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Special Ops: Lioness stars Zoe Saldana as… Joe. Not just a regular Joe, though, since she’s a member of SOCOM, aka United States Special Operations Command, one of the toughest types of marines around, which brings me back to the realm of the SOCOM US Navy Seals games on the Sony PSP, almost 20 years ago, and some of the most incredible games on a handheld ever made.
I’ve only seen the first of the two episodes which go live on day one but there’s no time for sitting around, since a colleague’s cover has been blown, and all hell breaks loose with guns firing all over the shop.
However, life in the job isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, since it sometimes requires inadvertently ordering the deaths of innocents by calling in an air strike, albeit for the greater good, as it’ll take out a load of baddies at the same time. As Josh Brolin said early on in Sicario 2 with a black-and-white CCTV drone strike image when trying to identify the target, “I don’t want kill the pool guy(!)”
Then we head back four years to when new recruit Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira) was a short order cook, and had to escape from an abusive boyfriend, and this new job rather fell into her lap. Ultimately, Joe will train her, with Cruz’s first mission being to ingratiate herself amongst the female partners of the bad guys, it’s a bit like a game of Hitman, as you try and be all clandestine, and not alert anyone to the fact that you’re trying to cap them, although obviously, you don’t cap who you’re trying to infiltrate and get to know better.
The original title was Lioness, which is on the preview, but now it’s Special Ops: Lioness. It’s a good distinction to have in the UK, at least to differentiate from the England female football league, the Lionesses.
Overall, after just one episode, to coin a phrase heard through the helmet comms when you successfully downed a baddie in the SOCOM games, “Quality!”
UPDATE Episode 2:
UPDATE Episode 3:
UPDATE Episodes 4 and 5:
UPDATE Episode 6:
UPDATE Episode 7:
UPDATE Episode 8:
Thanks to our friends at Paramount+ for the screener prior to release.
Special Ops: Lioness is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Paramount+ from Sunday July 23rd, with two episodes available at launch, and then weekly episodes.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 40-45 minutes per episode (8 episodes)
Release date: July 23rd 2023
Studio: Paramount+
Format: 2.00:1
Series Directors: Anthony Byrne, Paul Cameron, John Hillcoat
Creator/Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Music: Andrew Lockington
Cast:
Joe: Zoe Saldana
Cruz Manuelos: Laysla De Oliveira
Kaitlyn Meade: Nicole Kidman
Donald Westfield: Michael Kelly
Neil: Dave Annable
Bobby: Jill Wagner
Tucker: LaMonica Garrett
Two Cups: James Jordan
Randy: Austin Hébert
Tax: Jonah Wharton
Aaliyah: Stephanie Nur
Kate: Hannah Love Lanier
Edwin Mullins: Morgan Freeman
Asif: Richard Haddad
Kamal: Sam Asghari
Malika: Carla Mansour
Nashwa: Layla Mohammadi
Fariha: Maggie Parto
Nala: Priscilla Doueihy
Sami: Adam Budron
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.