Speaker 1: Gooday everyone, and welcome back to Geegin Camo. I'm your host, Craig.
Speaker 1: Lioness is finally back for season three, and Taylor Sheridan
Speaker 1: has wasted absolutely no time in putting Joe McNamara and
Speaker 1: her entire family directly in the firing line. The premiere title,
Speaker 1: The Spider and the Fly gives us one of the
Speaker 1: show's most ambitious combat sequences so far. It introduces a
Speaker 1: potentially enormous Russian intelligence conspiracy and ends with the war
Speaker 1: following Joe all the way back to her front door.
Speaker 1: But the most important moment might actually be the scene
Speaker 1: shown right at the beginning, because the episode opens by
Speaker 1: revealing where Joe will be six months later, and it's
Speaker 1: not good. Before we go any further, here is your warning.
Speaker 1: This video contains full spoilers for Lioness Season three episode one.
Speaker 1: I'll be recapping scene. I'll be recapping the episode seen
Speaker 1: by scene, including the ending, and then I'll go through
Speaker 1: my main theories about Joe's kidnapping, the mysterious Ukrainian informant,
Speaker 1: and what Alexi Yuimov may actually know. So with the
Speaker 1: warning out of the way, let's get into it. The
Speaker 1: opening flash forward The episode begins with a surprising normal
Speaker 1: mourning in the McNamara household. Joe is exercising in the
Speaker 1: garage while news reports play in the background, reminding us
Speaker 1: that the wider world remains unstable. There are wars, political tensions,
Speaker 1: and disasters unfolding everywhere, but inside Joe's home, things briefly
Speaker 1: appear peaceful. Joe has breakfast with Neil and their daughters,
Speaker 1: and perhaps for the first time in the series, she
Speaker 1: seems to have found something resembling a sustained routine. She
Speaker 1: also appears to be working in a more conventional CIA
Speaker 1: position rather than constantly deploying into combat zones. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: more nine to five sort of thing, But because this
Speaker 1: is Lioness, that peaceful domestic scene is really just there
Speaker 1: to make what happens next feel even more violent. Joe
Speaker 1: gets into a v and calls Caitlyn as she begins
Speaker 1: leaving the house. Before she can get away, vehicles block
Speaker 1: her in. Men converge on the car, smash their way in,
Speaker 1: and drag her out. Joe manages to transmit that she's
Speaker 1: been blackjacked or forcibly abducted, but she is quickly overwhelmed
Speaker 1: and taken we are given no explanation about who these
Speaker 1: men are or where they are taking her. Instead, the
Speaker 1: episode cuts back six months earlier that immediately establishes the
Speaker 1: central mystery of the season. Something that begins with the
Speaker 1: operation We're about to watch will eventually expose Joe badly
Speaker 1: enough for a hostile force to abduct her outside her
Speaker 1: own home. Six months earlier, the CIA receives an offer
Speaker 1: back at Langley. Byron Westfield and Caitlyn me discuss an
Speaker 1: unusual intelligence approach. A woman claiming to represent Ukrainian intelligence
Speaker 1: has made contact through Kyle. More importantly, she said that
Speaker 1: she is operating as a double agent inside Rushes Foreign
Speaker 1: Intelligence Service, the SVR formerly the KGB. If You did No,
Speaker 1: a meeting is arranged at Georgetown University, but the location
Speaker 1: gives the CIA room to hide at surveillance team among
Speaker 1: the students, staff and members of the public. Joe makes
Speaker 1: the actual approach while the rest of the team watches
Speaker 1: from concealed positions. Informant does not provide Joe with much
Speaker 1: personal information, but she offers something far more valuable, the
Speaker 1: location of Alexei Yumov. Yuumov is described as the head
Speaker 1: of a highly secretive Russian Special Task Organization and one
Speaker 1: of Vladimir Putin's most trusted operational figures. The informant essentially
Speaker 1: describes him as Putin's hammer. Killing Yumov would invite an
Speaker 1: obvious and potentially massive Russian response. Capturing him, however, could
Speaker 1: be treated as another another move in the covert intelligence game.
Speaker 1: She gives Joe a flash drive and means of contacting her,
Speaker 1: but Joe remains suspicious, and rightly so. This woman has
Speaker 1: supposedly penetrated the Russian intelligence establishment, identified one of Putin's
Speaker 1: most valuable operatives, and is now offering him to the Americans.
Speaker 1: That is an extraordinary intelligence opportunity, but it is also
Speaker 1: exactly the kind of opportunity that could be used to
Speaker 1: bait the CIA into a trap. The episode also spends
Speaker 1: some time with Caitlin and her husband Eryl. That man.
Speaker 1: He seems to be one of the most dodgy persons
Speaker 1: I've seen in this entire show through the first and
Speaker 1: second season. There's something else going on with this guy
Speaker 1: that we haven't really clicked onto yet. Their conversations remain
Speaker 1: less like those of a married couple and more like
Speaker 1: two senior members of the establishment. Comparing intelligence assessments. They
Speaker 1: discuss political instability, foreign influence, artificial intelligence, and the growing
Speaker 1: inability of governments to control the systems they have created.
Speaker 1: These scenes can sometimes feel disconnected from the action, but
Speaker 1: thematically they are important. The entire episode is about systems
Speaker 1: becoming uncontrollable. The CIA believes it can manipulate the conflict
Speaker 1: in the Ukraine, and the Ukraine informant believes that she
Speaker 1: can manipulate both Russia and the United States. Russia may
Speaker 1: believe it can use Uumov as either an operator or bait,
Speaker 1: and Joe believes she can continue protecting her family while
Speaker 1: participating in a global covert war. By the end of
Speaker 1: the episode, every one of those assumptions looks questionable. The
Speaker 1: intelligence is eventually considered credible enough for the CIA to act.
Speaker 1: Joe and the Allion S team travel to the Donetsk
Speaker 1: region of Ukraine, and the change in environment is immediate.
Speaker 1: This is not the counterinsurgency warfare we have mostly seen
Speaker 1: previous seasons. The team is entering an active, conventional battlefield
Speaker 1: filled with artillery, trench systems, surveillance drones, and one way
Speaker 1: attack drones. Almost as soon as they begin moving through
Speaker 1: the tree line, drones are circling overhead, and explosions are
Speaker 1: landing nearby. The team is escorted through the forest toward
Speaker 1: an underground command bunker while the battlefield erupts around them.
Speaker 1: The gritty realism here is next level. Taylor Sheridan gets
Speaker 1: it even just small team tactics where a member of
Speaker 1: the team taps the last man on the shoulder and
Speaker 1: tells him last Man before moving through the open ground
Speaker 1: after popping smoke to mass their approach. The small things
Speaker 1: like this matter to veterans like myself and others. From
Speaker 1: a military perspective, this is one of the episode's strongest ideas.
Speaker 1: The soldiers are still living and fighting from the trenches
Speaker 1: that would look familiar to someone from the First World War,
Speaker 1: but above those trenches are thermal sensors, electronic surveillance systems,
Speaker 1: and drones capable of identifying and striking individual people. Kyle
Speaker 1: later describes it as the First World War colliding with
Speaker 1: Star Wars, which is probably the simplest summary of the
Speaker 1: entire battlefield sequence. So inside the bunker, Joe's team meets
Speaker 1: the unit that will actually conduct the capture operation. Cody
Speaker 1: is back, played once again by Taylor Sheridan, and he's
Speaker 1: accompanied by a specialized assault team that includes Grady, a
Speaker 1: highly experienced canine handler, and some of you guys may
Speaker 1: recognize him from Yellowstone. The atmosphere becomes confrontational immediately. Joe's
Speaker 1: team expects to participate in the mission, but the soldiers
Speaker 1: running the operation do not believe they are prepared for
Speaker 1: this particular battlefield. This is not necessarily an insult to
Speaker 1: Bobby Tucker and the others. They're extremely capable special operations personnel,
Speaker 1: but competence in one kind of warfare does not automatically
Speaker 1: mean experience in another. On this front, electronic detection can
Speaker 1: bring an explosive drone down on someone within moments. The
Speaker 1: local operators understand those dangers because they live with them
Speaker 1: every day. There's also another problem. The team has a
Speaker 1: tracking beacon associated with Yuumov, but it does not have
Speaker 1: a secure photograph that can be carried or transmitted in
Speaker 1: the field. Joe is therefore needed to make the positive ID.
Speaker 1: In other words, until Yuumov is captured, Joe herself becomes
Speaker 1: the most important part of the mission. The Lioness team
Speaker 1: does not like the idea of letting her go without them,
Speaker 1: After some heated arguing, Joe's permitted to take Cruise with her,
Speaker 1: while Bobby and the remainder of the team provide support
Speaker 1: from the bunker. It's great to see that Cruise is
Speaker 1: back along Joe, but it also places her in a
Speaker 1: slightly different role. She is no longer the inexperienced lion
Speaker 1: s being manipulated by Joe. She is now the person
Speaker 1: Joe trusts to cover her when the operation goes bad.
Speaker 1: A plan to capture Urumov. Intelligence indicates that Uumov is
Speaker 1: hiding in or around a pipeline beneath a farmhouse on
Speaker 1: the opposite side of the battlefield. The location is protected
Speaker 1: by hostile troops, including North Korean soldiers, and watched by drones.
Speaker 1: The team decides to move during daylight, using heavy fog
Speaker 1: or artificial concealment from smoke to reduce visibility. The Canines
Speaker 1: will go first. It's an aggressive plan, but the dogs
Speaker 1: provide speed, confusion, and an immediate psychological shock against defenders
Speaker 1: who cannot clearly see what is approaching them. In this case,
Speaker 1: that's North Korean troops to begin with. Joe, Cruz, Cody, Grady,
Speaker 1: and the Assault Element move out while the rest of
Speaker 1: the lion S team remains behind. This is where the
Speaker 1: episode turns into an extended war film. Right the assault
Speaker 1: through the fog, the dogs are released into the concealment
Speaker 1: ahead of the operators. They hit the defenders around the
Speaker 1: pipeline entrance before the assault teams follows, using the confusion
Speaker 1: to close the distance. The fighting is fast, violent and
Speaker 1: deliberately chaotic. Soldiers are engaging at extremely close ranges, while
Speaker 1: drones remain a constant threat. Overhead visibility is poor, communication
Speaker 1: is difficult, and the team has very little time to
Speaker 1: distinguish between the target and everyone protecting him. The canine
Speaker 1: element is especially effective. Although the episode does not sanitize
Speaker 1: what military working dogs are being sent in to do,
Speaker 1: at times it is quite graphic. Yeah, like you see
Speaker 1: the dogs tearing into people's necks and faces and the lot.
Speaker 1: One of the dogs is stabbed during the fighting inside
Speaker 1: the tunnel system. That moment affects the handlers and the
Speaker 1: operators more deeply than many of the human casualties around them,
Speaker 1: and that reaction feels authentic. A military working dog is
Speaker 1: not treated as disposable equipment by its handler. It is
Speaker 1: a member of the team and losing one during an
Speaker 1: assault carries its own kind of emotional impact. The assault
Speaker 1: team finally locates the man believed to be Yuumov. Joe
Speaker 1: positively identifies him. He's taken alive. The team then discovers
Speaker 1: the tracking device implanted beneath his left armpit. Cody and
Speaker 1: a remember of his team immediately remove it without anything
Speaker 1: resembling proper medical treatment. It is brutal, but leaving the
Speaker 1: tracker inside him could allow Russian forces to follow the
Speaker 1: extraction team all the way back to its base or
Speaker 1: call an artillery or drones strike directly onto their position.
Speaker 1: This tracker is also one of the episode's most important details.
Speaker 1: Was it simply a Russian security measure used to monitoror Yumov.
Speaker 1: Did Yumov know that it was there, or was he
Speaker 1: deliberately positioned so that the Americans could capture him and
Speaker 1: unknowingly carry the tracker with them. The team escapes from
Speaker 1: the pipeline with Yumov, but the return journey remains an
Speaker 1: extremely dangerous one. Drones close in overhead, forcing operators to
Speaker 1: shit them out of the sky while moving back toward
Speaker 1: the bunker. They eventually make it inside with the prisoner.
Speaker 1: The mission is technically a success, so Yurumov has been
Speaker 1: captured alive, the tracking device has been removed, and Joe's
Speaker 1: positive identification means the CIA can reasonably be confident that
Speaker 1: it is the correct man. But nobody seems convinced that
Speaker 1: the cost or the reason for the operation has been
Speaker 1: fully explained. Joe questions the mission, so after the operation,
Speaker 1: Joe reflects on what they have just done. A large
Speaker 1: number of people have been killed to capture one man
Speaker 1: in a conflict that Joe does not believe directly belongs
Speaker 1: to them. This is not Joe suddenly becoming opposed to
Speaker 1: covert action. She's ordered and participated in plenty of lethal
Speaker 1: operations before. The difference is that she increasingly suspects that
Speaker 1: she is being moved around a chessboard without being told
Speaker 1: who was actually playing the game. Yuumov is clearly valuable,
Speaker 1: but the amount of intelligence actively surrounding his capture suggests
Speaker 1: there is more happening than a simple prisoner extraction. Someone
Speaker 1: wanted the CIA involved. Someone ensued that Joe personally had
Speaker 1: to enter the battle field, and someone may already know
Speaker 1: who exactly she is, but who Joe finally returns to
Speaker 1: Virginia late at night. Her family is asleep, and she
Speaker 1: quietly checks on Neil before going downstairs and pouring herself
Speaker 1: a drink. For a few moments, the episode gives her
Speaker 1: and us a chance to decompress. Then someone knocks at
Speaker 1: the front door. Two men identify themselves as state police.
Speaker 1: Joe does not believe them. She keeps the security chain
Speaker 1: attached and has her weapon ready or questioning them through
Speaker 1: the partially opened door. One of the men slips out
Speaker 1: of his supposed American identity and back to his native accent,
Speaker 1: confirming Joe's suspicions. Joe warns them that the real police
Speaker 1: will soon arrive and attempts to close the door. The
Speaker 1: men force their way inside. Joe is knocked down, but
Speaker 1: she reacts almost immediately and kills both attackers. Joe then
Speaker 1: calls for immediate federal assistance and reports that her identity
Speaker 1: has been compromised. Neil comes downstairs to find his wife
Speaker 1: standing outside their home with two bodies on the ground.
Speaker 1: This is the real turning point of the episode. Joe
Speaker 1: has faced Dan overseas for years, but her home has
Speaker 1: always presented the boundary. That boundary no longer exists. The
Speaker 1: people hunting her know her identity, her address, and where
Speaker 1: her husband and children sleep. Even worse, we already know
Speaker 1: from the opening scene that the first attempt will not
Speaker 1: be the last. Okay theories. Theory one, the Ukrainian informant
Speaker 1: is the spider. My first theory is that the woman
Speaker 1: who approached the CIA is not simply a friendly Ukrainian
Speaker 1: intelligence officer. She could be the spider referred to in
Speaker 1: the episode title. She places Yuumov in a location where
Speaker 1: the CIA can reach him, provides enough intelligence to make
Speaker 1: sure the operation is irresistible, and ensures that Joe becomes
Speaker 1: personally connected to the mission. Joe believes she's hunting Yuumov,
Speaker 1: but she may actually be the fly drawing into the web.
Speaker 1: Informant could still be genuinely working for Ukraine while manipulating
Speaker 1: the Americans for her own agenda. She does not need
Speaker 1: to be a straightforward Russian villain for this theory to work.
Speaker 1: In the intelligence world, an ally can provide accurate information
Speaker 1: and still be using you. It happens every day. Okay
Speaker 1: Theory two. Uumov wanted to be captured. The second possibility
Speaker 1: is that Yuumov's capture was intentional. He is supposedly one
Speaker 1: of Russia's most capable covert operators, yet the CIA receives
Speaker 1: his location from a conveniently placed double agent and reaches
Speaker 1: him with relatively little warning. The implanted tracker could have
Speaker 1: been intended to expose American position, but it could also
Speaker 1: have been included to make the capture of peer authentic.
Speaker 1: Uumov may be carrying false intelligence designed to poison CIA assets.
Speaker 1: He may intend to identify American assets during the interrogation,
Speaker 1: or he may be escaping an internal Russian power struggle
Speaker 1: and using the CIA as his extraction service. The important
Speaker 1: thing is that capturing Uromov does not necessarily mean the
Speaker 1: CIA has defeated him. Getting inside the American intelligence system
Speaker 1: may have been his objective all along. Theory three the
Speaker 1: CIA has an internal leak. The attackers know far too
Speaker 1: much about Joe. Do not merely recognize her from the
Speaker 1: Ukraine operation. They know where she lives and feel confident
Speaker 1: enough to approach her front door disguised as an American
Speaker 1: police officer. So six months later, another team knows her
Speaker 1: routine well enough to block her vehicle as she leaves
Speaker 1: work that suggests surveillance access to protective information or both.
Speaker 1: The obvious explanation is a breach inside the CIA or
Speaker 1: another agency. The elite could be ideological, financial, or part
Speaker 1: of a much larger foreign penetration operation. The official season
Speaker 1: three description specifically refers to hidden networks, foreign operatives, and
Speaker 1: personal betrayals, and that makes an internal betrayal much more
Speaker 1: likely than a simple Russian revenge operation. Right theory four,
Speaker 1: the first attack was a test. The two men at
Speaker 1: Joe's door may not have expected to succeed. Their real
Speaker 1: purpose could have been to test Joe's reaction and observe
Speaker 1: the security response. How quickly did she identify them, who
Speaker 1: arrived after she called for assistance, and where was her
Speaker 1: family moved to? Right? What new protective measures were installed?
Speaker 1: And a failed attack can generate an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: intelligence If the attacker is watching the response, that would
Speaker 1: explain why the second operation six months later is much
Speaker 1: more organized. The enemy learns from the first attempt and
Speaker 1: returns with enough manpower, vehicles, and speed to take Joe
Speaker 1: before help can arrive. Thirty five, Joe's family will become
Speaker 1: part of the operation. Joe, who's always believed that she
Speaker 1: can absorb the consequences of her work herself. Season three
Speaker 1: appears ready to destroy that illusion. Neil has now seen
Speaker 1: armed foreign operatives enter their home. Joe's daughters are living
Speaker 1: at an address known to hostile intelligence officers, and the
Speaker 1: opening kidnapping proves that whatever protective arrangements are introduced will
Speaker 1: eventually fail. Joe may be forced to disappear, send her
Speaker 1: family into protection, or use herself as bait to expose
Speaker 1: the network hunting them. The central conflict of the season
Speaker 1: may therefore be less about Red Joe and more about
Speaker 1: whether she can destroy the threat before it reaches Neil
Speaker 1: and the girls. Right to my final thoughts. As a
Speaker 1: season premiere, the Spider in the Fly does exactly what
Speaker 1: it needed to do. It gives us a major military operation,
Speaker 1: brings Cruise and the QRF back into the action, introduces
Speaker 1: a dangerous new intelligence mystery, and makes the threat deeply
Speaker 1: personal for Joe. The Ukraine sequence is spectacular, but the
Speaker 1: quiet scene at Joe's front door may be more important.
Speaker 1: On the battlefield, Joe knows she is in enemy territory.
Speaker 1: At home, she believes she is safe, so by the
Speaker 1: end of the episode, the enemy has shown her that
Speaker 1: there is no longer any difference. The biggest questions going
Speaker 1: into episode two are these who arranged the attack on
Speaker 1: Joe and is Yuremov a prisoner, a defector or a
Speaker 1: trojan horse? Can the Ukrainian informant be trusted? And how
Speaker 1: does this chain of events eventually lead to Joe being
Speaker 1: dragged from her vehicle six months later? All right, let
Speaker 1: me know your theories in the comments section. All right,
Speaker 1: do you think Russia is behind everything? Or is someone
Speaker 1: inside the American intelligence system feeding information to the enemy?
Speaker 1: And what do you think of the depiction of drone
Speaker 1: and trench warfare in Ukraine? Please remember to like the video,
Speaker 1: subscribe to the channel, and share it with other Lions fans.
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching or listening wherever that may be, and
Speaker 1: I'll catch you after episode two. Thanks for watching geekon Camo. Craig,
Speaker 1: I'm out so Yer's