Mid-season episodes of TV shows tend to be either bombastic or full of exposition to properly set up the second half of the season. This week's episode of Special Ops: Lioness, "Truth is the Shrewdest Lie," was more of the latter than the former. There was a lot of table setting, a bit of anti-climactic action in the dark, and a lot of transport. The story moved along, to be sure, but it was more about interpersonal intrigue and mystique than it was about thrills and intrigue. Still, it wouldn't be an episode of Lioness without at least a few edge-of-your-seat moments. As we've seen on Yellowstone, creator Taylor Sheridan is a master at setting us up for one thrilling conclusion, and it's always worth the wait. Undoubtedly, we won't see anything coming as this debut season comes to a close.
Like all previous episodes this season, Episode 5 was written by Sheridan, and this week, it's directed by Paul Cameron (who directed a couple episodes of HBO's action-packed Westworld). There are a lot of different storylines at play between the Lioness operation, Joe's personal life, and that off-the-books Texas op and we get updates on essentially all of them, even though it might not be as action-packed as prior episodes.
Here's everything we saw in this week's episode, plus a few predictions for what's to come as we head toward the end of the season.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Special Ops: Lioness season 1, episode 5.
Cruz gets in some solid time with the Lioness crew
Greg Lewis/Paramount+
When the episode opens, it's on Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira), post-attack, waking up in whatever safehouse the group has brought her to. As a reminder, back at the end of Episode 4, Joe (Zoe Saldana) and the rest of the Lioness crew saved her after she got her drink drugged in the Hamptons. She rips out her IV and heads to the living room to chew everyone out for taking her away from her position undercover, and along the way, she gets some sort of adrenaline or vitamin shot that sends her heart racing. She might still look a little worse for wear, but it seems like she's at least functional and in working order for the time being.
She's also a little concerned about what actually went down in the woods (where her team saved her from a potential date rapist), which she insists she remembers nothing about. Tucker (1883's LaMonica Garrett) reassures her that, even though her underwear is gone, her assailant "didn't get that far," answering her skepticism with "I wouldn't bullshit you on this." If we look back to the scene in Episode 2 where Joe puts Cruz through a brutal beating to show her what she's up against, it was suggested that she stopped working as an erotic dancer after an assumed sexual assault. Needless to say, this news is easily a relief and then some.
It's also clear that Cruz is not about to be sent back to hang out with her mark Aaliyah (1883's Stephanie Nur) and her wild group of friends (which include her fiancé's brother Kamal (Britney Spears' husband Sam Asghari) in the Hamptons. For better or for worse, Cruz is bound to spend the next few days with Joe, Tucker, Bobby (Jill Wagner) and the rest of her team, no matter where they go.
Kate is great...ish
When Joe finally gets to the hospital to see her husband Neil (Yellowstone alum Dave Annable) and daughter Kate (Road House's Hannah Love Lanier), she learns that Kate's surgery went well and that it seems that her body rejected the pregnancy (that we found about after her car accident last episode) mid-procedure. The orthopedist says he's not sure how the injury will affect Kate long-term, especially since she's still growing, but that for now, he's happy with how things are going.
Joe then heads in for a chat with Kate, which quickly turns into a Joe-driven soliloquy about how Kate shouldn't hate her mother and why is she punishing her this way. While it's understandable why Joe is angry, the accident did take the life of Kate's friend after all, it would have been nice to see more softness and sympathy from Joe, as opposed to the tough love and "me me me" she delivered seemingly out of nowhere. But it does seem to have at least landed a little since Kate tells her, "I don't hate you. I just miss you." The two chat a little more about the difference between being a girl and a woman, and then we learn that Kate was conceived by accident in a coat closet at the Doubletree Hotel on New Year's Eve, so now we know that! An interesting bit of information to give us a glaring view of how this somewhat disfunctional family unit began.
When Joe takes her leave of Kate, she heads out in the hall to greet her younger daughter. She's then whisked away by Kaitlyn (Nicole Kidman), who asks if she'd maybe like to be a station chief instead of a field officer. She'd be stationed somewhere she could "take the family, like London," but Joe seems skeptical, saying, "Then they're still a target." Still, Kaitlyn says, "My marriage shouldn't be your goal," which, given what we see of her husband Errol (Weeds alum Martin Donovan) later in the episode, seems to be true for sure. Joe seems to genuinely like being in the midst of the action, but considering everything going on with her family, this is an out to a completely different life. It feels unlikely she'd take the job unless something truly terrible happens in the next few episodes.
Joe and Kyle face the music at CIA HQ
Greg Lewis/Paramount+
Kaitlyn takes Joe to CIA HQ, where they meet with Byron Westfield (Jack Ryan's Michael Kelly) and rogue agent Kyle (Thad Luckinbill), whose Texas op from Episode 3 has gotten Joe and her company in hot water. Byron reams Kyle out but tells him that, fortunately, the information he provided is good, and the CIA has greenlit an operation to go down and round up the bad actors. They're about to land in a safe house in San Antonio that, fortunately, Kyle has fully wired with cameras.
After Kyle is dismissed, Byron rips into Joe, telling her, "the assets that I have given you to complete your mission are just that: My assets. I allow you to use them. I don't care if you witness a carjacking in a church parking lot. You do not deploy them without my permission." Yes, sir! He sends her off to San Antonio to rendezvous with her team and head the op alongside Kyle. Kaitlyn tags along too, telling Joe that she has to because "That's how much trouble you're in." It's a clear reminder that if you're working in the military, you serve the United States. Not yourself.
A skirmish in San Antonio
Once Joe gets to San Antonio, she sees that Cruz is also there. While at first, she's reticent to have her go on the mission, saying, "We can't have you on the news leaving a raid," she eventually agrees to let her go in once the other soldiers remind her that they'd benefit from another set of boots on the ground. I wonder if we should remember this, like... Do the terrorists also have the house wired? And is someone going to see Cruz in there and report back to Aaliyah's fiancé Ehsan, or maybe her terrorist dad? How are these two plot lines going to tie together, assuming they will at all?
Anyway, after a little surveillance, the gang realizes that their once very peaceful capture mission has now gotten a bit hairier, with the terrorists arming a rather large bomb near their beds. It's surely set to be used at some large event in San Antonio the next day, meaning that the government decides to just eliminate all the bad actors.
As we see fairly shortly thereafter, that does seem to make things a bit easier when the crew breaches the house at 4 am. The terrorists clearly never saw them coming, and they're taken out rather quickly, save one guy who Cruz, in a feat of intuition, catches arming a suicide vest. She takes him out before he can blow himself and everyone else up, and while Joe chides her a little for going against the plan, she seems thankful all the same. The crew heads back to Fort Bragg, mission complete and with the bomb in the hands of the San Antonio PD. Hallelujah.
Cruz gets a call
While on the ride back to the private plane, Cruz asks Joe and Kaitlyn what she should tell Aaliyah. Kaitlyn tells her to "tell the truth. Just leave out the names," which seems like good advice. A GHB-fueled assault would be something that even Aaliyah's asshole friends would have to be sympathetic to, and it would explain where she's been for the past few days.
We never really see that exchange go down, though, because once Cruz is back at Fort Bragg, she chooses to answer a call from Aaliyah, who's seemingly been pestering her via text. Cruz tells her that she's in Jordan, and when Aaliyah repeatedly asks for FaceTime proof, Cruz dodges, feigning shame and saying, "I don't have your money." Aaliyah says that together they're like "lady and the lady tramp" and asks her to come back to the Hamptons. Her friends have gone, she says, and she's all alone. Obviously, Cruz will go because it's just too easy, but is that really a good idea? Because we've got thoughts, which we'll talk more about in our questions below.
The episode ends with an exchange between Joe and Neil. When she returns to the hospital, he spots blood on her face and asks, "Did ISIS come to Baltimore, Joe, or am I married to a fucking hitman?" Ideally, she could tell him that she was involved with the high-profile op in San Antonio that's getting so much news coverage, but she's probably not allowed to say what she's doing at all, lest she gets him and the rest of the family in too much danger. Instead, she dodges a conversation with him later, choosing to take a call from Cruz. I'm not sure what will happen with their marriage, but it feels like it's hanging by a thread, no matter how much love there is between them.
Questions and predictions
Greg Lewis/Paramount+
There are only three more episodes left of Lioness this season, and we're still not really sure when—or if—the proverbial manure is going to hit the fan. As with any Taylor Sheridan show, you have to expect that things could go sideways at any moment, so we know not to be comfortable. Here are some of the questions we're asking ourselves, along with some of the predictions we feel comfortable making:
- Is Aaliyah really alone? I don't know about that one. And I have thoughts! See below for my very speculative prediction about the whole thing.
- Is that really the end of the whole Kyle/special op situation? I have a hard time believing that the situation in Texas is all wrapped up in a nice shiny bow. While Joe did say that she might call on Kyle when she needs him the most, it's hard to believe that everything will end up hunky dory down there near the border. After all, as Kaitlyn and her husband discuss back in Virginia, "It's going to happen again. They're coming in through Mexico using the cartels, and we can't stop them. Now the whole world knows." Might as well invite your daughters over for dinner now, right?
- Will Joe take the station chief gig? It would certainly be a better and more stable option for her, but I sort of doubt it will happen. Would moving to London be a better environment for her family, or would it just yield the same sort of interpersonal scuffles and drama, only in a new country?
- Prediction: Aaliyah and Cruz are going to hook up: Did anyone else get sultry booty call-like vibes from that call between Cruz and her mark? Come to the Hamptons, Aaliyah says. She's all alone! Is it possible, maybe, that she's honey-trapping Cruz as well? Or maybe, just maybe, those two crazy kids actually do like each other? If so, it could make the whole betrayal thing seem basically impossible to execute—for Cruz, at least. I think Joe would pull the trigger, for sure.
New episodes of Special Ops: Lioness premiere Sundays on Paramount+.
