One thing that amazes me about Lioness Season 2 is how it silenced the critics following Season 1. The second season has many talking points and significant moments that bring goosebumps and emotions. Taylor Sheridan and the cast went all in, and it paid off, leading to that explosive Season 2 finale.
To celebrate the success of Lioness Season 2, which has garnered critical claims and happy audiences, I’ve put together and ranked the best moments. Once you’ve had a read-through, let me know your favorite moment in the comments.
12. The Dangerous Extraction Of The Congresswoman From The Mexican Cartel
Season 2 does not play games – it gets intense from the first episode—a Mexican cartel has kidnaped a U.S. congresswoman, and with the CIA suspecting that China is involved, Joe is asked to lead her QRF team in Del Rio, Texas, and to move across the border into Mexico to save the politician.
What follows is a difficult mission that leads to a shoot-out with the Mexican police and military near the border. One of the QRF team members, Dean, dies. The QRF team eventually gets out of the violent scenario, but Joe is furious at Kyle, who led the mission, believing he put them all in danger. The Congresswoman is saved, though—mission success.
11. Edwin Mullins Visiting Byron At His House
Lioness has many subtle yet impactful moments. Edwin Mullins visiting Byron’s house was a big one because it showed the human side of both characters.
But their masks take little time to slip once the conversations are private. In Season 2, Episode 7, Edwin Mullins tells Byron that he wants to send Iran, China, and the world a message that America is not to be f-cked with and that they are not the only country with borders. This is in response to intelligence that has led the American government to believe that a Chinese intelligence agent is involved with the cartel operations at the U.S.-Mexican border.
On top of this, Edwin has intel that two Chinese nuclear scientists are heading to Iran via Iraq, which is an opportunity to destroy those assets on the border of those countries. He doesn’t care about the scientists. He wants to send a message that is equivalent to the strength America showed post 9/11.
The scene does not feel like much, but seeing Edwin Mullins use unconventional ways to encourage Byron to conduct a mission without the President’s knowledge felt unprecedented in the story. It shows how far government officials will go to make their point.
10. Josie’s Lioness Training
Josie in target practice in Lioness Season 2, Episode 3 (Paramount)
Josie is not a combat soldier. She’s a helicopter pilot for the US military. So when she is dishonorably discharged (a smokescreen so she can join the Lioness programme), Joe has to put Josie through the paces to ensure she’s capable of being a Lioness. She needed to be capable of carrying out covert operations, especially if she is going to be involved with the cartel and get close to the Chinese intelligence agent.
Joe’s QRF team put Josie through intense training obstacles in Season 2, Episode 3, to get her used to navigating dangerous scenarios and handling weapons. Scenes also involve Josie playing out a scenario using a VR headset.
But what’s so compelling about the training is that Joe is not giving Josie a moment’s rest. She does not trust her. At the end of the day’s training, Joe and Kyle pressure Josie to prove she loves her country enough to destroy her family. They accuse her of being a mole, and it’s made worse when Josie speaks back at them in Spanish.
Josie sobs and explains that she loves her country, and she rings her father, Pablo Carrillo, on speakerphone to prove it. The Lioness programme’s methods continue to be cruel in Season 2.
9. The Return of Cruz Is A Welcome One
In Season 2, Episode 4, Joe learns she needs support and must recruit a familiar face. With Josie behind in her training, the mission risks failing unless they have a backup.
So, Lioness Season 2 brings back Cruz. Taylor Sheridan did not intend to have her back as a character, but it solidified a great season.
Cruz does not want to rejoin the team, but Joe cruelly tells her she has been reassigned, meaning she can either quit her life in the military or join the team. The re-introduction of Cruz is compelling, especially as she’s now got a story arc where she potentially becomes the next Joe.
8. Joe and Neal’s Heated Phonecall
At the end of Season 2, Episode 7, Neal learns that Joe is not staying behind a desk after her near-death experience. He is furious. And understandably so. Joe nearly died, and now she’s hopping on a plane to Iraq to partake in a dangerous mission.
But what makes this scene so upsetting is how cold Joe appears when Neal reveals how upset he is. Neal is so angry that he tells her that she can kiss her daughters again once she prioritizes being a mother after Joe gives him the “patriotic” angle. Neal ends up smashing his phone on the floor.
This is only a short scene, but Joe and Neal’s relationship is fascinating in Season 2, as Joe’s job takes a toll on the family.
7. Tracking Down The Young Female Victim of Human Trafficking, Which Ends In Disaster
In Episode 4, Joe placed a tracker on one of the young girls in the warehouse that was holding a criminal operation for human trafficking.
But in Season 2, Episode 5, despite Byron and Kaitlyn telling Joe not to get involved, as their mission is something entirely different, Joe’s internal motherhood gets in the way, and she circumvents the rules to put a team together to track the trafficked girl who is about to cross the border with the cartel.
However, the mission goes wrong. The QRF team tracks down the young female victim, but drones attack them, and just as Joe reaches the young girl, a suicide bomber triggers his jacket, leading to the deaths of multiple intelligence agents and causing a massive headache for the US government at the border.
Cruz supports Josie in Lioness Season 2, that eventually leads to a romance (Paramount)
6. 500 Children
Cross-Agency politics is rife in Season 2, and Episode 4 has another key moment on top of recruiting Cruz. With the DEA hot on their tails, Kaitlyn and Byron tell Joe to work with DEA Agent Gutierrez on a mission on the border, where a suspected warehouse of illegal contraband has been found.
Joe, Gutierrez, and the QRF team do a late-night mission to the warehouse, but they get more than they bargained for. Inside the warehouse are 500 innocent young girls (children and young teens) as part of a human trafficking operation.
It’s a profoundly impactful moment of Season 2 because it tests Joe and her team to lengths they’ve never had to be tested before. Usually, they fight adults in covert operations. This time, they have to deal with the emotions of finding trafficked children and feeling compromised about leaving them behind. It’s a courageous part of the script in Season 2.
5. Cruz and Josie’s Kiss
It’s clear from Cruz’s reintroduction that she fancied Josie. She could not keep her eye off her, and being her support for the Lioness mission brought them closer together. After a lot of tension between them and nearly getting caught being intimate by the QRF team, Season 2, Episode 7 sees Cruz and Josie finally sharing a kiss.
But just as things get hot, sparking mayhem amongst the fans, they are alerted to their next mission, which turns out to be the final one of Season 2.
Cruz and Josie appear to have unfinished business, and in the finale, they continue to subtly flirt with each other, planning their next “date.”
We were not expecting a relationship for Cruz after what she went through with Aaliyah in Season 1, but fans appear to have responded well to this romance. Whether it will trickle into Season 3 is another question. But we are all for it.
More Cruz and Josie, please.
4. Kaitlyn and Byron Making A Deal With The Cartel
The Lioness mission fails in Season 2. However, there is hope at the end of the second season. Kaitlyn and Byron visit Pablo Carrillo. They offer him security and freedom in the USA, and in return, they want the cartel’s trust, refrain from working with their enemies, provide intel, and eliminate any influence. Essentially, they want the Mexican cartel to provide intel and stop helping Chinese and Iranian intelligence at the same time.
However, it’s not the deal that’s shocking. Soon after the agreement is made, Pablo visits his brother, the cartel’s leader, and tells him about the agreement with the US government. His brother, Alvaro, is happy about the deal, realizing the money to be made and the freedom offered.
But Pablo shoots his brother in the head with a gun, killing him, and announces himself as the new leader of the cartel, leaving Byron and Kaitlyn shell-shocked as they witness the events unfold. This is a grand moment in Season 2, as we see Kaitlyn and Byron having to endure violence, a part of their life they thought they had left behind. They managed to make a deal, but that was a stressful day in the office.
3. Joe Nearly Dies
Joe nearly dies in Season 2, with Kaitlyn and Byron nearly losing their valuable colleague (Paramount)
After being hit by the suicide bomber in Episode 5 in a disaster of a mission, Joe takes a while to realize that she is badly wounded. She realizes the severity of her health while on a private plane, meaning the co-pilot has to go to extreme measures to try and stabilize her before they can get her to a hospital.
Joe desperately rings Neal from the plane, providing a strong hint to her husband that she is about to die.
It’s a big moment in Season 2, as for the first time, viewers have to consider Joe’s death and someone taking her mantle. This is why the possibility of Cruz being the show’s main lead started to snowball.
Of course, she didn’t die, but the series played with that scenario strongly.
2. The Almost Complete Mission Failure
The finale of Lioness Season 2 ends with an incredible showdown. Byron goes ahead with Edwin Mullins’ plans to destroy the assets (two Chinese scientists) heading to the Nuclear facility in Iran. This means a highly complex mission from Iraq to the border of Iran by the QRF team alongside the US military.
What follows is a near-death experience for all the characters. Josie is badly injured, but Cruz stays by her side. Many members of the QRF team are badly wounded. At one point, it looked like they were all about to die. The screams from Josie are random but soul-destroying. Fortunately, CAS (Close Air Support) saves them, and the mission is successful (kind of), as the Iranian convoys from a nearby outpost are all destroyed and, assumedly, the assets too.
It’s a fitting ending to a brilliant season, with all of Joe’s QRF team having a sobering experience. It also allows Joe to be human again as she realizes what is at stake in her life.
1. “Do You Love Your Country!”
The moment when Joe asks Josefina if she loves her country in ‘Lioness’ Season 2, Episode 2 (Paramount)
Episode 2 is when Lioness made its mark in Season 2 and leads to the most impactful scene of the series.
Joe heads to a US military base in northern Iraq to recruit her next Lioness, Josie. Josie is key because her father, Pablo Carrillo, is the brother of Alvaro Carrillo, a leader of a major Mexican cartel suspected of having ties with a Chinese intelligence agent.
Josie is expected to betray her family by operating as a Lioness to get closer to the Chinese spy, which means putting her loved ones at risk. Joe is cruel in this scene and plays on Josie’s love for her country to persuade her to become a Lioness. Josie has to hold back the tears as Joe screams at her: “Do You Love Your Country!” This gave me goosebumps the first time I watched it.
And well, the rest is history. Josie sobs and admits she loves the United States, which confirms her decision to join the Lioness programme.
