Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ military thriller moves beyond its original premise, trading undercover infiltration for a sprawling geopolitical mystery that raises the stakes while giving Zoe Saldaña her strongest material yet.
Taylor Sheridan‘s Paramount+ military thriller moves beyond its original premise, trading undercover infiltration for a sprawling geopolitical mystery that raises the stakes while giving Zoe Saldaña her strongest material yet.
There comes a point in every long-running television series when it has to decide whether to keep repeating the formula that made it successful or evolve into something larger. With its third season, Lioness makes that choice almost immediately, and with a conviction that borders on defiance.
Taylor Sheridan’s thriller largely abandons the undercover recruitment premise that defined its earliest run, replacing it with a far more expansive mission built around international politics, intelligence warfare and a mystery that unfolds across two timelines. It may surprise viewers expecting another traditional Lioness operation, but on the evidence of its premiere — which I caught at the SVA Theater in New York this week — the gamble pays off immediately. The opening episode is the most ambitious, confident and propulsive hour the series has produced, a genuine powerhouse that moves with the momentum of a feature.
Rather than introducing another undercover operative, Lioness reunites Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira), Josie (Genesis Rodriguez) and Joe McNamara’s elite quick-reaction team for a mission that feels both deeply personal and globally consequential. A shocking opening sequence throws the audience directly into crisis before the story jumps back to reveal how everything unraveled. It’s an effective device, one that creates immediate urgency while rewarding patience as the hour gradually fills in the missing pieces.
Sheridan has always understood that suspense doesn’t simply come from bullets flying across the screen. It comes from information, strategy and impossible decisions. That’s where the premiere excels.
The action is exceptional, staged on a scale that rivals many theatrical releases, and this season has found a new theater of operations that gives the spectacle real weight. The sequences set in Ukraine are the episode’s wildest and most audacious, staged with a scope and a moral heaviness the series has never attempted before. One line lands with particular force — a description of the conflict as” WWI meets Star Wars,” capturing the collision of trench-level brutality and impossibly advanced technology that makes these sequences so disorienting and so hard to look away from. It’s the kind of image that stays with you long after the hour ends, and it tells you everything about the tonal ambition Sheridan is reaching for.
Yet the few quieter moments prove just as compelling. Conversations inside CIA offices and strategic planning sessions carry as much suspense as any firefight, because Sheridan refuses to simplify the complex world these characters inhabit. The dialogue trusts viewers to keep up, letting discussions of geopolitics, intelligence gathering and international power struggles unfold naturally rather than pausing to explain every detail. It creates a level of authenticity increasingly rare in modern action television.
Zoe Saldaña once again anchors the series, and here she does more than anchor it — she fully inhabits it. Joe has always been a woman capable of making impossible decisions without hesitation, but the premiere asks something different. Instead of simply reacting with force, Joe spends much of the hour calculating consequences before pulling the trigger, and Saldaña plays that shift with total command. She balances quiet restraint against the explosive intensity audiences expect, and the result is a performance in which the actress and the role have become genuinely inseparable. This is Saldaña having fully embodied Joe — no seams left showing, no distance between performer and part.
The supporting cast elevates every scene. Nicole Kidman remains wonderfully icy as Kaitlyn Meade, while Michael Kelly brings an understated menace to Byron Westfield that makes even routine conversations feel dangerous. Dave Annable receives substantially stronger material than in previous seasons, allowing Joe’s home life to become more than a recurring subplot; the marriage that once functioned mainly as the emotional cost of her profession is pushed here into darker, more complicated territory.
Among the returning players, Martin Donovan continues to quietly steal scenes as Kaitlyn’s husband, Errol. His conversations about economics, diplomacy and global power remain some of the series’ most unexpectedly fascinating moments, broadening the show’s scope well beyond military operations alone. The new additions fit naturally into the ensemble, particularly Ian Bohen, who slots comfortably into Sheridan’s expanding universe as a Delta Force operator, adding another capable presence to an already formidable tactical team.
For all its ambition, Lioness still falls into a few familiar habits. Joe and Neal’s marriage circles some of the same emotional conflicts explored before, and several members of the quick-reaction team remain more entertaining than fully developed. Their camaraderie is enjoyable, but three seasons in, it would be welcome to learn more about who these soldiers are beyond the battlefield. There’s also a sense, even this early, that the season may at times prize concept over character — that the sheer scale of the geopolitical machinery risks pulling focus from the people operating inside it.
Those reservations do little to diminish what Sheridan accomplishes here. By moving away from the procedural structure of earlier seasons, Lioness feels reinvigorated. The dual-timeline mystery keeps the momentum high, the geopolitical storytelling grows more sophisticated, and the action continues to set a standard few streaming series can consistently match.
It’s also refreshing to see a show willing to trust its audience. Sheridan doesn’t dilute military terminology or tactical operations into simplified exposition. He expects viewers to meet the material on its own terms, which makes the experience far more immersive than most of its genre contemporaries.
Having only seen the premiere and the next two episodes that were released to the press, it’s impossible to judge how completely the season ultimately lands. But on the evidence of this opening hour, Lioness has found its strongest creative footing yet. If the episodes ahead sustain this level of intensity, Sheridan may well have delivered the series’ best season — and I can’t wait to see the rest.
RATING
THAT’S A WRAP | ‘LIONESS’ SEASON 3
A thrilling, sophisticated leap forward — sweeping in scope, ferociously intense from its first frame, and powered by a performance in which star and character have become one.
Jonathan P. Moustakas
CREDITS
Premiere Date: August 2nd, 2026 @ 9pm
Cast: Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman, Laysla De Oliveira, Genesis Rodriguez, Michael Kelly, Dave Annable, Martin Donovan, Ian Bohen, Jill Wagner
Creator: Taylor Sheridan
Streaming: Paramount+
Rating: TV-MA
