All 3 Lioness Seasons, Ranked

Published Oct 26, 2026, 2:01 PM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. Taylor Sheridan’s CIA action thriller series Lioness has been on the air for three seasons at Paramount+, and it’s been about as rocky a ride as one of Joe McNamara’s international spy missions. At times, Lioness has been one of the best action shows on TV. But, at other times, it’s made me wonder why I’m even continuing to tune in. When Lioness first premiered, it left a lot to be desired. The cast’s performances were incredible (that’s pretty much a given when you’ve got Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, and Morgan Freeman in starring roles), but everything else was a let-down: the plotting was ridiculous, Sheridan was clearly struggling to write women (especially a romantic relationship between two women; that was the final boss when he tested the limits of his storytelling abilities), and the show’s worship of the U.S. Marine Corps felt outright propagandic. But Lioness proved to be a massive hit with audiences, as is every show with Sheridan’s name attached to it, so Paramount has renewed it for more seasons, and Sheridan has had a chance to fine-tune Lioness. After a disappointing first season, Lioness really hit its stride in its second and third seasons — but which season is best? 3 Season 1 In its second and third seasons, Lioness would become one of the best action shows on TV. But in its first season, it was just pretty good. It had all the biggest problems with Taylor Sheridan’s writing, like overly tropey characterization and brazenly unsubtle plotting (the scene where Cruz escapes from an abusive relationship and goes straight to the Marines’ recruitment office might as well have been a full-blown recruitment ad). But, while season 1 remains the weakest link in the series, it did prove to be a promising enough start to keep viewers hooked. The cold open of the pilot episode wasted no time establishing Joe McNamara as a very different kind of action hero. The series opens with a Lioness’ cover being blown. A more traditional action hero would swoop in and save her at the last second, taking out all the bad guys on their way in a race against time, but Joe just orders the whole place to be bombed. That opening scene set the tone perfectly — it immediately told us that this is a darker, grittier, more realistic take on the action genre that’s more about difficult decisions than spectacle — but the rest of the season struggled to maintain that level of intensity. The love story between Cruz and her mark felt just as forced as Landman’s romance between Cooper and the widow. Still, Zoe Saldaña anchored Lioness with a brilliant performance from the beginning. Season 1 created a captivating tension between Joe’s responsibilities to her Lionesses and her responsibilities to her family, but the series wouldn’t reach the full dramatic potential of that tension until subsequent seasons. 2 Season 3 Via MovieStillsDB Lioness’ third season went bigger and bolder than any of its predecessors — it’s got higher stakes, more action sequences, and a faster pace than ever — but it wasn’t quite as tightly constructed or as dramatically engaging as season 2. Season 3 made the conflict more personal, as the enemies from Joe’s work life came to her doorstep. In previous seasons, the biggest threat to Joe’s family was time consumption (the longer she spends overseas taking down terrorists, the less time she has to spend with her husband and daughters), but in season 3, the biggest threat to her family was armed assassins. This brought the tension between Joe and her family to a boil, and she was faced with an ultimatum: she could either continue seeking retribution against her enemies, or she could leave that to her colleagues and go home to be with her family when they needed her the most. Of course, Joe being Joe, she chose work over her family, leading to Lioness season 3’s poetic ending. Joe abandoned her family to seek revenge and secure their safety, and she succeeded in that mission, but by the time she got back home, her family had moved out and there was a for-sale sign up on the lawn, so it was all for nothing. That ending was one of the most beautiful dramatic turns that Sheridan has ever written, and it elevated the whole season. It raised the stakes even higher ahead of Lioness season 4 by teasing that Aaliyah is plotting to wipe out the entire Lioness team, and it brought the most pressing emotional conflict in Joe’s life to its natural next step. But the journey there wasn’t as strong as season 2. Season 3’s storylines were more far-fetched (even by Lioness’ standards), and the balance of action and drama wasn’t quite as finely tuned. This season gave bigger roles to Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman, which is always a good thing, but their characters both fall into the same familiar archetype — gruff government official with a permanent grimace — and a lot of their scenes feel a bit samey: they’re either barking orders at their underlings in a Washington war room, or schmoozing with powerful people in a fancy Washington restaurant. After a while, you start to get déjà vu. Overall, Lioness season 3 was a solid action thriller, with lots of twists and turns and a jaw-dropping cliffhanger ending. But season 2 is still this show’s crowning achievement. 1 Season 2 Lioness really hit its stride in season 2. This is where the show finally lived up to its full potential; it doubled down on the dark, gritty action that worked so well in season 1, it grounded its emotional conflicts in some kind of tangible human reality, and it told a much more focused story. After writing female characters that even Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman struggled to sell in season 1, Sheridan learned the lesson that all writers need to learn eventually — that you should write women the same way you write men; they’re all just people — in time for season 2. Joe really came into her own as a character in season 2, and Saldaña seized every opportunity to wring more depth and emotional nuance out of this complex, contradictory antihero. Season 2 had a much grabbier hook than season 1. Season 1 kicked off with Cruz’s origin story, which felt more like a Marine recruitment video than a TV drama, but season 2 kicked off with a Mexican cartel abducting a congresswoman from Texas and murdering her husband and son. It was a much more gripping inciting incident than Cruz stumbling into a record-breaking career in the Marine Corps. Where season 3 would tell the heartbreaking tale of Joe drifting away from her family and ultimately giving up on them, season 2 told the more inspiring story of Joe fighting her nature, choosing her family over her job, and reaffirming her love for her husband and kids, even if it turned out to be too little too late. Saldaña played that arc beautifully opposite Dave Annable as her increasingly frustrated partner. Lioness’ best season still has all the biggest problems with the lesser ones — absurd plotting, forced military banter, and more shower sex than a softcore porno — but it has more redeeming qualities. Lioness season 2 exemplifies the very best of Taylor Sheridan (and deemphasizes the worst). Lioness Release Date July 23, 2023 Network Paramount+ Cast Laysla De Oliveira Cruz Manuelos Showrunner Taylor Sheridan