'Lioness' Season 3 Episode 1 Recap And Ending Explained: Who Kidnapped Joe?

The third season of Paramount’s spy thriller, Lioness, begins with bullets, bombshells and a swarm of explosive drones hunting down Joe and her team on the Russia-Ukraine border. Story-wise, the first episode doesn’t reveal much, but it does set up the threat that’s going to follow Joe and everyone around for the rest of the season. And the funny thing is, it wasn’t even their war to begin with, yet the CIA couldn’t resist the allure of intel, and that’s where everything went wrong and they put everyone’s list at risk. So without further ado, allow me to break down the events of season 1, episode 1 and what we can expect next.

Spoiler Alert

Joe Is Abducted

The episode opened with Joe working out at her home, listening to the news, which, to summarize, informs the viewers that the entire world’s in chaos. The French government is dealing with escalating violence and riots, Gaza is in crisis, Israel at war, there’s some border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Brazil’s dealing with its own internal issues, and Ukraine and Russia are already at each other’s throats. And while the world is in shambles, Joe has taken a desk job. Well, if you are wondering why, it’s because of what happened to Joe at her home, some six months ago. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first things first, Joe spent some quality time with her family, ate breakfast with them, and later told her husband, Neal, that she “should” be home for dinner. Anyone who’s seen the past two seasons of Lioness knows that Joe’s never back home in time, because her job doesn’t allow her to make it, so this change is probably because Joe’s taken off from the fieldwork for some time. On her way to the CIA office, Joe made a call to her senior, Kaitlyn Meade, telling her she’d be there in 30 minutes; however, at the signal, a car hit Joe’s vehicle from behind and pushed her into the traffic, when suddenly another car rammed into hers from a different direction. In the blink of an eye, some armed men came out of the vehicle, took Joe away, leaving behind her phone and her gun. Who were they? Well, to answer that, the episode takes us 6 months back, to when the CIA sent Joe on a mission on the Russia-Ukraine border.

Joe Meets A FISU Double Agent

Six months ago, CIA agent Kyle McManus was approached by a woman, Oleksandra, at a bar, the Net (ironic name), in Kyiv; however, Kyle suspected that he was being honeypotted, so he maintained a safe distance. Coincidentally, he saw that same woman at the Ukraine embassy, and found out that she was a FISU (Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine) agent who’d made her way into Russia’s intelligence agency, SVR, in 2018, and had been working as a double agent. But why did Oleksandra contact Kyle? She didn’t reveal any further details, but she wanted to meet one of the CIA agents in person in America to show them what she had in store for them. A week later, Joe contacted Oleksandra on the Georgetown University campus and discovered that Oleksandra had some intel on Aleksi Yurimov, the head of the Russian intelligence unit (Department of Special Tasks, aka SSD). Aleksi was hailed as Putin’s hammer, and some time ago, Putin had moved him to the front, on the Donetsk border, suggesting Russia was planning something big in Ukraine, which was why the FISU wanted the CIA to have him. The Ukrainians couldn’t extract Aleksi themselves; they feared Putin’s retaliation would be severe, but if their political adversary, America, took him, it would just count as a part of the game. Oleksandra established that Aleksi was really important to Putin, but Joe still couldn’t understand how they were going to benefit from the operation. She told Oleksandra straight up that her agency would need something in return, though the episode didn’t reveal what the CIA asked for. Maybe we will find out in the next episode. As far as Aleksi was concerned, as soon as Joe left the campus, she told her mates, Bobby and Two Cups, that they were going to Ukraine, suggesting Joe had already made up her mind (without even consulting her seniors). But as I said earlier, it wasn’t America’s war to get involved with, so if the CIA still decided to conduct an extraction, then the Ukrainians must have offered something really big in return. Furthermore, Oleksandra told Joe that she was in recruitment and infiltration, so who’s stopping you from believing that Oleksandra may be playing the CIA to incite a war between the US and Russia so Putin eases off on Ukraine? Or maybe Oleksandra, being a double agent, is playing both sides, for reasons we will find out soon enough.

Joe Pulls Out Aleksi

This is the action sequence where Taylor Sheridan and Paramount blew most of their budget, but honestly, it’s nicely done, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat. Joe and her engagement team (Bobby, Cruz, Two Cups, Tex and the others) arrive in Donetsk, where they meet Kyle, Cody Spears (Sheridan himself), Amber Whalen, and the rest of Cody’s team inside a hidden bunker on the border. As soon as Joe arrived in the tunnels, Cody briefed her about the mission: to pull out Aleksi Yurimov, who had tunneled into the gas pipeline (on the other side of the border) which the Russians were using for their offensive operation. But how did the Americans get his exact location? Well, as Kyle explained, the SSD had implanted locators in their agents, and the mole (probably Oleksandra) gave the Americans Aleksi’s ID coordinates, which made the operation easy for them. Cody’s plan of action was to send a drone swarm over, so that the North Koreans (yes, that’s correct), hiding in the enemy trenches, would get their heads down, giving Cody and his unit a window of opportunity to cross the border, using the river mist for cover. They planned on sending the canine unit (the dogs) first, before jumping into the trenches and making their way to the farmhouse, which would lead them to the tunnels connecting the gas pipeline. Well, it wasn’t an easy mission, but the team pulled through, and as soon as they reached the target, they removed the tracker on Aleksi’s left arm and bombed the location so that the Russian SVR would think that the senior-level agent died in the blast.

Also, it needs to be mentioned that Cody didn’t let Joe’s team (except for Cruz) go with them, because they didn’t have any experience in trench warfare or how to defend against a drone swarm. Furthermore, it was a covert operation, and if any member of Joe’s team had died during the mission, then the whole American media would be questioning the government about the fallen soldier and what they were doing there in the first place. So Cody ordered Joe’s team that it’s better for everyone if they remain in the bunker and leave the operation to the experts. He only needed Joe, as she was the one who could identify the target. And if it concerns anyone, one of Grady’s dogs died on the mission, and he brought the corpse back to base.

Joe’s Unsure About Aleksi

Shortly after Joe and the rest of the team safely returned to base, Joe confided in Cruz and told her that they killed a bunch of people for a chess piece (referring to Aleksi, who’s Putin’s queen on the chess board). Joe further added that this war had nothing to do with them, yet they’d infiltrated enemy lines to extract a target who might not be useful to them at all. Well, that’s exactly my thoughts, so what I am curious about is who green-lit this operation in the first place? If it’s Joe’s senior at the CIA, what possible benefit could they get from abducting a senior-level Russian agent? Because we all know Aleksi would never open his mouth or snitch on his country, and the CIA might have just started another war with Putin for no apparent reason. Nevertheless, Cruz pointed out that this mess most likely has something to do with them, because their government sent SF and CIA to bring this Aleksi, so the leaders of the country might be onto something, but we know nothing about it (yet).

The War Reaches Home

As soon as Joe returned home late at night, two strangers showed up at her property and knocked on the door. I think one of them, who told Joe that they were with state police, had a Russian accent, so it’s possible that these two men were foreign assets who visited Joe to ask her about Aleksi. I guess only a day or two may have passed since the operation, and if the Russians are already on her doorstep, then it means they are aware of the covert operation and have been keeping an eye on Joe’s home, and knocked on the door the moment she arrived home. Nevertheless, Joe didn’t let them in, but suddenly, one of them kicked the door, and Joe (who still hadn’t removed her service gun) shot and killed him on her doorstep. The other agent tried to escape, but Joe took him down as well, and quickly called her office, asking them to send the FBI to her place, as she feared her cover had been blown.

I think it was after this incident that Joe took a desk job with the agency, as gunning down two men on her property was a transformative experience. By taking up the mission to bring Aleksi to America, Joe had not only brought the war back home, but had also blown her cover, thereby putting her family’s lives in danger. And as we all are aware, these foreign spies won’t think twice before harming Joe’s family (or even abducting them) to threaten her (and her agency) into returning their agent, because as Oleksandra had already established, Aleksi’s really important to Putin and he will do everything in his power to get him back. It’s possible that after that night’s incident, the CIA shifted Joe and her family to a different location, which is why the Russian agents (hiding in America) haven’t been able to locate Joe for the past few months, but they soon discovered her location and kidnapped her from the streets, likely to force her agency to return their agent in exchange for Joe. Maybe there’s a double agent in the CIA as well, who leaked Joe’s current whereabouts to the enemies, or maybe the enemy have been following her around, waiting for the right moment to attack her. 

While episode 1’s ending didn’t reveal who abducted  Joe and why, I think in the next episode, Joe’s special operatives will eventually locate her and bring her back to safety. Joe was on call with Kaitlyn during the kidnapping, and Kaitlyn quickly raised the alarm and informed the team about Joe’s abduction, so they might already be on their way to rescue her before any tragedy befalls her. In the final trailer of the season, we can see Joe and Kyle interrogating Oleksandra and meeting with Aleksi in a secure facility, so I guess after Joe escapes her kidnappers, she will start investigating the case in order to figure out who’s threatening her and her family, and what they really want. She may have accidentally started a war with Russia, but she won’t let them harm her family, and will do everything in her power to put an end to the conflict. But how she does that is something only the show can answer. For now, these are my thoughts on the episode, but if you have anything else to share, please drop a comment below.

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