‘Special Ops: Lioness’ Recap, Season 1 Episode 7

“If we play this right, it’s over before it’s begun.”

Our penultimate special op picks up right where we left off, both time and vibe-wise. Everyone in Langley’s clacking away on laptops and pacing and fast-talking through 15-second phone calls. And Kaitlyn Meade, as always, knows just what to say to sum up the whole damn thing. We always double down. Go big or go home, get rich or die tryin’—it’s the mission or bust. The emperor wears no clothes, and someone’s liable to catch a glimpse.

Kaitlyn’s arguing against Westlake’s suggestion that they give the Spanish military a heads up on their Mallorca bust. Do that, “it’s gonna end up reaching Joint Chiefs, and we’re gonna be back in a room in the White House with a senator telling us how to fight a war.” It’s already run by a senator, Westlake argues. “They assumed authority, Kaitlyn.”

Joe chimes in on a dime. “We can cancel the mission, we can shut down the program, but that marine is going to Mallorca whether we like it or not. She is in, and there are only two ways out: mission success or mission failure.”

That marine. That’s all Joe’s on about this episode, man. The closer they get to the finish line, the tighter her focus. She knows “the marine” in Cruz is the fiery tip of the spear and the most dangerous line of vision.

“I want you on the ground in Mallorca as well,” Westlake tells Kaitlyn. “If they want to stop it and we really can’t, it’s at least got to look like we tried.” Yikes, looks like Kaitlyn might be a fall guy in the wings, a target on her back set by her boss as he sends her off to the killing zone. And she knows it.

Meanwhile, Cruz and Aaliyah are en route to Mindels to shop around the fact that they made out that morning. “When do you leave for Mallorca?” Cruz asks. Aaliyah doesn’t know (which means it’s time to “shop with urgency.” Love that for them). “Marriage is a contract that’s already been signed,” she says. “The oil business is a dirty one,” and it seems brides are kidnapped enough that “the worry is real.” So the date announced is never the date.

Phew, tight window for the team to leapfrog this trip. And an even tighter window for our girls to finish what they started at breakfast, am I right? Don’t worry, Aaliyah’s on the case, got a whole-ass Tedros Tedros-style shopping spree lined up… minus all the stupid Tedros shit of course. The champagne’s a flowin’, though, as are the ’fits. Aaliyah takes the lead and dotes on Cruz with a couple of choice pieces, equipping our girl with an absolutely fabulous beige suit her slender, powerful frame was born to inhabit. Aaliyah even reacts with a chef’s kiss—well earned, girl. Inspired.

And just as we’ve settled into this flirtatious try-on haul montage, Aaliyah addresses the elephant in the room. “Have you thought about it?” She asks. Yeah, Cruz has thought about it, it’s all they’ve both thought about since that morning. Things heat up for a sec here, and in a flash we see just about every conceivable emotional response to this situation in Cruz’s face. Do I want this? Do I really want this? Is this good for the mission? Is this bad for the mission? Are we going to get caught? Killed? Can I keep this up? It’s all there in one of those magical split-second truth bombs in the glint of an eye that speaks to human actors as the ultimate special effect. Mad props to De Oliveira for issuing the reminder.

Pretty quick, the girls’ impromptu necking sesh is interrupted, but Aaliyah’s quick on her toes, suggests a hotel in the city they can go to “figure this out.” And “figure it out” they do, so much so that I think Cruz busts harder than she’s ever busted before. Sure to overcomplicate an already complicated situation, but still. Good for her.

It doesn’t take long for Cruz to send a sneaky panic text to Joe from the bathroom, and Joe bolts to New York from “The Farm” CIA facility in Williamsburg, Virginia (always a trip for this West Coaster when people be makin’ quick trips across states, you know?) to put out the emotional fire here.

So y’all fucked, what’s the big deal? That’s the vibe Joe brings when she meets up with Cruz in the safe room on another hotel floor. “The issue is I’m not trained for this,” Cruz responds. “I don’t know how to pretend to be one thing and just not feel it.” Cruz is a straight shooter, mind games have never been her thing, and the real emotions of it all have overwhelmed her defenses.

Here’s where Joe works her sinister Special Op: Mom skills to get things on the right track. She knows how it feels. Always on guard, no one to confide in. “There’s alone, and then there’s you.” She gets it. But Cruz gave herself to the marines and to Joe. Aaliyah made her feel wanted, and Joe gets that, even celebrates it. “But don’t delude yourself into thinking she’s in love with you,” Joe says. Cruz is Aaliyah’s last hurrah before she has to spend the rest of her life in a compound in Riyadh wearing burqas and making babies. Joe’s words, not mine. Jesus, I know this is a show primarily aimed at middle-of-the-road patriotic liberal Americans, but do we really have to play on the West’s vague fears of the Islamic world this hard?

Apparently, we do. In fact, that’s the whole point of Aaliyah’s Dad as the big baddie—a boogeyman on whom they can pin the whole goddamned War on Terror in one fail swoop.

“You have killed many a father. And you will do it again,” Joe tells Cruz. “What’s different about this one is he is financially responsible for every conflict in the Middle East since 9/11. Neutralizing this man is the equivalent of blowing up the only bank accessible to terrorists. They lose their ability to borrow money, move it and launder it.” In case it wasn’t already clear, this is the “biggest target” they’ve uncovered since… dun dun duuuuuun… BIN LADEN. “Is there anything you wouldn’t say or do to a child of Bin Laden’s to rid the world of him?” Cruz says no, which, call me crazy, is the wrong answer.

“Give the other guy a gun, I’ll be the first one through the door to fight him,” Cruz says. “Just give me a fair fight.” No such thing as a fair fight in this world, girl, ain’t you figured that out yet? “Give me seven days,” Joe says. “Then that’s it.”

Cruz begrudgingly accepts the invite and returns to Aaliyah’s room, but she throws a big curve ball, turning off her audio transmitter mid-convo. Big risk. Is Cruz thinking clearly? Probably not, but it’s a risk she’s willing to take to see if there’s a way out of this.

“I can’t go with you to Mallorca. I don’t want your father to give you away and you don’t want me anywhere near it. Trust me.” But apparently, Mr. Amrohi won’t even be there physically. He never leaves Riyadh is the line. Cruz turns the transmitter back on. There’ll be 500 people at the wedding, and no friends. Uncless Cruz comes, and Aaliyah has a room for her if she’ll accept. Cruz accepts, dutifully, and high-tails it outta there.

The transmitter stunt is more than enough to land Cruz in some hot-ass water back at The Farm. As soon as they pull up it’s into a conference room with Joe and Kaitlyn for another round of “snap out of it!” Cruz tells them what Aaliyah said when the transmitter was off hoping to shutter this thing early. But Joe and Kaitlyn are confident Amrohi will be in Mallorca, and they’re more concerned about getting Cruz to the finish line.

Maybe she can’t, though, Kaitlyn argues. They could abort this mission and save the Lioness program (for another season at least). “Going under” is a tough game for anyone, let alone a newb. The emotional lines get blurred, maybe they’re blurred to the point of permanent damage.

Nah, says Joe. Let’s make this about being a marine again. “Have you ever been in a battle that you didn’t think you’d survive,” she asks Cruz. “You kept your finger on that trigger, and your focus down range, and you fucking fought through it. This is no different.” Only difference is the guilt doesn’t wait till after the kill to work its way into you. Shake it off, grab a bunk. It’s wheels up at 15:00.

But first it’s time for a parting word of ominous thematic exposition from old Errol. Another Sheridan tell-don’t-show scene that cooks because an idiosyncratic pro is delivering it. Seeing how this might be a lethal trip, Kaitlyn stops by their goddamn Eyes Wide Shut house to say goodbye in person.

“This is a tricky one, Kate,” says Errol. “We have so thoroughly fucked up the political structure of the Gulf States. The leaders we’ve placed in power need us to be the enemy of their people.” A full-throated quiet-part-out-loud here: Gotta maintain the status-quo of unrest in the region this, bully the people we put in power when they do a 9/11 that. God, this is the absolute wildest “remember 9/11” episode of this War on Terror-era nostalgia show. Errol’s point: Kaitlyn and her team might just set off a nuclear holocaust by “removing the financial center” of unrest in the Middle East. “The sooner we get our energy from anything besides oil, the better chance we have of not exterminating ourselves. I doubt the species lives long enough to die from climate change.” Man, nobody in the biz plays an absolute ghoul like Martin Donovan. “Be careful Kate, everyone’s watching us on this one.”

Pretty soon it’s wheels up! 3:00 and time to hit the tarmac, everyone looking conspicuously crisp in their nondescript, logoless baseball cap-ass JCrew spy wears. On the jet, Bobby lays out the wedding location—big old house sitting on a peninsula. The shoreline is a cliff, and a stairwell leads up from the beach. Hard to crack but they’re “working on it.” Sounds like we’re in for some hairy combat at the villain’s lair in the final episode. Dope. In the meantime, Joe’s gonna set Cruz up with a laptop full of news, surveillance, and satellite footage of “every terrorist attack we can conclusively link to Amrohi,” enough to last the entire eight hour flight—all to “reach the marine” in Cruz. This is all in exceptionally poor taste (as if you couldn’t fill a 38-hour flight with all available footage of the violent atrocities directly linkable to the CIA or the American military) and it all sort of works dramatically—an apt reflection of the American reactionary mind and the monsters we have to make of our enemies, forever fueling our imperial bravado with a false sense of justice.

• For real, though, this show’s relationship with the American imperial machine continues to baffle me. Sometimes it feels like Apocalypse Now or Platoon—a borderline hallucinatory heart-of-darkness trip. Other parts like fucking Rambo II or some other ‘80s Vietnamsploitation flick where we re-assert our global dominance and pretend we won the war like it’s morning in America. But I reckon that’s kind of the cog-diss we’ve been swimming in post-Afghanistan, you know? It’ll be interesting to see which side of the show wins out, if any, in the season one finale and onward.

• Re: Aaliyah’s champagne budget: I don’t care who you are, no human being enjoys champagne that much.

• Joe’s goodbye moment with daughter Kate was a rewarding cap on Joe’s whole Grey’s Anatomy home-life thread. This mother and daughter are on woman-to-woman terms now, and she shows Kate her true face more clearly than she’s shown to anyone. A soldier. Trained to kill, scared of dying, caught between a familiar sense of duty and a nagging, conflicting sense of humanity.

• “You promise me that you’ll come back.”“It’s bad luck to make that promise. But I promise I’ll try.”

• Worth noting that, for all its flaws, this show makes a fresh meal of pop-spy world sexual politics, so typically mired in the male power fantasy and, frankly, rape culture dynamics that historically hallmark the genre. From the get-go, the show frames Joe’s on-the-job infidelities and all other romantic dalliances amongst spies as necessary in the social lives of hired ghosts—piecemeal human connection when and where you can get it. More egalitarian than, say, every beautiful, capable woman in the intelligence community falling in love with Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible movies. Furthermore, the primary will-they-won’t-they espionage romance is between two women and not super male-gazey either. Some dynamics well worth mining for dramatic detail and expanding upon in future spy stories, is all I’m getting at.

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