zoe saldana is back at the center of new conversation around Taylor Sheridan’s political thriller as Lioness Season 2 wraps with a sequence that viewers are openly comparing to Sicario. As of 9: 00 PM ET, the discussion is focused on the episode “Beware the Old Soldier, ” where the series leans into a high-risk chase and cross-border tension. The why is straightforward: the scene’s beats and stakes feel deliberately aligned with Sheridan’s 2015 crime drama, pushing the show’s “spiritual sequel” label into sharper focus.
Border rescue turns into a cliff-drop escape
The pivotal moment unfolds as Joe McNamara (Zoe Saldaña) and her team travel across the border to rescue kidnapped U. S. Congresswoman Hernandez (Czarina Mireles). The team includes Kyle McMannus (Thad Luckinbill) and Cody Spears (Taylor Sheridan), and their movement quickly draws the attention of Mexican officials. With the group discovered and pinned down on multiple sides, the escape becomes a split-second calculation rather than a tactical retreat.
The result is a drastic decision: drive off a cliff and into a river dividing the countries. The sequence is framed as high-octane and near-fatal, stretching the characters to the edge while keeping the outcome uncertain in the moment. That tension—will they make it back, will they be captured, will they survive—has become the immediate anchor for the renewed Sicario comparisons.
Zoe Saldana’s Joe McNamara echoes familiar ‘Sicario’ dynamics
In the show’s second season, the action is closer to home than before, with conflicts brewing on the United States/Mexico border. That proximity intensifies the stakes, and it also places Joe in a position that mirrors a key emotional framework from Sicario: being pulled into operations that feel larger, darker, and more morally complicated than what the character is used to handling.
In the middle of the season’s arc, zoe saldana is depicted leading a mission that hinges on inserting a new Lioness—Genesis Rodriguez’s Captain Josephina Carrillo—into the cartels connected to the Congresswoman’s kidnapping and the killing of her family. The goal is to create an opening to assassinate one of the cartel’s high-profile leaders, a plot logic that strongly resembles Sicario’s own focus on targeted assassination meant to reshape cartel power.
The connective tissue here is not subtle: Sheridan wrote Sicario, and the pacing and pressure of the chase in “Beware the Old Soldier” is described as something that could have appeared in either film. Even with no confirmed crossover, the show’s creative choices keep inviting side-by-side viewing.
Immediate reactions: Saldaña calls it a “spiritual sequel”
Zoe Saldaña, who also serves as an executive producer on Lioness alongside co-star Nicole Kidman, has previously explained her personal entry point to the series: Sheridan’s work on Sicario. In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Saldaña said she considers Lioness to be Sicario’s “spiritual sequel. ”
“I love Sicario, ” Saldaña said in that 2023 interview. “I thought Sicario was a very interesting movie where normal people are trying to do the right thing in very bad ways, and so in a way, that felt very similar. ”
Quick context and what’s next
Lioness Season 1 pushed its team into an international terrorist plot, while Season 2 moved the conflict closer to home at the United States/Mexico border. A third Sicario film remains in development, but there is no confirmed overlap between the film franchise and the series.
Looking ahead as of 9: 00 PM ET, the key open question is not whether the similarities exist—they are already on-screen—but how far Sheridan will continue to lean into that shared DNA in future storytelling. For now, the takeaway is clear: zoe saldana is driving the conversation, with one cliff-drop escape scene turning a familiar comparison into the headline issue.
