Does Joe die? ‘Lioness’ Season 3 Episode 4 ending explained as rescue mission takes a dangerous turn
‘Lioness’ Season 3 Episode 4 featured the second rescue attempt by Joe’s (played by Zoe Saldaña) team. However, they were racing against the clock. While her team and her bosses have been doing everything they can, including executing Russian intelligence operatives, Joe remains in danger. The recently released episode saw the Russian kidnappers moving Joe from a safe house to an airplane hangar. Her team went through another rescue mission. During the rescue, Kyle McManus (played by Thad Luckinbill) killed an operative, which gave them the plane’s tail number; it was used to transport Joe, and the plane was already in the air. However, Joe still remained in captivity by the end of the episode.
Witnessing the circumstances of Joe’s captivity and how it might not be easy to get her back, her boss Kaitlyn Meade (played by Nicole Kidman) went to see Joe’s husband, Neal (played by Dave Annable). She told him about three possible scenarios: “One, we beat the clock, and she’s home in a few days. Two, the clock wins, and this could take time. Months. Longer.” She added, “She doesn’t come back with three. Prepare for the third. That way, if it doesn’t come true, relief will be your reward.” Hearing this, Neal was moved to tears as Kaitlyn left with a heavy heart.
Meanwhile, after the failed rescue mission, Joe’s teammates debriefed Kaitlyn. Everyone was furious since they missed Joe by just a few minutes. Notably, the team was not happy that Kyle had killed a Russian operative. Listening to them telling Kaitlyn about the incident, Kyle told everyone, “Let me explain what happens when they get her to a secure location. They either torture the name of every case officer, every safe house, every operation, every asset, or they drop her off in Tehran where she’s paraded around until she’s tried and stoned to death, or hung, or shot.” As if that was not enough, Kyle added, “Or worse still, Iran holds her over to Hezbollah, which paralyzes us in the region because now they have a female U.S. citizen convicted of Iranian war crimes. I treated this like war. It is war.”
On the other hand, after learning about the possibility that Joe was in the air, her orders for Army Commander Amber Whalen (played by Dawn Olivieri) were quite unexpected. Kaitlyn learned that Joe might be in a Challenger 300 aircraft flying with a disabled transponder. It meant it couldn’t be tracked. Kaitlyn told the commander, “If located in U.S. airspace, our jets maneuver to force landing. If found in international airspace, they are to engage.” It simply meant that if the aircraft left U.S. airspace, the rescue mission would take a turn, as they were to shoot down the aircraft, with Joe still on the plane. While Joe’s destination and fate both remain unknown, upcoming episodes of ‘Lioness’ Season 3 are surely going to be even more exciting, unexpected, and dangerous.
