Men's Lifestyle August 16, 2026 0 Comments

Lioness Episode 3 Delivers Taylor Sheridan’s Signature Twist—Here’s Why It’s Impossible to Look Away

Taylor Sheridan’s knack for weaving animal metaphors is something to behold—and trust me, it’s more captivating than your average office water cooler chat. Remember that gem from Yellowstone, where politicians scuttle sideways like crabs to move forward? Classic Sheridan. But this time, he’s outdone himself, unleashing a trio of beasts—the wolf, the tiger, and the bear—in a metaphor that’s as intriguing as it is baffling. Picture this: Russia’s a wolf pack, China’s the tiger, and the US, well, that’s the bear who’s too big to be taken down easily. Yet, according to Sheridan’s double agent Oleksandra Balakin, the bear’s vulnerability isn’t a physical fight—it’s a disease. Now, isn’t that a wild way to think about geopolitics? It’s got me wondering: when your enemies are a wolf pack and a tiger that don’t play nice, what’s your move? Especially when the “disease” is as sneaky as political honeypotting and blackmail. Pull up a seat—this metaphor might just infect your imagination too. LEARN MORE

3 min read

Taylor Sheridan loves an extended animal metaphor. “Politicians are like crabs,” the writer forced Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) to say in Yellowstone’s debut episode. “We move sideways to go forward.” I love that one. It’s bookmarked in my Yellowstone quote book.

Here’s another, from Landman: Andy García’s character says out of nowhere that snakes are cannibals. “My business is similar,” he continues. “We have a code. We only eat other snakes.” But Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton)? “He’s a hawk, and hawks, they eat snakes too,” he says. Of course, of course. But this week on Lioness, Sheridan wrote his magnum opus of animal metaphors.

The latest metaphor involves the most animals yet (three!), and it ends even more unexpectedly than García interjecting hawks into his snake talk. It comes from a monologue by Ukrainian double agent Oleksandra Balakin (played by actress Elizaveta Neretin), who is working undercover in Russia’s foreign intelligence service, as she explains how world leaders think about fighting America. It also occurs in an episode titled, “The Bear Is Infected,” which is just a little tease for this doozy right here:

Russia’s a wolf pack. China is the tiger. And you? You are the bear. Wolf pack cannot kill the bear. The bear’s too big, even for a pack. And the tiger cannot kill the bear alone. Wolf pack and the tiger cannot play nicely together, so they don’t play at all. So how do they fight you? What kills the bear? Disease kills the bear. And they’ve been infecting you for many years.

Emerson Miller

“Wolf pack and the tiger cannot play nicely together, so they don’t play at all. So how do they fight you? What kills the bear?” We’re all asking this question.

Wow. Where to even begin? Wolves and tigers and bears? Oh my.

We should skip right to where the metaphor completely falls apart: that the wolves and the tiger have somehow passed a disease to the bear. It stops making sense when you leave the metaphor entirely. Lioness’s third episode in season 3 takes a beat from all the screaming and kidnapping to search for answers. Joe (Zoe Saldaña) and her team land on intel that Russian agents have been honeypotting politicians, officials in defense/tech, and NSA workers. Then, they blackmail them into voting for certain policies or passing along information. That’s the disease, in this metaphor. But what happens when you kick back to the animals? So, she’s saying that the wolves are honeypotting the bear with their sexiest wolves? Or is honeypotting Winnie the Pooh a triple entendre here?

Lauren “Lo” Smith

Eventually, Lioness will work its way back to Joe’s (Saldaña) kidnapping.

Either way, we’re really kicking the can around in episode 3. Elsewhere, Kaitlyn’s (Nicole Kidman) husband continues to sit on his porch with three open laptops every morning and expose conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and China to his wife. What she likes about this guy is beyond me. Two Cups (James Jordan) avoids a traffic jam as he escorts Joe’s daughters to work when he thinks that it’s another kidnapping attempt, and Yellowstone alum Dawn Olivieri’s character explains counter-espionage operations with an image that resembles the new, upside-down food pyramid.

It all ends with a return to the metaphor—though, in a way that makes a bit more sense. After firing in the dark for a few hours, Joe comes up with a plan to leak that they’ve captured a Russian agent, Balakin, without revealing their name or any information regarding how they did it. Maybe it will provoke Russia to act out and point them in the right direction. “Let’s throw her back to the wolves and find out,” Joe says. I guess the only way to fight wolves, in this metaphor, is with more wolves.