‘Special Ops: Lioness’ Episode 8 Recap: “Gone is the Illusion of Order”

As Special Ops: Lioness enters season finale mode with “Gone is the Illusion of Order” (Episode 8) – The Sheridan-O-Verse is replete with portentous episode titles – let’s get back with the QRF crew, who we instantly bonded with way back in Episode 1. Inspecting the luxury vessel that will serve as their forward operating post for the Majorca op, Tucker orients himself on the bridge while Two Cups stows the lines and Bobby checks the berths to ensure all of their weapons and other gear made the trip to Spain. The fortitude of this group has never wavered. We don’t know if any of them have wives, husbands, children; we don’t know if any of them are also processing the separation from a gravely injured loved one. We don’t even know if one of them misses their pet doodle Smuckers. Lioness has only presented them in one dimension. Collectively, they’re a device. Press pause, the device waits. Press play, it goes. And as Cruz’s signal cuts out once Aaliyah Amrohi’s security detail drives her into the lavish wedding compound, Joe and her QRF team are on pause below decks. Geared up, armed up, and ready to come running (well, swimming, then running) should Cruz’s double-secret backup beacon indicate that she has Geronimo. If Aaliyah’s father actually attends the wedding, if she gets close enough to acquire her target, if she neutralizes him, and if she reaches the beachfront extraction point, Joe and the team will be there to pull her out. Because that’s what they do. But that’s also a lot of ifs.

So we don’t know if Two Cups misses his dog. And we might not ever know. Paramount has issued no intel on a Lioness renewal order, and there are real world problems to be dealt with first, such as paying actors and writers fairly and settling the strike. But in the meantime, all Joe can do is stew on the yacht. The White House situation room is a web of chaotic tension, with Secretary of State Mullins and his grip of unnamed officials (farewell Jennifer Ehle and Bruce McGill, maybe we’ll see you in the next Taylor Sheridan joint) considering moving to DEFCON 3 as a response to the evolving situation in Majorca. In that room, it’s Deputy Director Byron Westfield’s job to tamp down the vibe. The CIA’s Marine is on the scene. She’s already there, inside the vast Moorish palace, and satellite imagery has identified that Amrohi is indeed on site. Allow her the opportunity to improvise a weapon and make the hit, Westfield urges the higher-ups. Give her that chance before you blow the place up with a missile. And when he calls Meade on the yacht to touch base, we get the most overt connection yet between Amrohi’s terrorist bankroll and 9/11. “22 years we’ve been trying to get this guy,” Meade says. The Agency would like to save its asset inside if possible. But they also want credit for knocking the Ace of Spades off of the US Government’s kill list. Why should a Tomahawk get all that juice?       

It’s DEFCON 3 at Joe’s house in Virginia, too. Kate is experiencing night terrors, lasting trauma and flashbacks to the car accident, and in a brief exchange before she’s gotta shut her phone down, Joe and Neil argue about the same old thing. He’s there, going gray with stress, while she’s…on a boat 4,300 miles away, unable to contribute to parenting and their marriage because she’s wearing a helmet and tactical vest and preparing to engage in a gunfight with a bunch of Saudi security guys. Meade takes her phone away. It’s Joe’s supervisor’s turn to be the stern parent. “You will never get back to them if you keep thinking about them. You know better than that.”

Inside the compound, Cruz is on edge. Aaliyah is welcoming to her friend Zara, but nobody else is, and especially not Ehsan. As Aaliyah cries in Zara’s arms on the women’s side of the compound – they kiss, but that’s it; Cruz says it’s all too weird – her fiance keeps running Cruz’s passport through a facial recognition program. He confronted both women about New York. He doesn’t know they had sex. But he knows something is off, something that’s messing with his perception of rigid control. “Tomorrow, there’s no you,” he spit in Zara’s face upon her arrival. And Cruz was on the brink of blowing her cover right there. “You better bring tons of fun,” she told Ehsan, threatening him right back. “Because I’ll wipe the floor with your bony ass.” 

Ultimately, the mission comes down to a spoonful of midnight gelato. When Cruz darts to the kitchen in the middle of the night, desperate for water and a little bit of clarity  – “heart out of it, mind on the mission,” etc. – she runs smack dab into Amrohi (Bassem Youssef), who’s sneaking a little ice cream in his robe and slippers. And he’s charming in a rich grandfather kind of way, even if he is the ruthless financier of an international network of terror. But that mood doesn’t last. Ehsan barges in. His facial recog dredged up a photo of Cruz in her Marine uniform. And he launches himself at her. Bad idea, bro. Cruz grabs a kitchen knife and stabs Ehsan in the neck, putting him out of the picture forever. (And fulfilling Aaliyah’s wish to remain unmarried by default.) Then she turns her knife on Amrohi, and ten or 11 blows later the two men lie in oozing pools of their own blood. She triggers her beacon and books it for the water, dodging bullets as the team simultaneously mobilizes to hit the shore. And after a brief firefight, everybody’s safe back on the boat. Geronimo: neutralized. Lioness operative: clear.   

That doesn’t make Cruz any happier about what she believes she’s become. On the yacht, in the adrenalized moments after the hit and extract, she and Joe exchange a few blows. “I’m not like you – I’m not a fucking liar! My heart isn’t a weapon, and my body isn’t a tool.” Which, OK, the stress levels for her first mission were definitely set on high. But there’s no doubt Cruz has the aptitude for this work. Just like the QRF team, she is a device, and a formidable one at that. The question is whether she’ll continue to be. (And we deserve another season of Lioness, just to watch what Laysla De Oliveira will do with this character’s strengths and traumas.) Joe doesn’t force her, either way. She reiterates that she believes in her work, and that’s certainly the truth. But after the long flight home from the Majorca operation, and arriving at their silent house with Kate asleep in her recovery room and sporting a fat lip from Cruz’s fist, Joe can only hug Neil and heave sobs into his shoulder. “This one was hard; it was really hard.” What will become of Cruz, Joe, the QRF team, and Joe’s evolving relationship with her husband and daughters? For now, only the Sheridan-O-Verse knows. 

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges