Well, I liked it lioness immediately. Yes, the opening sequence, in which dozens of faceless ISIS fighters are wiped out and an undercover CIA recruit (a “lioness”) is violently sacrificed, was the kind of outright violence – but that's what you want from TV from time to time. And when Nicole Kidman appeared as an icy secret service agent in a tailored Marine suit (“Explain to us your decision to call a drone strike,” she says to Joe), the cast seemed so wonderfully implausible that I was immediately sold. (Under lioness Fans, Kidman's performance is controversial, but for me it's a highlight – archaic, crisp and flawless.)

Nicole Kidman as a high-ranking CIA official lioness

Photo: Ryan Green/Paramount+

And Saldana! She plays her way through lioness like she was in a knife fight. Her character Joe leads a double life: She's married to a handsome surgeon (Dave Annable) who also cooks, cleans and cares for their young daughters, while Joe flies to far-off battlefields to kill bad guys. Nobody is as powerful as Saldaña; Nobody looks better with wraparound sunglasses and an assault rifle. Week after week, I watched each new episode and thought: Yes, this is probably a bad show – even a morally dubious one – but I'm completely hooked.

And then, lo and behold, Hale wrote another one Just Article at the end of the series in which he said that he had miscalculated lioness in his first review. This was actually quality genre television that captivated him as much as it captivated me. How satisfying! How authentic is the experience of actual television, where there are so many shows and some take a moment to gain your trust. Also, does everything on TV have to be so…good? Who can live on small screens without feeling guilty?

lioness (without Special forces in the title) returns with its second season this weekend, and in my considered judgment (after watching the first four episodes) I would like to say that the series is absolutely awesome. I shouldn't outright claim that it's a masterclass in new wave feminism, but I bet you'll find more terrifying female characters on television. In this season (you don't have to watch the first; you can jump in here), Joe is sent to the Mexican border to rescue an American congresswoman who has been kidnapped and her family murdered by a vicious cartel. It turns out that China may be working with the bad guys to undermine U.S. interests, and Joe, ever the patriot, must find a lioness to infiltrate and take down the cartel leader. The best candidate is a helicopter pilot in Iraq with a hidden connection to the cartel.