Lioness Season 3 Episode 5 Review: Okay, Now the Math Really Isn’t Mathing

Critic’s Rating: 3.75 / 5.0

3.75

Okay, Lioness isn’t following any playbook for the dual timelines.

I’ve come to terms with just buckling up and enjoying the ride, no matter what timeline we’re in, because it’s a lot of fun even when it’s difficult to follow.

Lioness Season 3 Episode 5 delved into the inner workings of Operation: Treasure, its legality, and whether the U.S. government gave a damn about the laws they were breaking.

I like that, even though the series has embraced a much darker tone, there’s still plenty of humor in the script to lift the mood.

Look at Cade, for example. He thought he was about to get the three-way of his life with Cruz and Josephina, but he was led into a trap and roasted by their team members.

Joe’s disgust for the U.S. citizens aiding these international groups that threaten National Security shone right through as she read Cade for filth.

Cade was undoubtedly a man who came from a wealthy and influential family, but didn’t want to put the work in to reach their level of notoriety.

He thought he could cut corners, get exam results, and effectively be gifted his degree without considering what these people would want in return. He signed his life away and was slowly but surely learning the consequences.

Despite his fear of being caught while dropping off the USB drive, he must have been wondering whether this meant he was truly free.

Truthfully, he deserves even more consequences for his actions because, as Joe rightly put it, many U.S. nationals are contributing to this in-the-dark war and are effectively setting the country on a dark path.

Rooster was not the person I expected when Joe sent that message organizing a meet. I expected someone more menacing, but since he was effectively just the middleman between Cade and Richard, it made sense given how unassuming he looked.

Lioness Brings in a Convincing Decoy

Him being a kid and believing he had diplomatic immunity on a student visa was probably one of the most comical moments of the entire series.

Kaitlyn has clearly dealt with people like him before, based on how she went into the interrogation guns blazing and telling him that what he hears on TikTok is not U.S. law.

You could see that he was ready to sing like a canary, and instead of Joe asking him the questions, she knew the most effective method was to let him tell her what he knew while she assessed whether it was worth pausing any charges against him.

Joe is a pro at this, and I’m surprised to say that I’m loving the synergy between her and Kyle on Lioness Season 3.

They both use very different tactics to get intel, but they share the same code: the ends justify the means.

Look at how Kyle reeled Oksana in to speak Russian to Alex, signaling that there was no way he’d ever see freedom again.

The threat of solitary confinement and Guantanamo Bay was enough to put Alex under pressure, and he didn’t seem like the type to withstand much of it.

His reaction to what Kyle was saying about Dengue Fever was enough to tell me that this dude was all talk and would break when the pressure was turned up on him.

It’s such a juxtaposition from the man who tried to bribe Two-Cups after a night of passion with a stripper earlier in the episode.

What caught my attention, though, was how Alex started praying in Arabic because the math isn’t mathing with his allegiance to Russia.

It came out of left field, and in hindsight, I believe that Kyle should have asked about the men who showed up at Joe’s house on Lioness Season 3 Episode 1 the moment he got him talking.

I know that the aim of Operation: Treasure is to unmask these people who are putting the fate of the U.S. in jeopardy, but surely the answer about who went after Joe must have been playing on his mind.

The only real positive to come from the various investigations is that the man behind Rooster was exposed and apprehended by the team.

This is a major win and shows that the Lioness operatives are competent and can get the job done, even if they don’t follow the playbook you’d expect from, say, the FBI.

The drama in the White House, with Wexler throwing shade at how the clandestine operation is handled and pointing out that nothing they do will be admissible in court, was fascinating.

I felt like I was watching a round table from The Traitors.

The issue the U.S. faces at this point in the timeline is that many U.S. citizens are actively working against the government, but Wexler has a point: allowing an operation like this to continue unchecked could undermine the country if it ever became public knowledge.

A Battle for Jurisdiction

At the same time, if the FBI had jurisdiction over the case, the legal red tape could delay the operation. Team Lioness is getting results because they’ve been given the green light to continue operating outside the usual rules.

Lioness Season 3 Episode 5 featured the most maneuvering the team has ever done, giving the episode a frantic tone that signaled the threat level was rising.

The end tag with Joe in the present-day timeline arriving at an “unknown location” with a Russian flag in the distance was chilling.

But here’s my theory: She’s actually much closer to home than she thinks.

If people within the U.S. are working against the country they call home, there’s got to be more of them than we think. If that’s the case, they need a hub where they can congregate when they need to meet in person.

If Joe were truly in Russia, she would have learned it by now.

Over to you, Lioness Fanatics! What are your thoughts on where Joe is and how Operation: Treasure is faring?

Do you agree that she’s far closer to home than she thinks on the Paramount+ thriller?

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