This is a series I have been wanting to watch for some time now, as usual a bit skeptical if it would be good or not scoring 7s and 8s on sites so it obviously has to be good, I'm a sucker for war theme anything from movies to tv series, plus the undercover agent part that is very exciting.
Special Ops: Lioness as you guess is about women who go to war but not exactly to just shoot, it is a special operations program for women to get involve with female related to male targets, say they are after a man but know his daughter or wife are usually in contact then they send out a female agent to infiltrate them, become friends with them until they get enough information and if possible kill the target. This program is lead by Joe who recruit the members, it all sound easy like get dress well, become friends, gain their trust but the dirty and savage part is when their cover is blown and now Joe has to take the decision, will the agent get safe so it can be extract or is it time to cut loose ends meaning pull the trigger if necessary to not compromise the program.
The episodes starts with an attack to a CIA post, it was a very large amount of guys attacking but it almost didn't make sense, not that they don't explain the reason for the attack but how they were running forward and then to the sides I don't know, once the shooting stops, adrenaline goes down and you re watch the scene you find it empty, but I have to say it was a great opening, in five minutes you had massive shooting, ak47 screaming all over the place, a FUCKING HAWG one of the most badass aircraft in movies and irl clearing the field and even a drone strike hitting the target. Once the music was over the story starts to unfold, even though it was a great opening I doubt this is how the series will be, I don't think we are going to have this massive shooting on every episode.
First episode, time to meet main characters and their motives, basically what the hell is this story about, on the picture above is Joe women in charge of calling the shots on the field, I don't think she is in charge as usually there is some one back at home moving the pieces but on the field she decides if you stay or go, on the first episode her undercover agent gets identified, Joe never check her for tattoos and seems she had a cross with a name on her side and it was seen by one of the women on the village, depending on where you at it can be a big NO NO since they are in middle east. Joe tried to extract her from the location but it was already too late for her, extremist found her and were about to cut of her head but Joe authorize drop a missile from a drone to safe her the pain and keep things secret as possible, desperate move for a desperate situation.
Next on the startup we got Cruz Manuelos, a women who is trying to make her life straight after making a lot of bad decisions, lives with her boyfriend who plays been gangster but she is over with that life, now works a honest job and is not into any of her bad habits, this creates a conflict been them and after an argument because she hits a girl inside the house, Cruz's boyfriend hit her with a jab straight to her face.
Cruz wants to be over with her boyfriend and his old life so next morning she took vengeance, pack her things and wait for him to wake up to hit him twice in the face with a pan, the chase starts until they arrive to a US Marine recruiting center, she enters screaming for help until a big ass Marine steps in between her and her boyfriend. She felt safe with the Marine, she realize if she didn't wanted to be abuse anymore one of her options was to become tougher, US Marines training will do that for her so she enrolls, top of her class, tougher than male recruits, faster, smarter, she was the full package, perfect asset to join the Lioness.
After a lot of reports, debriefs, interviews, Joe comes back home with two things in mind, first is go home spend some time with her family although is not that easy because she spends most of her time out of the country on classified missions meaning no contact with her family, comes back home and between her two kids her son is more sensible to not seen her for so long, her husband holds the fort while she is out.
Joe ended up recruiting Cruz, after all she is at the top of her class and Joe had to move fast, she needed another undercover agent, Cruz and Joe are not best friends, actually Joe doesn't seem to like her that much, Cruz is now in my opinion over confident, been a Marine make her feel she has a lot of power and can conquer everything life throws at her but when your neck is at risk that's when true stars shine, for her first task she did panic a bit.
Different than most common undercover agents that already know everything about their target all Cruz knows is her face, undercover name Zara Adid but she forgot the moment Aaliyah Amrohi ask for her name, the moment Cruz got into the car to get ready and meet the target she starts panicking and Joe had to calm her down, the hole idea of knowing nothing about the target is to lower the risks of getting caught and make the expirience as real as possible, become friends, create a bond but with always in mind that this is just another job.
This series so far is exactly as what the tittle says, a Special Operations team that work with Lioness, top of the class Female Marines who are fearless, tough and can still be a perfect lady, Cruz is not the most girly girly but she knows her way around. Cruz story feels a bit crunch but I guess the series is not about that, after all this is another Army theme TV series bringing in something different, its the first time I see this type of series based on a group of female Special Ops Marines, usually is the other way around and that's interesting also how they are thrown into the water without knowing much about the target, the end goal is the same locate and get/kill the bad guy.
I wonder if this series will be big enough to get several season something like SEAL Team currently on its sixth season or something shorter like Six only got two seasons, I don't see how a series with very few characters and no side stories could make it into a more than two or three seasons, I'm also curious of how much action we will get on each episode because it was five minutes of gunpowder and then the rest was a few japs, kicks, arguing and that was it, less than forty five minutes per episodes.
I give this first episode a solid 7.5 just because of what I mention, I think they try to buy the audience with all the shooting at the beginning but after that the action starts to soften little by little.