Checked out the premiere of Special Ops: Lioness this weekend. And I’m on board. There is enough action and dramatic potential here to add another car to the Taylor Sheridan train of successful programming. It’s also great to watch Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman trade lines.
But it’s Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira) who is the real hero of the show after the first two episodes of the series.
We observe her beginnings working at a fast food restaurant and coming home to an abusive boyfriend and his gang of dopeheads and strippers. When she takes a stand and hits him with a frying pan, he threatens to kill her and she finds sanctuary into a Marine recruiting office where her real future is waiting. The entire escape is harrowing and well done.
And then she’s abused all over again by Joe after joining her team. Her hero’s journey has had as tough of a beginning as you could have but its working.
I understand the star power is with Saldana and Kidman, but I’d argue they’re nothing but puppet masters at this point. Producers were right to feature them along with Morgan Freeman to get eyes on the show, but the only two characters that I’m really invested in so far are Cruz and Neil (Dave Annable).
And a shout out to writers for that Neil side story. That was some solid medical drama there. You can’t drift too far from the action on a show like this one, but often supporting characters like these can be annoying. That’s not the case here. The scene diagnosing the little girl’s cancer before being attacked by the father was effective, and so was his explanation of why he’s still practicing medicine.
You’ll notice that both these characters pivot off the fact that they’re tied to Joe. They’re is something more to that.
Let’s do this again next week!
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