, Thad Luckinbill was promoted to series regular as well. A few days later, Genesis Rodriguez joined in an undisclosed capacity.

  On the 13th of September 2024, Max Martini, Kirk Acevedo and Patricia de Leon were cast in recurring roles. Sheridan appears too, as Cody, a Delta Force operator with KT tape wrapped on him who reassures a doubtful Joe.

  The third season was ordered on the 15th of August 2025. That month, Paramount Global merged with Skydance Media to form Paramount Skydance. MTV Entertainment Studios was folded into Paramount Television Studios, which then took over production. In October 2025, frequent Sheridan collaborator Ian Bohen joined as a Delta Force operator. On the 29th of January 2026, Elizaveta Neretin signed on in a recurring role.

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• 5. On Location

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  Cameras first rolled in Delaware in September 2022. Filming then moved to Mallorca in January 2023. In May 2023, an announcement said the series was now called Special Ops: Lioness. The title card never changed, and the original name returned when the second season was ordered.

  Andrew Lockington composed the music. He had already worked with Sheridan on Mayor of Kingstown, and Lakeshore Records released the soundtrack.

  In May 2024, production on season two officially began. The crew left the rough streets of Baltimore, Maryland, for the wide open landscapes of Texas. Sheridan was reported to be directing the third episode of the season. On the 29th of August 2024, Michael Kelly announced that filming had wrapped.

  The third season began in October 2025 with location work in Fort Worth. Filming wrapped on the 25th of March 2026.

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• 6. Release and Audience

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  On the 8th of June 2023, Paramount+ unveiled a first-look trailer. The eight-part first season opened with two one-hour episodes, and the rest followed weekly. A red carpet premiere had been planned for the 18th of July 2023 at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles. It was canceled because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, making it one of the first events lost to the walkout.

  The first season drew nearly 6 million total viewers in its first week. That count combined Paramount+ viewers around the world with a linear preview on the Paramount Network. At the time, it was the streamer's most-watched worldwide series premiere on launch day. The record fell later to Lawmen: Bass Reeves, another Sheridan series for Paramount+. Even so, Special Ops: Lioness ranked among the most-watched global series premieres on the service in 2023.

  The second season opened with a two-episode premiere on the 27th of October 2024. It gathered three million views in its first seven days. It placed fourth among Paramount+ originals for the biggest domestic household premieres. Through the week of the 10th of November, the total reached 12.4 million viewers across all platforms. Average households rose from 4.8 million to 5.4 million.

  The second season reached 8.3 million domestic households, a 10% increase over the 7.6 million of season one. It ranked third among the most-watched global series premieres on Paramount+ in 2024.

  Nielsen counts only US viewing on television sets. By that measure, season two placed eighth and then fifth in its first two weeks. It reached fourth on the original series chart in early December. During the week of the 2nd of December, it also took the seventh spot on the overall chart.

  Luminate tracked streaming for the week of the 29th of November to the 5th of December. It ranked season two as the fourth most-watched streaming original in the US, with season one eighth.

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• 7. Critics and Awards

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  For its first season, Rotten Tomatoes reported a 56% approval rating from 36 reviews, with an average of 6.1 out of 10. The critics consensus reads: "Zoe Saldaña provides the energy of a Lioness, but these Special Ops are largely derivative and unconvincing." Metacritic gave a weighted average of 56 out of 100 from 19 critics, which it labels mixed or average. By April 2025, the show's overall Rotten Tomatoes rating had climbed to 73%.

  Anita Singh of The Daily Telegraph praised De Oliveira and Saldaña. She then wrote: "the one thing that lets the show down is Nicole Kidman as a CIA boss, whose frozen face these days is a total distraction."

  Tania Hussain of Collider liked the cast but called the story flawed. She felt Sheridan was struggling to write about women. Her colleague Michael John Petty said the series "might work best as a one-and-done story." His season two review turned warmer. He credited Sheridan and company with managing to "extend the narrative as organically as possible."

  Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter mocked the script as written for viewers "half-watching while scrolling Facebook on their phones anyway." Still, she found one quality that "shines through clear as day": its reverence for the U.S. Marine Corps.

  Jim Hemphill of IndieWire singled out cinematographer Paul Cameron, saying his work "breaks all the cinematography rules." Even a standard dialogue scene, Hemphill wrote, gains energy from unorthodox angles and alternating focal lengths.

  Mike Hale of The New York Times changed his mind. After one episode he saw a show that "looks like an awful lot of other counterterrorism thrillers." After the full season, he called it "a moody, suspenseful, textured genre piece with characters you cared about." He added that Sheridan had found a form in the action thriller that suited him better than his westerns and crime dramas. Variety, judging the first episode alone, called it "cliché" and "shameless military propaganda."

  The second season fared better on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 90% approval rating from 10 critic reviews and an average of 7.3 out of 10.

  Awards bodies took notice as well. The Asia Contents Awards & Global OTT Awards listed the series for Best Creative, Taylor Sheridan for Best Writer and Zoe Saldaña for Best Lead Actress. The Critics' Choice Super Awards listed the series and Saldaña in its action categories. At the Black Reel TV Awards, the show appeared for lead performance and for editing, credited to Sushila Love. Nicole Kidman appeared in the supporting actress category at the Critics' Choice Television Awards in February 2025. The latest entry is the Primetime Emmy Awards on the 6th of September 2025, where Wade Allen was listed for stunt coordination.

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