In 'Lioness,' Taylor Sheridan Uses Morgan Freeman To Lambast Both Sides

The second season of Taylor Sheridan’s Lioness improves on the first (not a high bar), but it’s still mostly a chaotic mix of action sequences interspersed with Sheridan’s signature moralizing. The action is competent, Zoe Saldaña is great, but Sheridan operates with a peculiar blend of consistency and inconsistency: his themes hold steady, but his plots and characters are scattershot.

This season, Sheridan focuses on human trafficking but drifts from the central premise of the “Lioness” program. While a new “Lioness” operative joins the story, her mission is muddled, and she’s inexplicably having an affair with the former Lioness, because, as Sheridan’s work often suggests, he’s preoccupied with steamy lesbian affairs. One mission uncovers a child sex trafficking ring, and Joe (Saldaña) becomes consumed with seeking vengeance against the cartel responsible, especially after a suicide bomber detonates in a group of trafficked children.

Subtlety is not Sheridan’s strong suit. Every scene feels engineered to be “the most horrific thing you’ve ever seen,” amplifying the terrors of sex trafficking. Dismissing it as Sound of Freedom-style hysteria would be easy, but Sheridan is actually a little more complicated. Though beloved by red-state America, Sheridan — arguably the most popular showrunner in the U.S. after Ryan Murphy — has an opaque public profile when it comes to politics. He’s openly critical of Donald Trump but he’s no fan of Democrats, either. As a person, however, he’s reportedly “a real piece of shit.”

Sheridan’s politics often emerge in the monologues of his characters, from Kevin Costner’s rancher in Yellowstone to the fossil-fuel evangelism of Billy Bob Thornton in Landman. Yet his ideological trajectory is perplexing — how does someone pivot from glorifying George W. Bush to lambasting Trump and Biden as failed leaders, as he does in Lioness, which is ironic given the implied critiques of post-911 America in one of his earlier works, Sicario.

In this week’s episode, Sheridan channels his views through Morgan Freeman, playing the President in a fictional universe that presumably assumes both Biden and Trump have served as President. Freeman’s character critiques the media with remarks that feel less revelatory and more like recycled talking points: “The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal: They stopped telling us the news and started telling us what they think the news is, and what our opinion of that news should be. Americans have always been gullible, but they’re not stupid. Lie to them enough and they won’t trust you to tell them that the sun is rising.”

Yes, Taylor, distrust in the media is at an all-time high, which is why Americans have turned to trusted sources like … Joe Rogan. From here, Freeman’s President veers into 9/11 nostalgia, praising George W. Bush for uniting the country: “We needed a leader, and a leader arose.” Yes, that George W. Bush.

Freeman’s speech wistfully compares Bush’s post-9/11 leadership to the disarray of today: “2,977 people died on 9/11 … and we came together. Over 1 million died in COVID. Almost tore us apart. The difference is leaders. And right now, we don’t have one.”

“What got us to where we are today?” Freeman’s President asks.

Gee. What could have possibly happened between 9/11 and COVID to erode trust in the media and turn Americans against one another? It’s almost as if this period saw the rise of a single figure who systematically sowed distrust, weaponized misinformation, and exploited the nation’s growing divides for personal and political gain. If Sheridan’s characters are searching for answers, they might start there.

In the meantime, Joe has some revenge to exact in the finale while also trying to keep her family together because her husband is over it, child sex traffickers or not.