'Special Ops: Lioness' Is Getting Too Stressful

After watching the first four episodes of Special Ops: Lioness, have you ever thought, Why the hell would anyone do this job?! Well, Episode Five is for you. It's time to learn a little more about how the complicated, stressful job of a secret CIA agent affects these characters at home. To no one's surprise, it's a little tough to have a family and stay sane—while also infiltrating terrorist networks. But our three main heroines, Joe (Zoe Saldaña), Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira), and Kaitlyn (Nicole Kidman) certainly try this week... even if it seems like everyone is spiraling out of control.

We start Episode Five exactly where we left off last week: sidetracked by Joe's daughter suffering from an awful car wreck. Her pregnancy—another shock for a 15-year-old—was rejected during surgery. Bullet dodged. America can rest safe on their couches knowing that creator Taylor Sheridan wasn't about to wade into the subject of teenage abortion on Paramount+. The surgery on her femur was a success, too, which gives Joe some time to finally talk to her daughter. "Can I have two hours?" Joe asks Kaitlyn. "Yeah," Kidman responds, "but you can't have three."

At this point, I would probably switch to any other job. I have to ask my boss if I can talk to my daughter at the hospital? Rough. I'm sure Joe knows enough about risk management or gun training to get another gig. But. American intelligence operations would probably suffer without her exceptional expertise. After all, who else could the CIA get to put bruises all over their operatives before they send them to an undercover pool party? She's the best of the best—and the nation needs her. Kaitlyn tells Joe's husband, Neil (Dave Annable), "Don't give up on her."

Surprisingly, the following scene between Joe and her daughter is easily the show's greatest highlight so far. Saldaña hasn't been able to get cooking by just barking orders into walkie-talkies, but this is probably the big "midseason finale" scene that drew her to Lioness. After all, Joe isn't a very multidimensional character, unless she's torn between her work and her family. "What you don't understand," Joe tells her daughter, "is all the little moments of your life that I missed... I missed those moments so other families could have them. It's you who makes the sacrifice for the job I chose."

The scene spells out the gist of the entire series. If you believe that we would be drowning in terrorism without the CIA, then Joe is doing the most important job in the world. Sheridan may be spotlighting said work with missions such as "undercover beach party" and "US/Mexico border murder mishap," but that doesn't change the reasons Joe has for being there. Joe tells Kate that she wanted to set the example that, "women can do virtually anything... and when I do my job well, lives are saved." The speech works like a bullseye to the tear ducts as Kate says, "I don't hate you. I just miss you."

Well, those two hours are up. It's time to get back to work, which means cleaning up the mess some other shit-for-brains CIA officer named Kyle made at the border. Before the debrief, Kaitlyn quickly suggests that Joe does something like become a station chief—allowing her to spend more time with her family. It's the first time someone on this series actually listens to me. You just have to do literally any other job! Joe doesn't take to the idea. OK... to the terrorist house, then.

Kyle's undercover man has intel on six al-Qaeda terrorists hiding out in San Antonio. So the fact that he completely botched the op no longer takes precedence. "We owe a lot of favors for this cowboy shit," Joe's boss, Donald Westfield (Michael Kelly), warns. "The assets that I have given you to complete your mission are just that: they are my assets that I allow you to use for missions that I approve." He's giving: Daddy bought you the toys and Daddy can take them away unless you play by Daddy's rules. The mission is capture-only, which means every one of their targets will probably be killed.

Sure enough, hidden cameras reveal that all six targets are armed and dangerous. "I had a mission like this in Pakistan," Cruz recalls. "It was capture-kill, but no one was thinking capture." Kaitlyn sees that the situation has changed and reverts to more "cowboy shit," as her boss quipped earlier. "You up for playing outside the lines tonight?" she asks Joe. Easy. You just know they were itching to turn this into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare at the drop of a hat. "When we reach the site, kill the power," Joe commands. "We don't want recordings of this shit." Kyle grins like a madman. "I haven't had this much fun since Iraq," he says. Maybe it's just me, but their bloodlust is scarier than any horror movie.

The mission, however, is pretty uneventful. The team does what they're trained to do, easily taking out the targets in complete darkness with suppressive fire. A little bomb robot follows to check out a suicide vest worn by one of the targets, then the crew rolls out. "Well-played," a local deputy tells Joe. "It's not a game," she replies.

Back at casa Kaitlyn, her money-mind husband chides her over the breaking news. The broadcast mentions that the targets were killed before any motive or target could be identified, which I'm really glad was included. Total success, everyone! The mysterious danger was neutralized. "You know what this has done to oil prices?" he asks Kaitlyn. Fuck off, man.

Joe gets back to the hospital, not realizing that she still has blood on her face. "Did ISIS come to Baltimore, or am I married to a fucking hit man now?" Neil asks her. A little aggressive, but a fair point!

Back at the CIA bunkhouse, Cruz receives a million missed texts from her mark, Aaliyah. "FaceTime me," Aaliyah says over the phone. Cruz says that she looks like hell, but Aaliyah begs, "That's not possible. FaceTime me. Please." Last episode, her mark stated that she didn't want to get married, but this is the first time that such urgency has me believing there may be some romantic feelings from Aaliyah here. Why else would such a friendship develop so quickly?

"We are Lady and the Tramp, you and I," Aaliyah tells her, "Except you are a lady, too." Then, Aaliyah shows off her new bathing suit. "Come back," she begs. "I'm all alone." OK, maybe I'm not too far off. Next time on Lioness: date night?

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