Viewers say the Season 3 closer killed the wrong character, and the show knew it.
Lioness has closed out its third season, and the Paramount+ drama's finale has set off a wave of angry posts. Not over the action, but over one death that viewers say the show didn't have to write.
"The Unraveling," the 70-minute Season 3 finale that dropped Sunday, brings Joe McNamara (Zoe Saldaña) home from her kidnapping and finally answers who ordered it. But before the answer arrives, the CIA acts on the wrong one, and a fan-favorite character pays for it.
Lioness fans say the finale's ditch scene crossed a line
Warning: spoilers for the Season 3 finale below.
For most of Season 3, Ukrainian double agent Oleksandra (Elizaveta Neretin) has been the team's most suspicious asset. She handed the CIA "Putin's hammer" and asked for nothing in return. Fans spent the season arguing over whether that made her a patriot or a plant.
In the finale, the agency stops arguing. Convinced she orchestrated Joe's abduction, the team kills her and leaves her body in a ditch.
Then the show reveals she had nothing to do with it.
That sequence is what viewers can't get past. Critics were quick to ask whether the team couldn't have waited to make sure before killing her, and the posts started before the credits finished rolling.
"She died for nothing": Fans say the finale killed the wrong character
The reactions rolled in fast, and they all land in the same place.
Oleksandra literally risked her entire life and connected the dots to rescue a high-ranking officer, just for them to discard her like absolute trash. The sheer brutality of the them in the finale is sickening. She deserved respect and honor #Lioness
She died for nothing 💔 #lioness
Reactions ranged from grief to disgust at how the team handled it.
Joe's homecoming scene splits Lioness viewers down the middle
The Oleksandra fallout would be enough for one finale. But Sheridan buried a second gut-punch in the final ten minutes.
Joe comes home to a "For Sale" sign on her lawn. The house is empty. Neal (Dave Annable) has taken the girls and left a note making clear they're not coming back. Joe collapses in her daughters' empty bedroom.
For some viewers, it's the most honest thing the show has ever done: a career spent protecting the country finally costing her the one thing she was protecting. For others, it's Sheridan punishing the only character on the show who still had something to lose, on a season where Joe was kidnapped and tortured and gets rewarded with an empty house.
Then the last scene lands: Aaliyah Amrohi (Stephanie Nur), the Season 1 mark whose father the team killed, is revealed as the one who funded the kidnapping. She's coming back for Joe, and for all of them.
