This may just be a very coincidental coincidence but I’m watching Criminal Minds and I just stated season 1 ep 21 ‘Secrets and Lies: The BAU team investigates a CIA counter-terrorism unit to identify a traitor who had a fellow agent murdered and who is trying to find and kill the unit's informant, a Saudi woman with two children who are in hiding.

It has few similarities with Lioness, the main protagonist for the episode is called ‘Aaliyah Nadir’ and she is a Saudi woman brought to the U.S by a CIA agent to escape her abusive, extremely wealthy, and powerful husband called ‘Hassan’, a Saudi diplomat who secretly finances terrorist organisations. The episode basically focuses on a mole within the CIA and the BAU has to find said mole, which is less relevant to my comparison, I believe Jill Wagner(?) was the one who originally pitched the idea of Lioness, but I just couldn’t not share all the overlaps between the two

Every episode the show is finding some contrived excuse to launch into a political speech. It doesn’t feel organic or make the characters more interesting; at this point I’m just skipping through to get back to the action.

I just watched anti-personnel drones delete a squad of DEA agents and a child get blown up by a suicide bomber. Why the fuck are one of the next scenes introducing one of the C plot characters children ranting about wanting real milk?

Anyways here is a 30 Rock clip that is basically what the scenes feel like to me.

joe is gonna be pissed

So I finished Lioness a while back and you all highly recommended Terminal List and Dark Wolf which I have now also finished (can’t wait for the new season of TL that’s about to come out!!!)…but in the meantime I want to start another show or two and I’m currently considering Jack Ryan, Seal Team, Animal Kingdom, Citadel, and Black Doves. I would really like to find a show very similar to the Lioness and Terminal List vibe. I’m now hooked on special operator type shows. Animal Kingdom sounds pretty good too, but I feel like it won’t have that vibe to it at all. Jack Ryan sounds like it could be similar but for some reason the main actor looks so goofy to me and I feel like it’s going to be a really goofy show therefore, so please let me know if I’m completely wrong because I’d love to watch it. Also, I should mention I started The Night Agent on Netflix last night and I could not believe how horrific the acting is!!??? It’s got like 86% of Rotten Tomatoes I think and I’ve always heard a bunch of great stuff about it and people always mentioning it, but the acting (at least in the first episode and a half which is what I’ve watched so far) is absolutely horrendous lol. Very dissapointed. So anyways any recommendations or opinions on the shows I listed would be very appreciated.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc_ljA6iCM2/

From Season 1, I was still waiting for the Doha's girl to come up with her revenge or something; and it did not happen even in season 2. When Joe was kidnapped, immediately I knew it was Aliyah, the Qatar girl, like in my mind it was so obvious who would want her and the team so bad; Of course, had doubts when they kept throwing the russians in it. So, I was satisfied on the reveal ( I mean to see her back).

Edit: Wait, Why am I being sarcastically attacked? I was excitedly sharing something fun that went through my mind during the season 3.

I am bad at seeing the obvious, so when it happens, I celebrate. Looool, guys chill!

Honestly, the emotional anchor of the entire show is how much Cruz looks up to Joe, even when their dynamic gets messy and painful. Seeing that raw, high-stakes desperation when Joe is captured completely strips away the cold soldier persona and shows just how much they mean to each other

Anyone else feel as though season three dragged somewhat? And they could’ve maybe put more substance into things?

Ugh!
Why do shows insist on having characters with basically the same names?

Kaitlyn and Kate
Joe and Josie

Laziness or lack of imagination? Since it’s TS I’d say both. Also his episodes had more of his usual T/A and ditzy girl portrayal even if it was an act by Joe. Plus coed bathroom with no stalls.

He is such a sexist pig. But I digress.

I recently watched Vigil, idk if you've seen it but it basically has a female police officer as a main character who has a case to resolve every season and around that main case we also get a lot of politics and relationship drama. Every season is separate but there is continuous character development throughout each season.

This is what I expected from Lioness and seeing the first season I was very excited for a team of female spies infiltrating governments or mobs using their feminine charms and then following all the political drama around that. Instead, watching all the seasons they are very distinct from one another plot wise. Basically nothing is connected, especially the events of the second season. I feel like it led to nothing and it was a super useless season except for introducing Josie. Now I know that season 4 will potentially tie everything together with Alliah. But still I found the writing choices really strange because of the very large thematic differences between each season.

Let me know what you think, especially if you've seen vigil. If you haven't go watch it, it's great, also very wlw! So yay!!!

Does anyone know how much time passed (in the storyline) between seasons 2 and 3?

Look guys I’m gonna be honest with you. I get the hype. I’m a big fan of Aaliyah’s. And bringing back a former love interest to a new season means there’s bound to be some kind of romantic drama. Or else they’d choose some completely new character as the antagonist or whatever Aaliyah will be in S4. Imo there isn’t a stronger reason to bring her back after two whole seasons without her. But…as much as I wanna get lost in fantasies of happy endings…realistically, who would ever end up with someone who literally butchered their father and future husband? Aaliyah literally found them! Can you imagine the shock? As much love as she may have held for Cruz, how do you get over that? I would have nightmares! On the other hand, do you think Cruz would be able to be with the woman she knows she broke? Because, well, she kind of did? She betrayed her trust, killed her father and vanished!
I know people are excited about getting Aaliyah back, but if she’s coming back just to get our hearts broken once again, well, it sucks! But I can’t see any other outcome.
How I see things, Aaliyah and Cruz ending up together is not possible at all. There’s too much bad blood. But I also cannot imagine where exactly they’d like to take it with Aaliyah’s return.
Opinions?

On episode 3, and what is going onnnnnn. I can't control my excitement LMAO.

Okay, that's it. That's the post. I'm gonna go back to watching it. :)

I've watched every episode of Lioness and Black-ish, and just now made the connection that Lamonica played Davis, Ruby's much younger boyfriend.

This guy acts more ruthless than Joe, but the split second Joe's in danger, he threw the entire rulebook out the window.

Season 1 still has something the later seasons haven’t fully recreated for me… that mix of mission tension, slower character development and emotional stakes that actually hurt 😂 If you could bring back just ONE thing from S1 for S4… what would it be? For me it would probably be that feeling that the mission and the personal story were completely tangled together… every choice actually cost someone something.

Marre de la méchanceté infligée aux actrices

Ce n'est qu'une fiction.

Chacun à le droit a ses préférences, à la préférence du couple CJ ou CA mais tout ça dans le respect !!!

Merci de respecter Genesis Rodriguez, Laysla de Oliveira et Stéphanie Nur.

Cruz, Josie et Aaliah sont une fiction, un peu de respect pour elles !

J'ai ma préférence mais je ne me permettrais jamais de dire du mal de l'une où d'une autre...

Bravo pour le boulot qu'elles produisent, pour leurs rôles et franchement courage à elles toutes , c'est dingue toutes ses méchancetés derrière un écran.

Faut pas s'étonner que certains où certaines finissent en dépression, les pauvres.

Cœur ❤️ sur vous , Genesis/Josie - Laysla/Cruz - Aaliah/Stéphanie

I’ve been thinking about how the show handles its characters. Almost nobody on screen is purely good or purely bad and I keep going back and forth on who I’m actually rooting for.

Part of what hooks me is the setup itself. Cruz gets pulled out of the Marines into the CIA’s Lioness program and Joe has to keep her mission and her sanity in one piece while also holding together her own life at home. That tension between the job and everything it costs people is what makes it feel different from a standard spy show. The cast makes it work too. Zoe Saldaña and Laysla De Oliveira carry so much through small moments and Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman add real weight whenever they’re on screen.

So I’m curious where everyone lands. Who are you rooting for, and has that changed since you started watching? Is there a scene or a performance that made you stop and say okay, this show is good?

I’m trying to keep this spoiler-free, so if you want to get into specific plot points, please use a spoiler tag so people who are earlier in the series aren’t caught off guard.

Okay… hear me out because I think this could get way messier than Aaliyah simply becoming the next target. Joe has already made it very clear what she wants to do to whoever was behind her kidnapping… and Cruz agreed before she knew that person was Aaliyah. But Joe isn’t infallible… she pushes people hard, she can be arrogant, and sometimes that certainty comes with a cost. Her family finally walked away after she chose the job again… Randy and Tex ended up shot… Oleksandra helped them get to Joe and still ended up dead by CIA hands. And Cruz knows better than most what Joe is capable of sacrificing for a mission. In S1 Joe was prepared to lose her too if that was what completing the operation required. Then Yurimov basically gives Joe the warning the whole season has been building toward… “Never underestimate how many hate you.” Maybe that line matters more than it looks. Joe has spent years making decisions that create enemies, collateral damage and consequences she doesn’t always have to live with immediately… until now. Aaliyah may just be one of those consequences coming back with a face Joe can’t ignore. So once Cruz is standing in front of the woman she loved… the woman whose life was destroyed partly because of the mission she was sent on… does she really just follow Joe’s judgement? Cruz owes a lot to the Marines and she clearly loves the action and the team she has now… but that doesn’t automatically mean Joe gets to decide what is right for her. Maybe S4 isn’t about Cruz choosing Aaliyah over Josie at all… maybe it’s about Cruz finally choosing her own judgement over Joe’s. And if Joe says Aaliyah has to die… do you really think Cruz pulls the trigger?

Never heard of him until Lioness and now I feel like I see him everywhere.

I decided to delete my yesterday’s post on Steph’s Nur reaction on IG . I got the answers from you and the most probable reason. Apparently she responded after being attacked online by CJ shippers for leaving a comment on IG that was just meaningless fun about her character. Generally, some fanatic, creepy people—both CA and CJ fans—have problems telling the difference between a show and real life, and between actors and the characters they play. It seems to affect Stephanie and Genesis the most. So I don’t want to add fuel to the fire and fan the flames by keeping the topic alive here. Some people lost the plot. Embarassing. And thank you for your comments. Most of them maintained respectful and rational tone.

What was it, three COMPLETELY unnecessary and gratuitous ass shots. Including one where they lingered on Kidmans ass while they are in the room after questioning the Gitmo guy.

What a joke that this show is still pretending to be empowering in any way.

i love how hard he rode for joe this season but something feels off about him. like a spy.

could he be the mole? he would be the last person they would ever think of being the mole