‘Lioness’ Season 3 Pictures Reveal New Enemies, Heartbreak

Pictures shared ahead of the Season 3 premiere of Lioness don't reveal who the secret operative is. Instead, they point toward a woman the U.S. government and Joe's QRF will be fighting.

The images below include scenes from seven of the season's eight episodes. The debut episode is called "The Spider and the Fly."

• Season 3 of Lioness begins streaming on Paramount+ on Sunday (Aug. 2).
• Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman and the full cast from Season 2 will return. Joining them is Ian Bohen, who played Ryan on Yellowstone.
• The show has a 72 on Rotten Tomatoes.

READ MORE: 7 Things We Learned from the Lioness Season 3 Trailer

One thing is clear: this will not be a season fought inside government board rooms. Joe, Bobby, Tucker, Two Cups, Cruz, etc.

... are seen fighting in at least half of the pictures. Expect casualties.

What Is Lioness Season 3 About?

A press release from Paramount shares that, "In Season 3, hidden networks, foreign operatives, and personal betrayals collide."

"Joe (Saldaña) walks the line between duty and home as unseen forces circle her world. Patterns appear where they shouldn’t, names vanish, and paths rearrange. Guided by Kaitlyn (Kidman) and Westfield (Michael Kelly), Joe confronts enemies operating in the shadows, leaving her to reckon with a war that now reaches into every part of her life."

That description offers more drama than details. Pictures and trailers shared ahead of the new season indicate that the enemy is Russian, or at least eastern European.

Russian actress Elizaveta Neretin (raised in Canada) appears to be taken captive by Joe and her team. Elsewhere a group of scowling men cause trouble on the streets of America. There even looks to be a kidnapping (is that Cruz? Josie?).

If this is true, that would be a shift from the plot of Season 2, which focused on a Mexican cartel leader's relationship with China.

Season 1 focused on a Middle Eastern aristocrat and his daughter.

So far, both of those seasons have existed in a silo, with new antagonists from each new season.