SD enterprise: The ‘Lioness’ Finale Cliff-Hanger Blew Me Away

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The Lioness Season 3 Finale Sets Up an All-Time Taylor Sheridan Cliff-Hanger

by Josh Rosenberg

Lioness dropped the hammer last week. From one whirlwind of a chase scene to another in Taylor Sheridan’s CIA drama, Joe (Zoe Saldaña) and her team acted completely above the law all throughout season 3—executing anyone in their way in their pursuit to save her from a mysterious kidnapping. It’s chaos. So, they needed to hear Secretary of State Edwin Mullins (Morgan Freeman) when he reminded the team that, “it’s still murder.”

We needed to hear it too. For a while there, I was worried Lioness season 3 had fallen into a trap that ensnares so many other competing task force series on TV. Throughout Reacher, CIA, and The Night Agent, etc., there are often zero consequences for the geopolitical turmoil these characters leave in their wake in the name of American freedom. Lioness season 3 may have appeared to follow suit at first, but it appears it was only so that the finale would hit that much harder.

Compared to last week’s 44-minute action-packed prelude to save Joe, the Lioness season 3 finale features 70 minutes of pure embarrassment. Our characters spend the full runtime just shaking their heads and burying their faces in their palms.

Later in the episode, we finally meet our adversaries again. We see a man who’s done very well for himself. He’s in a massive apartment. Long staircases. Hallways adorned with art. But he’s not even our main villain, actually. He reports to a woman bathing in a lavish bathtub that they failed to get Joe out of the country. “The difficulty isn’t getting to her, it’s getting her out,” he explains. “It would be easier if we just took care of it there.”

The woman says to try again. Maybe the third time’s the charm. “We have to get her out,” she says. “If we get her out, the others will come to save her. Then, we have them all.”

She stands up and the camera reveals her face: It’s Aaliyah (played by Stephanie Nur), the arms dealer’s daughter from season 1. The cast promised a season 3 finale cliff-hanger that would have audiences begging for season 4. Here it is, folks.

Aaliyah returns in Lioness! / photo by: Paramount+

Mailbag!

Feeling like there’s nothing to watch now that Lioness is over? Well, we put together our favorite TV shows of 2026 so far. Widow’s Bay is certainly having its moment after nearly sweeping the Emmys last week. So did DTF St. Louis, starring Jason Bateman. But whatever you watch, drop me a note and let me know what you thought at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.

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The Continuing Adventures of the Esquire Entertainment Desk

Are Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson really brothers? Yes and no. Anthony Breznican asked the two stars about their new Apple TV comedy, in which they play fictionalized versions of themselves that are related. “We were thinking it would be more like Curb Your Enthusiasm where there’d be an outline and then everybody would improvise, but then cooler heads prevailed,” Harrelson jokes. Read the interview here.

Resident Evil is the best video game movie of all time. So says Eric Francisco, who saw Zach Cregger’s reimagination of the horror franchise this past weekend. “Cregger ditches tiresome lore in favor of something far more thrilling,” he writes, “and it’s a revelation.” Read his review here.

An exclusive first look at Matthew McConnaughey and Woody Harrelson in Brothers. / photo by: Apple TV

The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week

Winner: Nathan Fielder

The Rehearsal creator convinced Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes to allow him and a documentary crew to live with her for days leading up to her prison sentence, resulting in what looks like one of the most promising (yet bizarre) films of the year. Watch the trailer here.

Loser: Mariah Carey

Country singer Ella Langley broke Mariah Carey’s Billboard Hot 100 streak after her song “Choosin’ Texas” spent a record twenty-three non-consecutive weeks on the top of the chart. Still, I wouldn’t count Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You" out just yet. There’s a certain holiday set to return in a few months that might set the singer back on top.

Winner: Microsoft

After PlayStation inexplicably dropped the news of an upcoming video game by auteur Hideo Kojima titled Physint—like the Dallas Mavericks trading Luka Doncic to the Lakers in his prime—Microsoft swooped in to salvage the project for Xbox. Now? Xbox announced that Bill Skarsgård (IT) will star in the leading role.

Loser: The Week of November 19, 2026

Speaking of video games, GTA VI drops on November 19. It’s one of the most anticipated games of the decade, with the previous installment exceeding over $800 million in sales globally. As NBA star Steven Adams joked this week, I wouldn’t expect any good basketball to be played in November after players get their hands on the game—let alone anyone accomplish anything outside of GTA VI at all.

Winner: Jimmy

Jefferson White will reprise his former Yellowstone character in Marshals season 2 next month. “Jimmy and I have been through a lot together, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for us,” he wrote in a message to his fans. It’s about time!