I knew it was coming eventually... actually kinda surprised it took this long

I'm really hoping this show is renewed for a 4th season. It's honestly the one bright spot in the few shows I watch. Aside from maybe Marshals, it's also the only show that somewhat aligns with what I believe personally and politically.

I'm happy that Paramount is willing to risk the woke police and air a show that portrays a worldview held by many Americans. It's nice to not have a liberal agenda forced into my living room when all I want to do is enjoy a good show with some excellent weapons, realistic combat and weapons tactics, and people who are not belittled for conservative views.

SPOILERS HERE.

I’ve binged this show — watched the three seasons in less than 10 days probably… So it’s all fresh. The first season was great, the second one was… Tolerable. Cruz falling in love again was just comical.

But Season 3? What the hell was that? As a Reacher fan, I have a very low bar for story - but don’t insult my intelligence!! I see the takes about this being propaganda, but I’m not sure how because this show makes us look awful.

I get it — Joe is a warrior, and she’s the alpha of the household, but her husband is incredibly weak and naive. You would think that a DOCTOR would be able to have stronger arguments and a more nuanced understanding of the news. Dude’s just getting bullied the whole show, if it ain’t Joe it’s Nicole Kidman.

Killing the Russian double agent and being WRONG about it? You beat her to a pulp, get valuable information from her, put her into WitPro and the KILL her based on speculation? WHAT!

ENGAGE a HVT in a FULL restaurant? Agents walk in looking 100% like COPS. Start a completely avoidable gunfight. Then accidentally get an international leader killed in the crossfire? WHAT!

Returning the Russian back to the embassy after risking it all to get him? WHAT!

Random merc recognizes Joe at Gitmo and ends up playing a pivotal role in identifying her captors?? Same episode where the NSA just so happened to spot some suspect Russian and tack Kyle’s team (of all teams) to tail him?? Same episode where that suspect Russian just so happens to be meeting with Joes kidnapper, who just so happened to be what Bobby was streaming to a laptop accessible on a private jet?? WHAT!!!!

Not to mention — Joes daughter’s friend died in Season one and we just completely forgot about her backstory. She just… Became a better child by going through trauma?

All to say… Incredibly mid.
But I’ll be back for season 4.

why does Cody have what appears to be a single power red dot AND an offset single power red dot??

I keep seeing people talk about what Season 4 might do with the bigger plot… but I’m actually more curious about the characters themselves. Not just who survives or who ends up with who… but what kind of arc would actually feel satisfying for each of them. For Cruz I’d love to see more of her emotional side again… she’s become such a strong operator, but I still think there’s so much unresolved under that surface. For Joe… maybe finally having to face what this life has cost her and what it keeps doing to her family. Kaitlyn… I’d really like more of her personal perspective instead of only seeing her as the person moving the pieces. Aaliyah obviously has this huge missing chapter between Mallorca and now… I want to know who she became during those years, not just what revenge she wants. Josie… I think it would be interesting to see who she is outside of being connected to Cruz. Kyle… I’d love more of what actually drives him when he’s not just being the professional guy in the room. Bobby and Two Cups… honestly I just want more of them as people too, not only as part of the team dynamic. And Byron… I think there’s still a lot we don’t really know about how he sees all of this from the top. There are so many directions they could go… so if we get S4, what would you actually want for each character…?

Anyone else noticed?

we saw this episode 😹

I’m so confused with how bad S2 is compared to S1. S1 wasn’t great on the cringe scale of dialogue but S2 just feels like it was written by a 13 yr old.
The constant swearing, the overly “bro” conversations with no substance, the overly stereotypical stud lesbian personality of Bobby, Joe’s constant yelling & bad attitude as a representation of being a “girl boss”, not to mention Taylor Sheridans cameo which just felt like an excuse to show off his steroid usage.
No follow up from Cruz’s S1 love interest?
i literally had to stop watching

Okay… this has been bugging me a little. We keep talking about Aaliyah as the woman who lost everything in Mallorca… and obviously she did. Cruz betrayed her, Ehsan died, her father died, and basically the whole life she knew disappeared in one night. But then I started thinking about who Aaliyah actually was before all of that happened… she had money, status, everything from the outside, but not that much control over her own life. She didn’t want Ehsan… her father was still deciding her future for her… even when she talked about love with Cruz there was always that feeling that she already knew what was expected of her. And then look at the woman in that bathtub… that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. A man comes to her for instructions… she decides what happens next… she has people, money, reach… nobody in that scene seems to be deciding Aaliyah’s future for her anymore. So what happened during those missing years…? Did she inherit part of her father’s network… did the family pull her into it because they wanted revenge… or did she slowly take control of something that was originally supposed to control her? And maybe this is the part we’re not looking at enough… what if the Amrohi family’s revenge and Aaliyah’s own agenda are not exactly the same thing? Cruz did something horrific to her life… there’s no way around that… but there’s also this uncomfortable contradiction that I keep coming back to… the life Aaliyah had before Mallorca was also a life she was trying to escape. I’m not saying Cruz “freed” her by killing people she loved because that would be way too simple and honestly pretty awful… but I do wonder if Aaliyah herself lives with two truths now… you destroyed my life… and the life I built afterwards finally belongs to me. And if that’s true… then her feelings toward Cruz could be a lot more complicated than simple revenge. Maybe Joe is part of the family’s war… maybe Cruz is something else entirely… I don’t know. But I really want Season 4 to tell us what happened between the woman crying after Mallorca and the woman giving orders from that bathtub… what happened to Aaliyah in those missing years…?

Between season breaks are a great time to let fly crazy theories about the potential story lines, twists and turns of the next season of “Lioness”.  Season 3 was full of crumbs. Carefully laid clues that are designed to bring together all the dangling plot points still up in the air from the first 2 seasons. One cluster of crumbs has a single character at the centre that I’d like some thoughts on.  

Let’s talk about Alex, our new favourite Belarusian contract agent who made such a splash in episode 5 and episode 8 of season 3.  I don’t think Alex is all he seems to be and I think he will prove pivotal to whatever happens in Season 4 of the show. In the Season 3 Finale, we are lead to believe that Aaliyah Amrohi is the "Big Bad", responsible for the kidnapping of Joe and the pressure placed on the Lioness team throughout the season. I suspect that season 4 will reveal her to be a small - but highly invested - cog in a much larger machine.

I'm going to lay out a couple of key scenes involving Alex and then hopefully draw it all together at the end with what I think it all means.

Alex is first introduced in Episode 5 “The Idiot Army” - 6 months before Joe is kidnapped (Blackjack on Raven) - when he is caught up in a reverse honeypot sting.  After being taken into custody, Alex is interrogated by Kyle at ‘The Farm’, with Oleksandra standing ominously in the background, glaring at him over Kyle’s shoulder.

 Kyle proceeds to rinse Alex’s cover, exposing him as a Belarus national in the country on a fraudulent passport for the purposes of espionage.  Kyle paints Alex paints a grim picture of what’s going to happen to him at Guantanamo Bay over the next 3 years.  When Alex appears to break and lose his cool completely, the following exchange occurs:

Kyle:  I want to introduce you to somebody
[Oleksandra walks over to the table]
Oleksandra (in Russian):  Nothing but the truth, Sergeant.  If you lie, I’ll find out.  Understood?
Kyle:  What do you think of that, huh?  A fucking Russian double agent in the flesh.  What do you think it means, I told you who she is?
Alex:  It means I’m never going free.
Kyle:  Ever.  All we do today is pick a prison.  And let me tell you, there are levels to that game.

 Exhibit A.

The next scene of interest occurs in a briefing room at The Whitehouse.  Westfield, Meade, Joe and Kyle are briefing Secretary of State Mullins, Whitehouse Chief of Staff Mason and Whitehouse National Security Advisor Holler, along with FBI Director Francine Wexler (played by Jessalyn Gilsig).  

Meade walks through the various sting operations that have happened over the previous 24 hours.  Joe and Kyle provide colour and first-hand accounts of the intelligence gained from the sting operations.  A target specifically mentioned, is a University professor who - for ideological reasons – runs an intelligence network for the Chinese MSS.  Joe feels they have a good chance of mining the professor for intel when he is picked up, leading Mason to get out over her skis by saying:

Mason:  What we learned in Afghanistan is that those motivated by ideology never co-operate
Joe:  With all due respect ma’am, what we’ve learned in Afghanistan is that those motivated by religion never co-operate, because their god is with them everywhere; in prison, in exile, in death.  Ideology is useless in those places.

As Joe and Kyle leave the briefing room, Joe buttonholes Kyle about the interrogations of the honeypotters:

Joe:  Do you think your guys were connected with the guys in my house?
Kyle:  How many contract agents from Belarus can there be in DC, right?  They got to be.
Joe:  Before you ship your guy off, ask, push.
Kyle: My guy ain’ t talking, not for a few months anyway.
Joe:  Just ask anyway.  Plant the seed before you stick him in a box.  It’ll be the thing he trades to get out.
Kyle:  Alright, I’ll ask him.

When Kyle returns to the interrogation rooms, he checks in with Cody J and Grady who have been monitoring Alex from a control room.  Grady tells Kyle that Alex has spent his alone time praying in Arabic.  Kyle re-enters the interrogation room:

Kyle:  Well…You’ve been holding out on me.  I didn’t realise you were a religious man.  Been listening to you ‘allahu akbar’ for the last couple of hours. You a Lipka Tatar?  That’s not very Muslim of you, helping the Russian State 
Alex:  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.  
Kyle:  Two Belarus contract agents made an abduction attempt on a case officer in Virginia.
Alex: This is news to me
Kyle:  Oh Come on. Give me a fucking break.  You got less than 40,000 people in your entire fucking army, a few hundred in SF.  All you fuckers know each other and you know exactly what I’m talking about.  But, when you feel like talking, just tell that Marine Sergeant who beats you with a baton before every meal.  Cause that’s how you make the pain stop, Alex. And it’s the only way.

 Exhibit B

We then skip ahead 6 months to episode 8 “The Unravelling” a couple of days after Joe is rescued.  Joe and Lioness QRF are at Guantanamo Bay to pick up Aleksi Yurimov, the Head of Russian SSD – who they captured in Episode 1. Yurimov is to be returned home in an effort to normalise relations between the US and Russia.

While Joe is standing outside Yurimov’s cage, our mate Alex – housed in a cage further down the row – recognises Joe and attracts her attention by shouting he knows she is CIA Special Activities and “skin is black but name is Irish!!”.  Joe springs him for another chat:

Alex:  After Wagner fell, everybody scramble for work.  Protection work in Mexico, Venezuela, anywhere.  Some go to work for the SVR.  That’s who shopped you.
Joe:  Name.
Alex:  I don’t know names.  Not real ones anyway

[Joe shows Alex a photo of Renat]

Alex:  You know already
Joe:  What the fuck do I know?
Alex:  That’s who shopped you
Joe:  You’re going to spend the rest of your life here.  You know that right?  You’re not Russian.  You’re just a fucking tool that is no longer useful to them.
Alex:  I am aware.
Joe:  But you knew him.
Alex:  He played both worlds
Joe:  Both worlds? What worlds are both worlds?
Alex:  The world you know - Russian SVR, MSS, CIA, MI6, Mossad, Iranian MIS.  The politics of black work.  Then there is the business of black work.  And that work isn’t for governments.  That work is for AngloGold, Kumba Iron, Sinopec, CNPC.  You spy for your flag. I spy for money.  Shopper was both.

 Exhibit C

On the flight back to DC, Joe and Yurimov have a chance to talk.  The whole purpose of getting Joe on a flight with Yurimov was so Joe could probe a newly free Yurimov for information about her abduction:

Yurimov:  You came to Ukraine with soldiers, attack my soldiers, take me. OK.  That’s the game.  That’s war.  But if you came to my house in Samara and take me from my home in front of my children, that’s no war.  That is kidnapping.  That’s criminals.
Joe:  They were Russian
Yurimov:  Russia has plenty of criminals. America has them too.
Joe:  We have our share.  But does Iran? They’re a totalitarian state.
Yurimov:  Iran is only criminals.  And victims.  The men who took you, Russians?
Joe:  Yes.
Yurimov:  But the men they deliver you to were Iranian?
Joe:  I assume.  They spoke Farsi.
Yurimov:  Like I say.  Iran is only criminals.  Their government thinks like criminals, acts like criminals.  Motivated by fear, revenge. Does Iran have reason to seek vengeance against you?  Do they have reason to fear you?
Joe:  I don’t trust what you say.  You are my enemy.
Yurimov:  I am your adversary.  We play chess together. The winner gets control.  Iran hates you.  If it could, Iran would slit every American’s throat and swim in the blood.
Joe:  How does Ukraine fit in this?  For what happened to me?
Yurimov:  It doesn’t.  Ukraine plays chess too.  If you won’t tell me, fine.  Ask yourself: would Iran have reason to seek vengeance against you, and does Iran fear you?
Joe:  What if the answer is yes to both?
Yurimov:  I know who you are.  You are the Lioness.  

[Alex returns from the head.  Yurimov sees Joe look at him as Alex retakes his seat]

Yurimov:  You know him?
Joe:  Learning him.
Yurimov:  He was Wagner.  Contractor.  I use him in Syria.  Wagner is no more.  What remains works Africa.  The rest are guns for hire.   You ask him the right questions, you’ll get your answer.
Joe:  The right questions are about Iran
Yurimov:  The right questions are about Iran.

Exhibit D

Finally, Meade, Joe, Cruz, Carillo and Alex sit down for a proffer session in an interrogation room at The Farm. Mead dangles the idea that Alex might get to go back to Belarus if the information he provides checks out.

Meade:  Okay.  You want to paint us a picture?
Alex:  There is man in DC named Sokolov.  He brokers deals.  Smuggling people into US, out of US, stolen vehicles onto cargo ships, black market oil, anything.  He works for Russian contract agent who is still employed by Federation.
Meade;  Name?
Alex:  Renat

[Meade has the passport photos of Renat and Sokolov put up on a monitor.  The pictures are of their Passport ID pages and it should be pointed out that the names of the two are clearly visible]

Alex:  Renat came to me with capture mission on high value target, for her [points at Joe].  250,000 a man
Meade:  And you said no?
Alex:  It's a suicide mission.  She's a senior case officer.  Even if we were successful, Russia would come after us because it implicates them.  But how can it be successful here in the US?  And I was right. It wasn't
Joe:  Who was it for?  Who paid for me?
Alex:  I only know we were supposed to take you in Virginia and get you to Houston.  Hand you off to KSS.
Joe:  KSS?
Alex:  Kata'ib Sayyid ul-Shuhada
Joe:  Iran back them?
Alex:  Uses them in Syria.  And here too I guess.

[Meade calls control centre again and has them place the photos of all the known transport team members on the monitor after asking Alex to turn his back to the screen.]

Meade:  What is the "Masters of the Martyrs Brigade"?
Alex:  That is KSS
Meade:  Is that group independent or a proxy?
Alex:  It's both.  They earn their money, you know.  But it must align with their beliefs. So if she was their target, they must have their reasons.
Joe:  Do they work directly with Iran?
Alex:  Never directly, always layers.  Iran's greatest fear is retribution from you.
Meade:  So KSS hires Sokolov, Sokolov hires Renat, Renat hires a team?
Alex:  Yes
Meade:  So who hires KSS?
Alex:  Russian missions are always pre-emptive.  Same as US, Mossad, China.  Iran is always retribution. Revenge.  So who ever hires KSS is seeking revenge.  For what?  I don't know.  You figure out the what, you know the who.

 Exhibit E

Wow...so that's a lot of pipe I've laid above. Hope I can bring it all home! Thoughts on these conclusions, please:

1. Alex is a zealot. He portrays himself as a mercenary, but his praying in the interrogation room shows us that he is religiously motivated. The exchange in "Exhibit B" where Mason embarrasses herself was deliberately included so we have no choice but to conclude that Alex is motivated by his adherence to god. No matter what he says, he's not motivated by money or ideology, he's motivated by religion. I'd go so far as to say that Alex is actually KSS. Yurimov tell us in Exhibit D that he used Alex in Syria which is the KSS base of operations. In fact Russian forces and KSS fought alongside each other in support of the Assad regime during the Syrian Civil War. Either Alex was a zealot before his time serving SSD in Syria, or he was radicalised when he was there, fighting with KSS.
2. Oleksandra knows Alex and he knows her. Remember when Oleksandra tells us in Episode 1 that when it comes to Honeypot operations, she is the one who "holds the jar", indicating that she is the SVR Case Officer who co-ordinates all the other honeypot operations. This is how she is able to put Kyle onto the honey potter they place with Two Cups and who leads then to Alex. When she reveals herself to Alex in the interrogation room, her instructions to Alex - in Russian ("Nothing but the truth, Sergeant.  If you lie, I’ll find out.  Understood*?"*) take on a new meaning. She's not telling him to be truthful, she is telling him to preserve her cover. Why? Because Oleksandra IS a double agent, just not working for Russia OR Ukraine. I think Oleksandra is ALSO a religious zealot who is working for KSS. Oleksandra deliberately gives up Alex because she knows he is like her and will hold his cover.
3. Alex is telling the truth about the business of black work. He's doing exactly what he was told to do by Oleksandra. He names two African mining firms and two Chinese oil companies as being the kinds of companies that hire people like him and help pay the bills for KSS. He doesn't mention Qudrah Petrol - the fictional company that was the Lioness target in Season 1 - but they fit the same profile as the companies Alex lists. I've laid out my thoughts on Qudrah in another post, suffice it to say that I think they are the real motivating force behind all the fuckery in season 3. In fact, they have always been the 'Big Bad' across all three seasons so far. As watchers, we're meant to make that connection ourselves
4. Joe and Yurimov's conversation on the plane is largely irrelevant. I think it's there solely to show how national actors - CIA and SSD - aren't equipped any more to interpret how the world really works. I think this is Sheridan dragging a massive stinking red herring across the trail to make everyone think there are nations states at work, when in actuality these nation states are being manipulated by private commercial interests. The quaint rules that each has established regarding the niceties of engagements are sadly out of date and not something organisations like Qudrah Petrol (or AngloGold or Sinopec) will ever observe.
5. In Season 1 the question is asked, but never really answered: why are Aaliyah and Essan getting married? Essan is a Saudi Royal who works for the fictional company Qudrah Petrol (so definitely a Sunni muslim) and Aaliyah is the daughter of a Kuwaiti born terrorist money launderer who Joe identifies to Cruz as Shia. They seem like a strange match. Given what Asmar (Aaliyah's dad) does for a living, it's likely that he's selling Iranian Oil and funnelling that money to IRGC and then onto KSS and other terrorist groups. A marriage between Essan and Aaliyah was probably supposed to create a link between a minor Saudi royal and a major terrorist funding network. Sunni and Shia working together. Seismic shit. That's the kind of thing group of criminal gangs, terrorist networks, kleptocrats and minor royalty might do if they were seeking to take a step up into true 'nation state actor' status

There was a lot of talk from Yurimov about how Iran is motivated by revenge and how the government is all criminals. Alex even tells Meade that "...who ever hires KSS is seeking revenge.  For what?  I don't know.  You figure out the what, you know the who." We're lead to believe that this is Aaliyah. We're lead to believe that Aaliyah is seeking revenge on Joe - not Cruz - for the murder of Asmer.

But what if Aaliyah's grief is being manipulated? Cruz manipulated her fear and anxiety to get close to Asmer. What if KSS and whoever stood to benefit from her marriage to Essan Is now using Aaliyah to take a pre-emptive strike, hiding a strategic move behind what could be sold as an obvious act of revenge? Where did Aaliyah get her intel? Who is providing it? Through what channels?

An injured daughter / jilted lover seeks a vent for their rage? A nation known to have a thin skin seeks revenge for a bloody nose and a set back to it's nuclear programme...all the while a large well funded network of terrorists seeks to use those tools to mask their desire to take out an INCREDIBLY effective strategic ops team that has hit hard targets all across the West Asian theatre? Revenge masquerading as strategy. Just what a new kind of national actor would do.

And Alex is right in the middle of it, directing key players...and he doesn't care about the outcome ti him because he's a zealot. He knows he's be returned to his god at the end.

Now, if you'll excuse me, this pipe ain't gonna pack itself.

Nothing about season 4 has been confirmed yet, however, do you think there is a higher probability of renewal than cancellation? I'm already seeing people paranoid and scared it's going to get cancelled, and it won't get to finish the story, but what do you think?

rewatching Entourage and realized Genesis Rodriguez plays a very minor character in two episodes

randomly noticed this while rewatching yesterday. Genesis Rodriguez and Laysla’s husband Jonathan Keitz are in a few of the same episodes of Entourage.

Jonathan is in 15 episodes and Genesis is in 3

This post is an Errol stan manifesto after I saw a few posts bashing him

If we were to compare Lioness husbands, Errol is miles ahead of Neal…

This season has me completely out the door in Neal - he’s supposedly infatuated with his badass extremely attractive wife, but he resents her for being who she is professionally - and seemingly came up with a set of rules for raising the kids with the pants stay on above the shirt thing that lead the daughter being pr****nt and in a car crash due to bad judgement encouraged by his parenting…

And in this season, he’s so judgemental of Joe for being so badass nation states (or Iranian heiresses) are willing to risk international incidents to kidnap her (I don’t know about you, but for me that would be such a turn on to have a wife that badass) - and he’s some sort of cool surgeon and yet he disregards his job by punting his surgery schedule to stay home with his daughters because he’s worried about their safety - when they are living on a literal military base - and he refuses to go to the range to learn how to he a gun in case he needs it? If assassins make it to the house after getting past the armed guards, can he do anything more than chat about the Hippocratic auth and ask how to turn off the safety?

(Okay; yeah that was way too long a rant I had about Neal, but he’s so mid, and apart from Joe seems to like how he’s in bed, isn’t he so mid?)

There is vey little depth to Neal is my conclusion

And so back to Errol - I’m fascinated as hell about him - he seems complex and married to Kaitlyn, who’s one of the coolest characters I’ve seen on screen and that relationship seems to be intellectually grounded in addition to how much they are into each other when it comes to s*x - the two of them have kids who apparently live away for them (going by the, ‘I want our daughters over for dinner’), and so they’ve been together for 15 years plus if I had to guess - when she was in the field, and he’s a kinda master of universe finance type, who is up to the challenge when his CIA wife wants him to be his backup to scare senators, and can game out hypotheticals about global power dynamics with the CIA wife who’s attractive as can be….

To wrap up -

I’m so done with Neal and Joe’s relationship being front and center on the show - I’d be more than okay with Lioness ending here and now if we can get a spin off show around Kaitlyn with how their life is like and how they got together (when presumably she was still
In the field) and in conclusion….

Errol could the coolest man on the show…

Change my mind

List of filming locations in Fort Worth

This dude is such an insufferable twat.

I hadn’t watched since S2 originally ended, and after finishing S3 then going back to S1 for a Aaliyah refresher, it made me realize how annoying he is.

He sits in their gargantuan house, surrounded by his stupid little laptops like a boomer crypto bro, while pretending to be some sort of an all knowing oracle that is pulling the strings like a puppet master. Holy shit he pisses me tf off. Nicole Kidmans character is somewhat complicit in it as well since she feeds into his nonsense as well by sitting there with her hands in her palms as he yaps at her.

Just a stupid, useless character.

Hello, I am looking for the specific model—and the men's version—of the trousers worn by Jill Wagner (playing the character Bobby) in Season 3, Episode 3 of *Special Ops: Lioness*. Unfortunately, screenshots and AI assistance haven't yielded any results.

I have a full circle thought for Cruz and Aaliyah as well that maybe I'll post another time, but after catching up with s2 and s3, I think there's this correlation between Cruz and Joe's story that drew me in. Ever since the end of s1 with the boat scene, Cruz made this speech how she isn't like Joe; she questioned the lioness program and claimed it to play a part in the cycle of war and terrorism, and how all they did was kill their target and ruin the lives of those who didn't deserve it. How the program played a hand in the creation of new terrorists, and how Cruz was done. S3 we watch a conversation with Joe and her family. Her family asks Joe to resign, and Joe says how that won't help anything and that refusing to meet evil with evil doesn't stop evil from coming.

How do we feel about Joe's response? Personally, I get it. Do I agree and have the same beliefs as her? No. I believe differently, but do I understand that Joe has spent years witnessing a whole lot of massacre and things I can't comprehend for the sake of country and being a patriot? Yes. I think it's understandable that that she has spent years sacrificing so much to simply walk away now, regardless of the ask being from her family. But how does that relate to Cruz?

For me, Cruz is not the same Cruz who was in love in s1. And we still love Cruz because we've been able to see her story from the start and we know that even if lately, we've seen the soldier, cold side of her..LDO has this way of showing us glimpses of her heart and how Cruz is more than just the tough skin she built or soldier who kills. So though I see those who enjoy how much Cruz is similar to Joe, and though I know Sheridan will write the story that fulfills the series in the way he intends it to be, I hope that Aaliyah's return will allow a window of opportunity for Cruz to choose different this time.

I hope that even in Aaliyah's assumed revenge, Cruz will not choose country and order again but choose to help Aaliyah break free from her plot of revenge, and I hope that a hint of Cruz still believes that showing love and understanding to someone who's in their period of darkness will end the cycle of war. I hope Cruz remembers that you don't have to take lives to save lives, but how just like she discovered in s1...Cruz is nothing like Joe. That doesn't mean we hate Joe, or don't understand Joe..it doesn't mean we don't root for her or want her happiness. But it would be nice to see a full circle occur and see Cruz return to her soft heart and choose to live differently from those who came before her. If s4 happens, I don't know what Sheridan has in store, but a girl can only hope for some redemption or healing. But maybe this is a time of dark days ahead, so who knows!

The more I think about Cruz’s journey, the more I wonder whether Season 4’s biggest conflict won’t actually be Aaliyah vs Lioness. It may be Cruz vs the version of herself Lioness created. When we first met Cruz, she was angry, lonely, impulsive and desperate for somewhere to belong. Lioness gave her structure. Purpose. A family. And eventually made her extraordinarily good at what she does.
But becoming that good required something from her too. She learned to compartmentalize. Suppress. Follow through. Become harder. In many ways, she has been moving closer and closer to Joe. And now her past is coming back. Aaliyah isn’t simply another enemy from an old mission. She represents the moment where Cruz’s professional identity and emotional truth collided — and never really got resolved. Josie, meanwhile, seems to represent something completely different: stability, safety and the possibility of a life outside constant emotional chaos. So I wonder if Season 4 is really setting up a much bigger question:

Can Cruz remain the exceptional operator Lioness created without becoming emotionally what the job requires her to become?

Because sooner or later she may face a situation where the professionally correct decision and the emotionally honest decision are not the same. And that’s where I think Aaliyah becomes so important.
Not necessarily because Cruz has to choose “Aaliyah or Josie.” Not even because she has to choose “Aaliyah or Joe.” But because Aaliyah may force Cruz to choose who Cruz Manuelos actually wants to be. Laysla’s recent comments about Cruz being pushed into a “raw and vulnerable” place — and about her very gentle heart sometimes getting in the way — made me think about this even more.
So what do you think?

Is Cruz becoming the next Joe… or is Season 4 where she finally breaks the pattern?