r/SpecialOpsLioness

I decided to delete my yesterday’s post on Steph’s Nur reaction on IG . I got the answers from you and the most probable reason. Apparently she responded after being attacked online by CJ shippers for leaving a comment on IG that was just meaningless fun about her character. Generally, some fanatic, creepy people—both CA and CJ fans—have problems telling the difference between a show and real life, and between actors and the characters they play. It seems to affect Stephanie and Genesis the most. So I don’t want to add fuel to the fire and fan the flames by keeping the topic alive here. Some people lost the plot. Embarassing. And thank you for your comments. Most of them maintained respectful and rational tone.

I’ve been thinking about how the show handles its characters. Almost nobody on screen is purely good or purely bad and I keep going back and forth on who I’m actually rooting for.

Part of what hooks me is the setup itself. Cruz gets pulled out of the Marines into the CIA’s Lioness program and Joe has to keep her mission and her sanity in one piece while also holding together her own life at home. That tension between the job and everything it costs people is what makes it feel different from a standard spy show. The cast makes it work too. Zoe Saldaña and Laysla De Oliveira carry so much through small moments and Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman add real weight whenever they’re on screen.

So I’m curious where everyone lands. Who are you rooting for, and has that changed since you started watching? Is there a scene or a performance that made you stop and say okay, this show is good?

I’m trying to keep this spoiler-free, so if you want to get into specific plot points, please use a spoiler tag so people who are earlier in the series aren’t caught off guard.

Okay… hear me out because I think this could get way messier than Aaliyah simply becoming the next target. Joe has already made it very clear what she wants to do to whoever was behind her kidnapping… and Cruz agreed before she knew that person was Aaliyah. But Joe isn’t infallible… she pushes people hard, she can be arrogant, and sometimes that certainty comes with a cost. Her family finally walked away after she chose the job again… Randy and Tex ended up shot… Oleksandra helped them get to Joe and still ended up dead by CIA hands. And Cruz knows better than most what Joe is capable of sacrificing for a mission. In S1 Joe was prepared to lose her too if that was what completing the operation required. Then Yurimov basically gives Joe the warning the whole season has been building toward… “Never underestimate how many hate you.” Maybe that line matters more than it looks. Joe has spent years making decisions that create enemies, collateral damage and consequences she doesn’t always have to live with immediately… until now. Aaliyah may just be one of those consequences coming back with a face Joe can’t ignore. So once Cruz is standing in front of the woman she loved… the woman whose life was destroyed partly because of the mission she was sent on… does she really just follow Joe’s judgement? Cruz owes a lot to the Marines and she clearly loves the action and the team she has now… but that doesn’t automatically mean Joe gets to decide what is right for her. Maybe S4 isn’t about Cruz choosing Aaliyah over Josie at all… maybe it’s about Cruz finally choosing her own judgement over Joe’s. And if Joe says Aaliyah has to die… do you really think Cruz pulls the trigger?

Marre de la méchanceté infligée aux actrices

Ce n'est qu'une fiction.

Chacun à le droit a ses préférences, à la préférence du couple CJ ou CA mais tout ça dans le respect !!!

Merci de respecter Genesis Rodriguez, Laysla de Oliveira et Stéphanie Nur.

Cruz, Josie et Aaliah sont une fiction, un peu de respect pour elles !

J'ai ma préférence mais je ne me permettrais jamais de dire du mal de l'une où d'une autre...

Bravo pour le boulot qu'elles produisent, pour leurs rôles et franchement courage à elles toutes , c'est dingue toutes ses méchancetés derrière un écran.

Faut pas s'étonner que certains où certaines finissent en dépression, les pauvres.

Cœur ❤️ sur vous , Genesis/Josie - Laysla/Cruz - Aaliah/Stéphanie

One thing I find fascinating about Cruz is the contradiction at the center of her character. She is exceptionally good at what she does. She adapts fast, reads danger well, survives situations that would break most people, and over time she becomes more controlled, more disciplined and more like Joe. But underneath all of that, Cruz has always seemed emotionally hungry for something much simpler: safety, belonging and love. Her life before Lioness was brutal. Then the program gave her purpose, structure and eventually a kind of family — but it also taught her to survive by becoming harder. What interests me is that her greatest strength and her greatest vulnerability may come from the same place. Cruz can compartmentalize almost anything operationally.
Emotionally, she can’t. When she loves someone, she seems to love with her whole self. That’s true in very different ways with Joe, the team, and obviously Aaliyah. Which makes me wonder whether Season 4 could finally explore the part of Cruz that exists underneath the operator…

Not just: How good is Cruz at being a Lioness?

But:

What has becoming such a good Lioness cost her emotionally?

And what happens when the life she built to protect herself collides with the things she still wants most?