Take a break from that pedicure and wipe off the mud mask: It's time for a Special Ops: Lioness recap. In this week's episode, "The Lie Is The Truth," we finally got to meet Secretary Of State Morgan Freeman, who's bald now, which is cool. We also got glimpses into Aaliyah's inner depths, further hints about what's going on with Kudra Petrol, and even a little hostage situation. All in a day's work for the Lioness team, it seems. Creator Taylor Sheridan (who is also the primary writer) is taking us on one wild ride this episode with a major twist no one saw coming. Though we did predict one major surprise in our Episode 5 recap. Director Paul Cameron (Westworld) captures the chaos in the field and in the White House as the team's mission gets progressively more complicated.
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 6
Cruz gets a surprise
When we open the episode, Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira) is on her way out to East Hampton, where Aaliyah (1883's Stephanie Nur) has arranged a spa day for her. On the phone, Joe (Zoe Saldana) reminds her to tell the truth about her life (mostly) but change the names, lest Aaliyah remember some detail and catch her in a lie down the road. "This is her wanting to know you," says Joe, reminding Cruz that there are very real risks involved with this whole situation.
Not that Cruz doesn't know, because the whole time she's around Aaliyah she looks like a skittish dog backed into a corner. She can't stand her pedicure. She thinks massages are awful, and she's never seen a scary movie. She's also never seen The Notebook, which Aaliyah rectifies later that night as the two have a sleepover.
In the morning, Cruz wakes to Aaliyah's cries of joy. Her mom called to tell her the wedding's going to be in Mallorca, "the most beautiful place on Earth," and, in her joy, she lays one on Cruz. Cruz kisses her back and there's a bit of a sexy back and forth before the two part, and Aaliyah seems to go right back on with her day. Cruz, on the other hand, steps toward the window and stares out, seemingly scared to death. Has she caught feelings? And what does this mean for the op?
Kaitlyn and Joe go to the White House
Luke Varley/Paramount+
After last week's San Antonio happenings, Kaitlyn (Nicole Kidman) and Joe have been summoned to the White House for a debrief. The president won't be there, but the Secretary of State will, given that he seems to have canceled a trip to Poland. He turns out to be Morgan Freeman, who is a hero and an icon, and we should all celebrate him. He turns in a whiz-bang performance in the debrief, giving Joe, Kyle (Thad Luckinbill), and Kaitlyn the business about their illicit operation on American soil.
While Byron Westfield (Jack Ryan's Michael Kelly) seems to think that what they did should be okay, given that they essentially helped avoid a 9/11-size catastrophe at an Elton John concert happening in the Alamo Dome, the Secretary doesn't exactly see it that way. After reaming out Kyle, the Secretary tells Joe, Kaitlyn, and Byron that when the wedding goes down, they'll have to run the op from the situation room, where the government can keep an eye on the whole thing. They're calling it "Operation Yellowjacket," and the missile authorization code is Mabel. When Joe questions why they have to do the op from the White House, the secretary tells her that it's because of what went down with Kyle, saying, "You can do that shit all you want in Syria. You don't get to do it here."
Bumps in the night
While Joe's meeting with those muckety-mucks, the rest of the Lioness team is surveilling Cruz. They're questioning why Aaliyah only has one security guard and conclude that the house must have some closed-circuit cameras beaming everything off to some off-site viewer. They're right, of course, because we saw the light in Cruz's vent a few episodes back.
All of a sudden, the team hears a crash and a bang downstairs. Grabbing their gear, they head to investigate, only to stumble on a couple of twentysomethings in the midst of a smash-and-grab. They apprehend them and then sneak up on their getaway driver in the yard, telling them, "Boy, did you pick the wrong house."
When next we see the detainees, they're tied up and uncomfortable in the house's foyer. One is pissing himself—literally—and Joe has sent Kyle to deal with the whole thing. He gives them $10,000 each to run away and never speak of this whole thing again, which (hopefully) they do, hauling ass away from the situation in their car.
Questions and predictions
Greg Lewis/Paramount+
As always, this week's episode of Special Ops: Lioness raised more questions than it answered—and we're not just talking about if there's a budding romance between Cruz and Aaliyah. Here are some of our biggest questions about what's to come, as well as a little prediction for next week's episode.
- What in the world is going on with Kudra Petrol? At the beginning of the episode, there's a scene where Kaitlyn and her husband Errol (Weeds alum Martin Donovan) are talking about the upcoming White House debrief. He tells her how he knows she's being summoned, and she offers a little something back, telling him that there's a mole in Kudra Petrol, but it's not someone the government has placed. She says that it's not a nation or a group but rather alludes to it being someone from or related to a parent company that acts as a bank for terrorists—and that also paid for New York's two tallest buildings. I'm not exactly sure how any of that works, but it all sounds very nefarious.
Beyond that, we learn later in the episode that Byron and Kaitlyn think the government is "too upset" about what went down in San Antonio, leading them to believe that the President and Secretary have some vested interest in the Middle East becoming destabilized. While the CIA team still doesn't see who would benefit, they're set on figuring out why, which is good because, frankly, I'd love to know too.
- What kind of evil does Aaliyah come from, and what kind is she marrying into? When Cruz implores Aaliyah not to marry Ehsan, the very kind target tells her that "in [her] country, to say no is to shame both families." If she declined the marriage or backed out now, she says, she'd be locked up somewhere or killed. At least if she gets married, she'll get to live a life of luxury in Riyadh. She might not love her husband, but if she's lucky, she'll at least get to feel the warmth of true love once she has kids.
- Prediction: Someone saw Cruz and Aaliyah's kiss. As we learned a couple of weeks ago and this week, there are cameras in Aaliyah's house filming everything that goes on inside. While Cruz might be under the delusion that what happened between her and her mark is private, it's actually very much not. Can Aaliyah's family or fiance chalk it up to a youthful indiscretion, or will it mean that Cruz gets disinvited from that all-important wedding? We'll have to wait and find out.
New episodes of Special Ops: Lioness premiere Sundays on Paramount+. Enjoy the following exclusive clip behind the scenes of this episode.
