Lioness Season 2 Episode 4 recap: A familiar face returns

Joe has her suspicions about Josephina – but things are about to get a whole lot worse for the entire team. Lioness Season 2 Episode 4 has a nasty surprise in store during a warehouse raid.

We’re not even halfway through the series, yet Lioness Season 2 has landed some scathing blows. The binge-worthy TV show follows an overarching plot to bring down Mexican drug cartel Los Tigres, which is supposedly being controlled by Chinese intelligence.

To get to them, Team Lioness has tried hiring an inside spy, with US soldier Josephina related to leader Alvaro and lawyer Pablo. She’s struggling through her training in Episode 3… and now Joe has caught her lying about something huge.

Joe thinks having Josephina on the team is a liability, but it looks as though neither of them are going anywhere. Here’s the latest from Lioness Season 2 Episode 4.

The CIA pushes back on Josephina in Lioness Season 2 Episode 4

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Fresh from Bliss, Joe is sat down at the CIA at the beginning of Lioness Season 2 Episode 4. She relays exactly what happened in the final scene of Episode 3, but the CIA isn’t exactly buying it. When pushed, Joe claims Josephina wasn’t coerced into joining the program, though that’s not quite what happened.

For the higher-ups, it’s not a question of getting rid of Josephina – she’s far too valuable for that. Instead, it’s working out how to keep her happy as well as useful. Joe is lambasted for “taking her eyes off of the ball,” while Kaitlyn warns her off taking too much control away from a soldier who’s been trained as a free-thinker. Be too controlling, and nobody wins.

On her way back, Joe is tailed by a 4×4. She gets Kyle, who isn’t too far away, to check the plates, which are registered to a special agent. Catching up with her, the two roadblock the truck to force it to stop, where it’s revealed the mystery man is working with Mexican officials. He tears into her about how Team Lioness handled the kidnapping back in Episode 1, demanding to know why they’ve been at the border.

As we’d expect, Joe refuses to tell him anything. Because the rescue mission made the news, the agent says the cartel already knows what is going on. Then he threatens her – with one phone call, he can have eyes put on him everywhere she goes. He wants to work with her, not against her, but it’s clear the two are withholding information from each other.

We briefly cut to Neal, who’s feeling the pressure at work after an operation involving organ removal goes wrong. He’s left to tell the parents of the dead girl on his operating table, but he’s also been left a card, though we don’t know what’s in it.

Cruz is back on the team

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At this point of the episode, we’re reintroduced to a familiar face, Cruz. We last saw her in Season 1, left shaken by her experiences. She resigned from the team after claiming Joe’s leadership had made her into a monster. So when she arrives home to find Joe in her kitchen, she’s not best pleased.

To two tear into each other about their shared past, both critiquing the way past missions were handled by the other. But ultimately, Joe is there for a reason – to get her back on side. She explains Josephina’s issues, and how Cruz is the only person Joe trusts to keep her in check. If Josephina can’t eliminate her own family, she needs Cruz to follow up.

As expected, Cruz says she’s out, but there’s a problem. Joe has already assigned her back to the Lionesses, meaning it’s either quit or pack-up time. She’s back off to Bliss in the new TV show before you can blink.

The rest of the team is watching the CCTV they set up at the beginning of Episode 3. Where Josephina tries to bond with the others. It seems as though she’s working, offering them good intel and judgment based on what they’re seeing. It’s short-lived, though, with Josephina revealing the quicker they complete this mission, the faster she can get back to Iraq.

Kyle gets a tip from our mysterious Mexican agent that the cartel is operating a warehouse nearby. Joe immediately thinks it’s a set-up, but Kyle reveals Kaitlyn has already given it the go-ahead. Joe is fuming once again that she’s not making decisions for her team, leading to another blowout with the CIA. It’s a question of scope vs. budget, and Joe’s methods haven’t been making figures meet.

A warehouse raid reveals new horrors

Paramount

Lioness Season 2 Episode 4 ends with our new agent meeting with the entire Lioness team to share his warehouse intel. However, he’s quickly roasted when the images are over a month out of date, with Joe feeling as though they’re going into something dangerous blind.

She gets the latest intel, and there’s certainly enough reason to check it out. After some initial disagreement on how to approach it, they form two ground teams with Josephina in the sky. The sniper team takes out everyone from the outside, with Josephina ordered to eliminate the three police cars en route to check out what’s happening.

After lots of reluctance and double-checking three times, Josephina does what she’s told. Meanwhile, the second ground team enters the warehouse to find hundreds of children – though mostly girls – being kept there. Some of them seem to have symbols on their hands. Talking to one of the girls in Spanish, Joe puts something that looks like a tracking device in their shoe.

Surprisingly, Joe orders the team to move out, with Cruz left outraged that they’re not doing anything to help. They all pile into Josephina’s helicopter, left shellshocked by what they’ve seen.

Lioness Season 2 is streaming on Paramount Plus on a weekly basis. Check out who Taylor Sheridan plays, whether Team Lioness is real, and what happened in the latest episode.

You can also catch up with more TV shows streaming this month.