Special Ops: Lioness - Season 1
The life of an undercover agent is not always a bed of roses. Maintaining the balance between work and private life is an operation in itself. The struggle you go through becomes painfully clear in Special Ops: Lioness. When I saw the announcement and first images of this series, I was at least moderately enthusiastic about it. The premise of the series appealed to me and the star cast speaks for itself. I am mostly positive about the end result. Judging from the first images, I expected a bit more spectacle, but what you get in return is, in my opinion, a realistic representation of undercover existence.
What I like about this series is the struggle that characters go through in balancing their work and private lives. This struggle is especially visible in CIA agent Joe (Zoe Saldana, From Scratch). Joe is in charge of this special unit and has her hands full managing her team. At the same time, she has a husband and two children that she has virtually no time for at the moment. During the season, events occur in her family life where she can hardly be there for them. You can see it starting to eat away at her. Her family is also starting to have more and more difficulty with the fact that their mother and wife suddenly have to leave at important moments. As a viewer, you get a good impression of what impact living undercover has on your state of mind.
Cruz's undercover operation is also a good example of this. She had to endure very hard training in which you had to be able to turn off all forms of emotion. Becoming friends with Aaliyah Amrohi (Stephanie Nur, 1883), daughter of the ultimate target, is part of her job. Yet an undercover agent is only human. Feelings are difficult to turn off and that is the struggle Cruz is going through. Building a bond with Aaliyah goes well for her, but perhaps a little too well. As Cruz spends more time with her, she begins to become more sympathetic. She feels that Aaliyah is a sincere person despite her father allegedly financing terrorists. This creates an internal conflict within Cruz as to whether she is still behind this undercover operation.
I think that this series contains too few action-packed moments. Maybe that wasn't the goal of this series, but that's what I had set myself for in advance. As far as I'm concerned, they spend a lot of time in the interaction between the undercover operation and private life in each episode. As described above, that combination works excellently, but I expected more action-packed moments during the undercover operation. The undercover operation takes a lot of time to build the bond between Cruz and Aaliyah, and there are few exciting moments in between. You can think of suspicious security guards that Cruz could deal with and there are plenty of other examples to make the undercover operation a bit more lively. A missed opportunity, although it could also be a shortcoming of my expectations.
At the time of writing, Special Ops: Lioness has not officially been renewed for a second season. Since the series has set records for Paramount+, it cannot be ruled out that this will change. In any case, I would be in favor of it and definitely watch this entertaining series for a second season.
The series is inspired by a so-called Lioness program of the American army that emerged after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. It is a special unit that carries out undercover missions. Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira, Locke & Key) is recruited into the CIA's Lioness program and assigned to befriend the daughter of someone allegedly funding terrorists.Judging from the first images, I expected a bit more spectacle, but what you get in return is, in my opinion, a realistic representation of undercover existence.
What I like about this series is the struggle that characters go through in balancing their work and private lives. This struggle is especially visible in CIA agent Joe (Zoe Saldana, From Scratch). Joe is in charge of this special unit and has her hands full managing her team. At the same time, she has a husband and two children that she has virtually no time for at the moment. During the season, events occur in her family life where she can hardly be there for them. You can see it starting to eat away at her. Her family is also starting to have more and more difficulty with the fact that their mother and wife suddenly have to leave at important moments. As a viewer, you get a good impression of what impact living undercover has on your state of mind.
© Paramount+
Cruz's undercover operation is also a good example of this. She had to endure very hard training in which you had to be able to turn off all forms of emotion. Becoming friends with Aaliyah Amrohi (Stephanie Nur, 1883), daughter of the ultimate target, is part of her job. Yet an undercover agent is only human. Feelings are difficult to turn off and that is the struggle Cruz is going through. Building a bond with Aaliyah goes well for her, but perhaps a little too well. As Cruz spends more time with her, she begins to become more sympathetic. She feels that Aaliyah is a sincere person despite her father allegedly financing terrorists. This creates an internal conflict within Cruz as to whether she is still behind this undercover operation.
I think that this series contains too few action-packed moments. Maybe that wasn't the goal of this series, but that's what I had set myself for in advance. As far as I'm concerned, they spend a lot of time in the interaction between the undercover operation and private life in each episode. As described above, that combination works excellently, but I expected more action-packed moments during the undercover operation. The undercover operation takes a lot of time to build the bond between Cruz and Aaliyah, and there are few exciting moments in between. You can think of suspicious security guards that Cruz could deal with and there are plenty of other examples to make the undercover operation a bit more lively. A missed opportunity, although it could also be a shortcoming of my expectations.
The star cast, as you would expect, deliver excellent performances. On the poster of the series you can see Morgan Freeman shining. For those who expect a prominent role from him, I have to temper expectations a bit. It has mainly been used as a billboard for the promotion of this series, but it appears sporadically in the series itself. Although I still love hearing his distinctive voice.I personally think that this series contains too few action-packed moments.
At the time of writing, Special Ops: Lioness has not officially been renewed for a second season. Since the series has set records for Paramount+, it cannot be ruled out that this will change. In any case, I would be in favor of it and definitely watch this entertaining series for a second season.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
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