Men's Lifestyle September 20, 2026 0 Comments

The Lioness Season 3 Finale Drops a Jaw-Dropping Twist That Will Leave You Breathless—Here’s What You Need to Know Now!

Alright, so here’s the deal—if you thought juggling your workout routines was complicated, try keeping up with the whirlwind chaos that unfolded in the Lioness season 3 finale. Joe and her crew have been racing through a 70-minute rollercoaster of questionable decisions, all while apparently forgetting one tiny detail: “it’s still murder,” says the comes-seen-and-heard Secretary of State Edwin Mullins, played by none other than Morgan Freeman. Now, isn’t it wild how this season danced dangerously close to the typical “heroes with zero consequences” trope, only to slam us with the hard truth that actions have repercussions? Kind of like ignoring leg day and wondering why your gains aren’t showing—except here, the stakes are global, messy, and downright embarrassing. So, who exactly masterminded Joe’s kidnapping? And more importantly, why her? Buckle up, because this finale doesn’t just leave us hanging; it throws down a cliffhanger that will have you questioning not just the intelligence of the CIA’s moves but the very nature of revenge in this tangled spy game. Trust me, you don’t want to miss how this all shakes out. LEARN MORE

5 min read

This story contains spoilers for the Lioness season 3 finale.

Lioness dropped the hammer last week. From one whirlwind of a chase scene to another in Taylor Sheridan’s CIA drama, Joe (Zoe Saldaña) and her team acted completely above the law all throughout season 3—executing anyone in their way in their pursuit to save her from a mysterious kidnapping. It’s been chaos. So, they needed to hear Secretary of State Edwin Mullins (Morgan Freeman) when he reminded the team that, “it’s still murder.”

We needed to hear it too. For a while there, I was worried Lioness season 3 had fallen into a trap that ensnares so many other competing task force series on TV. Throughout Reacher, CIA, and The Night Agent, etc., there are often zero consequences for the geopolitical turmoil these characters leave in their wake in the name of American freedom. Lioness season 3 may have appeared to follow suit at first, but it appears it was only so that the finale would hit that much harder.

Compared to last week’s 44-minute action-packed prelude to save Joe, the Lioness season 3 finale features 70 minutes of pure embarrassment. Our characters spend the full runtime just shaking their heads and burying their faces in their palms.

Ryan Green

Following Joe’s kidnapping, Kaitlyn’s new goal is to get her out of the field.

CIA heads Byron (Michael Kelly) and Kaitlyn (Nicole Kidman) ended last week’s cabinet meeting by sharing a bird-brained theory tying Joe’s kidnapping to Ukraine. They even ordered a Ukrainian agent’s execution, despite promising her Witness Protection. Another dead end that got someone killed.

Then, later this episode, the CIA tracks down their mole—some Russian think tank lobbyist named Dimitri Sokolov—and gun down even more innocent lives. They tail Sokolov to a packed restaurant where he meets with Joe’s Belarusian abductor, Renat, and Joe rashly orders the command to “Engage.” Renat shoots Sokolov in the head before he’s riddled with bullets from CIA agents. Customers flee in terror, and a woman is shot and killed from stray bullets after her clueless bodyguards jump into action against the CIA. As it turns out, she was a very important diplomat from Africa. “It’s my fault,” Joe says to herself. “Look how many died this time.”

Kyle (Thad Luckinbill) takes the heat for her death instead of Joe—who finally returns home to find that her husband’s taken the kids and moved out. The CIA blames the whole event on ICE, which arguably only makes it look worse. Then, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay confesses that he was contacted about the kidnapping, but he turned it down because it was too dangerous. Still, he’s able to identify both Sokolov and Renat as the men who were hired to pull it off in his place.

Ryan Green

Who hired this man to kidnap Joe?

So, we’re back at square one. Who was behind Joe’s abduction? There’s still zero evidence it was Ukraine. As Mullins recalls in a meeting with Byron and Kaitlyn, “Didn’t this agent supply information that led to the rescue of our officer?” Oh, yeah. Duh!

Every character keeps telling them that this suicide mission to kidnap Joe on American soil, in her home, in front of her family, couldn’t be the work of any foreign government. Kaitlyn’s husband said it himself before he somehow arrived at the Ukraine theory: “None of this follows any forward action policy of China or Russia. Not even Iran, with its total lack of political oversight, would endeavor to pursue anything this aggressive.“ It’s too stupid, and too motivated by revenge. Yet, the bodies of foreign agents from Russia, Ukraine, and now Africa are piling up.

Our characters were so busy trying to find the answer to “Who kidnapped Joe?” that they never stopped to consider “Why Joe?”

At a meeting with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., he tells Mullins and Byron that America is a land of hypocrisy. “You question what we do, but you do the same,” he says. America acts as if they’ve never invaded a foreign country before. “In
Venezuela,” he mocks, plus Greenland. So, I guess Trump is still President in the Lioness universe. “America’s greatest problem is underestimating how many enemies you have,” he continues. “The whole world hates you.”

“Want to know the last time I had this feeling?” Mullins tells Byron. “About a week before 9/11.” I can’t say that line’s going to play well when this airs a week after 9/11. But if the question Sheridan is posing here is, “What did we learn from 9/11?” Or, “What will the Lioness team learn from all their meddling abroad so far?” Lioness season 3 seems to suggest that the answer for both the U.S. and the Lioness characters is nothing at all.

Emerson Miller

Maybe we should stop doing this.

In Qatar, we finally see our villain Bahat again. He’s done very well for himself. He’s in a massive apartment. Long staircases. Hallways adorned with art. But he’s not even our main villain, actually. He reports to a woman bathing in a lavish bathtub that they failed to get Joe out of the country. “The difficulty isn’t getting to her, it’s getting her out,” he explains. “It would be easier if we just took care of it there.”

The woman says to try again. Maybe the third time’s the charm. “We have to get her out,” she says. “If we get her out, the others will come to save her. Then, we have them all.”

She stands up and the camera reveals her face: It’s Aaliyah (played by Stephanie Nur), the arms dealer’s daughter from season 1. The cast promised a season 3 finale cliff-hanger that would have audiences begging for season 4. Here it is, folks.

Paramount+

Aaliyah returns!

As you may recall, Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira) seduced Aaliyah in the first season so that the new Lioness recruit could get closer to killing her father, Asmar Ali Amrohi (Bassem Youssef). Now, it appears she’s out for revenge.

This is a smart play. All season, I’ve been comparing the confusing tone of season 3 to the much stronger position that Cruz left us with at the end of season 1. She was defeated at the thought that all her efforts to take down this terrorism financier would only result in a change of oil prices back home. She even quit the Lioness team, severed ties with Joe, and argued that all she did was create another generation of terrorists angry at the U.S. to rise up in Amrohi’s place.

Now, Joe’s kidnapping isn’t even the main motivator here. Her abduction is just another chess piece to get Cruz back to Qatar, so that Amrohi’s daughter can have her revenge. Her return also proves Cruz’s point right. Murdering Amrohi in season 1, bending every law in season 2, and executing both an ally Ukrainian agent and killing an important African diplomat in season 3? All they’ve done is create more enemies.