Zoe Saldana: After Lioness Season 2 Wraps, a Sicario Echo Rewrites Her Action Arc

Now that Lioness Season 2 has wrapped, zoe saldana appears as Joe McNamara at the center of a season that functions as a clear inflection point for the series, shifting the action from international threats to close-up conflict on the United States/Mexico border.

What Happens Now That Season 2 Has Wrapped?

Season 2 relocates the drama closer to home, with conflicts brewing on the United States/Mexico border and heightened tensions throughout the cast’s mission. A standout sequence from the episode “Beware the Old Soldier” stages a high-risk extraction: Joe McNamara (zoe saldana), Kyle McMannus (Thad Luckinbill), Cody Spears (Taylor Sheridan), and their team cross the border to rescue kidnapped U. S. Congresswoman Hernandez (Czarina Mireles), are discovered by Mexican officials, and—pinned on every side—drive off a cliff into the river that divides the countries. The sequence leaves the protagonists near death and drives home how close the series is willing to push its central characters.

What Happens When Zoe Saldana’s Joe McNamara Mirrors Sicario?

Season 2 intentionally echoes elements from Taylor Sheridan’s earlier 2015 crime drama. The chase and extraction scenes, the moral squeeze on a lead character new to this level of covert action, and a plotline involving the insertion of an operative into cartel structures all mirror beats from that earlier film. In this season, Joe’s operation centers on inserting Captain Josephina Carrillo (Genesis Rodriguez) into the cartel that kidnapped the congresswoman and killed Joe’s family so a high-profile leader can be assassinated—paralleling the earlier film’s focus on an assassination aimed at reshaping cartel control. The season makes the comparison explicit in tone and structure: Joe is brought into a brutal extraction in a manner reminiscent of how Emily Blunt’s Kate Mercer was drawn into the original film’s operation.

• Setting: Season 2 focuses on the United States/Mexico border; the earlier film centered on cross-border cartel conflict.
• Set pieces: A river-cliff chase off a border ledge mirrors high-risk extractions seen in the earlier film.
• Operational arc: Both plots include inserting an operative into a cartel and targeting a cartel leader for assassination.

What Comes Next For the Series and Its Lead?

The season’s choices—putting Joe McNamara through near-fatal sequences, aligning the series’ moral ambiguity with that of Sheridan’s crime drama, and naming Joe’s mission in terms that echo an assassination-driven plot—open two clear directions. One path is to deepen the series’ identity as a close-seated, morally fraught thriller built around Joe’s evolution; another is to leave room for connective tissue with the earlier film work, especially since a third film in that earlier project remains in development. It is noted that Zoe Saldaña and a principal co-lead serve as executive producers on the series, and that Saldaña has described the show as a “spiritual sequel, ” saying, “I love Sicario, ” which frames how the series and the actor view the creative lineage. At the same time, procedural and studio realities limit how far formal crossover can move, making any direct merger uncertain even as creative similarities are pronounced. Readers should watch how future seasons balance serialized character work with the franchise-style echoes introduced here—especially where Joe McNamara’s arc and zoe saldana’s producing role intersect.