The series seem to be very criticize on forums and review sites for how they taking advantage of political problems and mold them to their stories even when events are not close to what is real or not, I think all that is bullshit because anyone that consider themself mature enough should know that this is TV Show this is not a fucking documentary, people watching TV should only be looking for some sort of entertainment, some dopamine, free your mind for an hour and know well that this does not has to be close to reality, I think so far actors has done this very well, entertain and for an action series with a some what unique theme Lioness, I truly give this first two episodes solid 7.5/10
Joe learn the hard way from her previous experience that when an agent blow their cover, a women in this case; and they have more than ten men looking around with a big ass Machete on their hands trying to find her to behead them and set on fire while they get recorded, everyone brakes, they stop thinking and have no clue what to due, that's when clock starts ticking for Joe and why last time she took the decision to drop the hammer and a missile before her Lioness go through all that pain, this time she got Cruz a well trained Marine but Joe feels even Cruz breaks, usually in this type of stories Marines like Cruz who have nothing to loose, no family, no children, no boyfriend, they still have ghosts from the past that hunts them, everybody does, but its up to us how to keep them in the closet, Joe knows this very well and wants to learn Cruz breaking point, that's what she meant here to put Cruz through the grinder.
Work for an intelligence agency and in a program like Joe is probably the worst job to keep a family, similar to her Neal, Joe's husband also has one of the worst job in the planet, I say this because some times he has to face parents and tell them their child has little chances to survive a decease and its probably just to enjoy the little time they might have left, he is a doctor that work with patients with terminal cancer and some times he needs balls of steel to be the ones who drop the news to the family of his patient.
Episode two sets clear how hard Joe's job is at home, a repercussion of her true job, been most of the time away, keeping secrets from her family, been away from their kids who are as though as her, Kate her daughter seem to not know the limits yet but Joe is soon to show her whats what a may be put her through some parenting grinder, Kate feels her parents marriage is fake and they going to divorce probably because they are most of the time separated but that's doesn't seem the case as Joe and Neal are staying together, so far the series is still on that phase of letting viewers get interested on characters side stories besides the entire Lioness mission.
We already know Cruz story, her ex boy friend paint it very well when he said she doesn't dance, smoke or fuck anymore, that's how they met, Cruz was probably a stripper. On episode one she was very anxious and didn't know how to react to the fact that she is going blind into the mission but that's the beauty of it to make it look as real as possible and cut down the risk of saying something to her asset she is not suppose to know. After her first encounter Aaliyah, the asset; Cruz is taken back to the US and put into an apartment that's making her go crazy and decides to burn some time but Joe had other plans for her.
Joe finally gave green light to the mission, that's kidnap Cruz and make it look as real as possible so she feels real pain, make her feel afraid, vulnerable and try to break her soul in half, they try all kind of torture but it was not enough so Joe had to jump to the stage, come clean that this is just an exerciser, I would never know because I haven't been in such situation or training but I THINK at some point after so much pain, torture, no sleep, changes in temperature, noise, your body and mind wants it to stop so it did not take much time for Joe to break Cruz mentally reminding her about her past, how shitty was her life because Marines could not after beating her up but Joe takes it to a new level. You might find this shitty because so far Cruz have gone through a lot until now but it seems Cruz has become what she needed to defend herself back in the past, like when she said she join the Marines because she felt safe that time a Marine protect her from her ex boyfriend Hector but again it depends on the amount of torture she has gone through and that can make people sensitive enough to break to such poor speech, there is a saying "words hurt more than actions"
Joe was taking this exerciser to the extreme until she breaks, all Cruz is been ask is to say his name, her brothers name, that's the trigger, Marines running the exercise know technically this is going too far already, they were going to push Cruz one more time, this scene has some fucking killing fights, I love this part when Cruz starts to kick some ass but that's after she almost break but Marine Cody running the exerciser gets called to stand down and stop the exerciser, Joe is screwed as now Cruz doesn't know her breaking point but Marines think other wise, Cruz did look broken at the time so she probably learn one or two things about herself.
Joe again reminds Cruz how eventually she might get caught and when that happens is Joe's job to extract her but that's not going to be easy and with little time to do so, the possibility of surviving such situation are very little but at the moment Cruz feels so shitty about herself, that's the effect of torture, latter on when Cruz recovers her mojo things turn different, to help Cruz integrate with the team and recover she puts her on the same house as the rest of the team.
After two cups ask Cruz what happen to her the team got her back and help Cruz get some revenge so she can feel better and show her they are there for her, she is now part of the team, Bobby specially throwing more gas into the fire, taking the boys to a bar where Marine Cody was to fuck him up and others with him. After a cool short bar fight and Cruz taking revenge on Cody (cover photo of the post), Cruz gets a call from Aaliyah and gets invited to a pool party.
I have no complains about the series so far, cool under cover agent story on a war against terrorist, episode one and two are only getting to get us interested on all characters story line, from Joe's family to her team and some other main characters who have not had much screen time yet is the case of Kaytlyn who look like Joe's boss, there are other actors who have not show yet like Morgan Freeman, we know this because he appears on the main cover for the series so this tells us we are just getting to know the characters. I also like how the episode ends with Cruz getting a call from her asset Aaliyah inviting her to party but that's it, lets viewers on suspense imagining whats next.
If it was a complain my only one would be that the torture scenes were too short, feel they try to make it look Cruz was there for a few days but it didn't feel that way, an exerciser like that can't take a few hours so it was probably best for the episode to leave Cruz the entire episode on the island so it felt a little more real, I'm talking about the sensation that it has been a couple of days under torture, they just crunch time too much, I hope its not the case on other episodes because then we will see characters going from place to place in seconds and that sux, that takes from the immersion effect of the story.
Episode 1: @skiptvads/special-ops-lioness-sacrificial-soldiers
Posted using CineTV