Lioness Season 2 Episode 1 recap: A brutal kidnapping, tears, and pizookie

The political thriller is officially off and running with its double episode premiere – and for Joe, that means being thrown straight back into the fire in Lioness Season 2 Episode 1.

Paramount might as well be renamed the Taylor Sheridan Network this fall, with the creator launching Landman, Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2, and Lioness Season 2 within weeks of each other.

It’s the latter we’re interested in here, though. The all-female elite team is back for another round of missions that could cost them their lives, with Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman overseeing the action safely from the comfort of their underground boardroom.

Zoe Saldaña leads the charge once again… but what lies in wait for Joe? Here’s everything that went down in Lioness Season 2 Episode 1. Obviously, spoilers ahead.

Lioness Season 2 Episode 1: Joe gets thrown back in the deep end

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We open Lioness Season 2 Episode 1 in an unfamiliar house in the dead of night. Before we can blink, armed soldiers raid the place killing everyone in sight – except for one woman who’s managed to escape out the back door. She’s soon tackled in a nearby field and bunged in the back of a car without explanation.

Cut to Joe, who is unsuccessfully trying to make breakfast for her husband and kids. When Neal (David Annable) suggests going out to Waffle House instead, Joe sees something horrifying: a US congresswoman has been kidnapped, vanishing without a trace. Sighing, she knows what’s about to come.

Sure enough, Kaitlyn (Kidman) is on the phone, and Joe is pulled into yet another top-secret CIA meeting to discuss who could be behind it. Edward (Freeman) leads with the intel that our congresswoman has a live tracker on her, which suggests she’s crossed the Mexican border.

Attentions turn to who could be behind the kidnapping, and while there’s no confirmation, thoughts quickly shift from Russia to China. Who are they controlling, or at least working alongside? Mexican drug cartel Los Tigres, who are likely to be the boots on the ground who are holding her captive.

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Sure enough, Joe is shipped off to the border alongside Kyle (Thad Luckinbill), who’d been the first agent on the scene at the congresswoman’s house. There, the pair are joined by an unlikely new member of the crew – Cody, who’s played by Sheridan himself.

Cody is running this operation, with Joe being given pretty clear instructions before she was shipped out. It’s her job to find a target that will get them close to the cartel. From there, a second team will support them through the extraction, while a third team will comb through anything that can find that will have gathered intel.

Soon enough, our convoy is heading deeper into the Mexican desert when they happen upon three men (who could be minor cartel members, this isn’t made clear) with Joe posing as a distraction while Cody and Kyle take them out. The group gets suited and booted, leaving to intercept the cartel’s truck.

Our congresswoman’s kidnapping has repercussions

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It’s not long before they find the cartel, speeding down the roads of Mexico with the US congresswoman in the back of the truck. Joe and Co. manage to get their truck off-road, engaging in an epic shootout that leaves all the other men dead. Joe gets the congresswoman safely in their truck, and our soldiers flee the scene.

Cody is asked by their superiors whether the scene has successfully been locked down. He answers yes, having killed everyone present except for the congresswoman. However, what they don’t know is that the cartel had an “eye in the sky” the entire time, and has sent military and police to take out Joe, Kyle, and Cody.

It’s important to remember something said in the earlier boardroom meeting at this point – because of the official treaty between the US and Mexico, US officials weren’t technically allowed to breach the border with any kind of violent action, otherwise it would be seen as an act of aggression. This explains why a Lioness was pulled in to seal the deal.

Well… that’s sort of the case now they’ve been found out.

Before they know it, legions of military and police vehicles are over them like a rash. Their truck successfully takes out the first round while on the move, keeping the congresswoman on the floor for her own safety. But after that, there’s too many to cope with.

A firey finish leads to inner turmoil

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Surrounded by too many enemies, Kyle decides to Thelma & Louise the truck off a nearby cliff, plunging the car into a lake. Joe is able to get the congresswoman and swim for safety, with CIA backup arriving in time to fight military soldiers who were able to follow their rogue move.

Once the action has died down, Lioness Season 2 Episode 1 switches to a more emotional gear. The congresswoman asks Joe what the fallout was back home, with Joe having to explain her entire family has been murdered. In distress, the congresswoman implies she wants Joe to personally make sure whoever was directly responsible is killed for their actions – though she knows she cannot publicly show any form of revenge.

Joe and Kyle get into a huge argument about Kyle’s spontaneous plans, with Joe convinced they could have been killed by his decisions. This isn’t the first time they’ve disagreed in the episode, with the pair on icy terms when they first reunited in Mexico.

Tearfully, Joe calls her family, annoyed at both herself and her work for being torn apart from them again. The girls engage her in trivial news (they’re having ‘pizookie’ for dinner, which is a cookie the size of a pizza) while Neal is just relieved she’s alive.

Eldest daughter Kate (Hannah Love Lanier) catches the congresswoman’s rescue on the news after Errol tries to switch it off, putting two and two together that the female rescuer blurred out is her mom.

The first two episodes of Lioness Season 2 are available to stream now, airing on a weekly basis after. You can also check out everything on the Costner-Sheridan feud, the best Yellowstone episodes of all time, the timeline of Yellowstone spinoffs, and more TV shows streaming this month.