Special Ops: Lioness – Season 1 Episode 1 “Sacrificial Soldiers” Recap & Review

Sacrificial Soldiers

Episode 1 of Special Ops begins in Kobane, Syria, where Isabel, an operative of the CIA Special Activities Division frantically phones Joe, her boss. Joe is at a CIA/Socom forward outpost, 17 km away. Isabel tells Joe her cover is blown. Someone saw the cross on Isabel’s ribs from when her brother died and her identity was revealed. They now have to extract her from the compound.

Just then, a huge explosion goes off near the outpost. The guy who had apparently missed tactics training (according to Joe’s team) was carrying a detonator cord.  Armed militia attacks in swarms. Joe calls air support who clear out the crowd, making way for her team to head on their way for extraction.

Joe calls Bobby, a member of her team, as the terrorists get closer to Isabel. Joe gets an estimate of the extraction time. Bobby reports that the team is facing heavy resistance from armed militia and it will take some time to get to Isabel. She hears screams on the phone and Joe asks the extraction team not to engage. Joe orders the place to be blown up. There is an eerie, unshakeable discomfort in her, despite doing the “right thing.”

In Oklahoma City, four years prior, we meet our protagonist. Cruz works at a fast-food restaurant. She was formerly a stripper. She is in an abusive relationship with Edgar and tries to break out one day by hitting him and running away. Edgar catches her but she ends up in a Marine office. Edgar and his thugs wait outside the restaurant that night and her manager calls the police. He then takes her to a shelter for the night.

Sometime later, Cruz takes the exam to become a marine and passes it. She creates a record in her ASVAB and PT tests. Her superiors are extremely impressed. Cruz explains that when her mother died, she lost the will to try. She became hateful of everything in the world, including herself.

We come back to the present. Joe debriefs her superiors about the drastic measure of calling a drone strike on the ISIS camp. Joe is struggling with her decision and with the fact that her instinct to trust led to Isabel losing her life. She goes home without calling her partner Neal and is almost clueless as she navigates her children.

Joe leaves for Fort Bragg a few days later to pick out a new asset. It is revealed that Joe heads the Lioness team working in the Special Activities Division. Their task is to locate female relatives and acquaintances of high-value targets and place operatives close to them. She asks Cruz to take off her clothes to show her that she doesn’t have any tattoos (which led to Isabel’s death). Cruz takes offence to Joe’s methods but the latter is impressed.

The duo leaves on a plane for the camp. The target for this mission is Asmar Ali Amrohi, one of the leaders of the Iranian-backed Militia in Iraq. Cruz’s mark is his daughter. She will be starting her mission in Kuwait. They head to Camp Arifjan in the city to get Cruz prepped. Joe introduces her to the team – Bobby, Two Cups, Tex, Randy, and Tucker. The team doesn’t know the location of Asmar’s house yet. He has an apartment in Kuwait where his daughter resides.

The next morning, a hungover Cruz gets ready for her new mission. Joe and she get down to intercept the daughter. Cruz is visibly apprehensive about going in without any background on her mark. She bumps into the target trying on new jewellery. Her cover name is Zara Adid and Aaliyah, the daughter, is quick to make friends with her.

The Episode Review

Taylor Sheridan’s craft for storytelling is truly unmatched in its simplicity. The pacing and characterization of episode 1 was absolutely spot on. Such is his innate ability to ground his stories, his characters never come across as strangers. However, there is a mystery that they carry in their shadows that is hard to get to. Joe and Cruz both seem to belong to the same category.

There wasn’t a lot of action on offer in the season opener barring the initial sequence. And yet, the forty-odd minutes absolutely flew by. What makes this mission exciting is Cruz’s lack of preparedness for the role. She is clearly a door kicker and not a covert operative. Mix that with Joe’s burden and we have the perfect recipe for conflicts and high tension.

Paramount and Sheridan seem to have another hit on their hands. The job is now to continue delivering the goods without straying from the baseline and getting swept away in the wave of creativity that so often plays spoilsport in this business.