The True Story Behind Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Lioness’ and the Real Military Program That Inspired It

‘Lioness’ has built its reputation on tension, secrecy and the idea that ordinary service members can be pulled into extraordinary missions. Fans watching Zoe Saldaña lead her team of undercover operatives often ask how much of the Paramount Plus drama is grounded in fact.

The answer lies in a real Marine Corps initiative that predates the show by two decades. The series is based on a real-life CIA program and follows a young Marine recruited to befriend the daughter of a terrorist in order to bring the organization down from within. That premise, however loosely adapted, traces back to an actual wartime problem the military had to solve.

The Real Task Force Lioness Behind the Paramount Plus Series

‘Lioness’ centers on an all-female undercover CIA operation that is loosely based on a real-life U.S. Marine unit, with the fictional version following Saldaña’s character Joe McNamara as she leads a secret group of female operatives pulled from different branches of the military. The actual unit operated under a very different set of circumstances.

During the Iraq War in 2003, male soldiers were barred from searching female civilians because of Muslim customs that prohibited unrelated men from touching women, and insurgents began exploiting that gap by using women to smuggle weapons and explosives. In response, the Marine Corps and the Army formed the Lionesses to conduct more thorough searches and surveillance of women in the region.

Task Force Lioness was created specifically to give the Marine Corps closer access to women who might be involved in potential terrorist plots, and according to a United States Marine Corps report, the unit proved vitally important to counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The show’s title is a direct nod to that real designation.

The spy thriller bases its CIA program on a real military task force that is now defunct, with the fictional agency recruiting a female operative to infiltrate terrorist organizations. That distinction between an active wartime unit and a permanent covert program is where the show begins to diverge from history.

How Special Ops Lioness Turns Fact Into Fiction

The series originally launched under a longer title before settling into its current branding. Paramount Plus unveiled the official title change from the simple ‘Lioness’ to ‘Special Ops: Lioness,’ with the show created by Taylor Sheridan and starring Saldaña, Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman. In the story, the Lioness Program is overseen by Kaitlyn Meade, played by Kidman, and Donald Westfield, played by Michael Kelly, who enlist an aggressive Marine Raider named Cruz, played by Laysla De Oliveira, to operate undercover.

That fictional chain of command gives the show a CIA backbone the real program never had. Paramount’s version of Lioness is portrayed as a CIA special operations program that recruits women to infiltrate organizations around high-value targets, and Paramount itself has acknowledged that the show’s characters and missions are fictional.

The real unit was also far less selective than the show suggests. Members of the actual Lioness program volunteered for the position rather than being hand-picked recruits, according to the Marine Corps Association, and while the fictional and real-life Lionesses differ in structure, both share a foundation of courage among the women who served.

Perhaps the biggest departure is scale and permanence. The Paramount series is based on a real U.S. military program, though its fictional operatives bear little resemblance to the women who actually carried the Lioness name in Iraq.

The Real Women Who Served In The Lioness Program

Away from the show’s espionage plotting, the actual Lionesses came from ordinary military occupations rather than elite special operations backgrounds. Those service members included Army mechanics, clerks, engineers and other support roles who were pulled into the searches and patrols.

The concept did not stay static once the initial wartime need passed. The Marine Corps later developed Female Engagement Teams for Afghanistan, placing small groups of women alongside infantry units to search women, meet civilians and reach parts of the population that male troops largely could not access, and Cultural Support Teams eventually performed similar work alongside special operations forces.

The original Lioness Program was established by the Marine Corps during the Second Gulf War and was intended only as a short term measure rather than a lasting institution. In 2009 the Marine Corps formally established Female Engagement Teams with a more structured and community focused mission, and in 2013 the Department of Defense lifted the combat exclusion rule so women could officially join combat units.

The idea for the series reportedly came from someone close to that history rather than from Sheridan alone. The concept inspired executive producer Jill Wagner, who also appears in the show, and her husband David Lemanowicz to approach Sheridan about turning the story into a series, with Wagner saying she feared the idea could be turned into something shallow or overly glamorized if handled by the wrong writer.

What Comes Next As Lioness Season 3 Approaches

Critical reception has grown warmer as the show has continued. ‘Special Ops: Lioness’ debuted in July 2023 and became a hit for Paramount Plus despite receiving mixed reviews from critics at the time. The second season fared considerably better, holding a 90 percent critics score across ten reviews on Rotten Tomatoes alongside a 72 percent audience score from more than 500 ratings.

Viewership numbers have also remained strong for the streamer. The season two premiere pulled in 12.4 million global viewers, and Saldaña has confirmed she is signed on for at least three seasons of the show. Paramount Plus officially renewed the series for a third season, with a cast that includes Saldaña, Kidman, Freeman, Kelly, De Oliveira and Genesis Rodriguez, among others.

Production on the new episodes is already underway. Season three entered production in October, with the main cast expected to return alongside newcomer Ian Bohen playing a character named Grady, though no release date or plot details have been confirmed yet. The series returned with its third season on August 2 on Paramount Plus.

With the real Task Force Lioness now long retired and its legacy folded into later programs, Sheridan’s version of the story continues to expand well beyond its origins. Given how far the fictional Lioness Program has strayed from the women who actually wore that name in Iraq, it is worth asking readers which parts of the show they still want grounded in reality and which they are content to watch as pure spy fiction.