Lioness star Zoe Saldaña weighed in on criticism surrounding a controversial season 3 story line.
Saldaña, 48, entered the conversation after Barstool Sports’ Kevin Clancy posted an Instagram video on Wednesday, September 2, questioning how the recent episodes have explored her character Joe’s abduction.
“One of the most BAFFLING decisions I’ve ever seen from a television show. Just absolutely no reason for S3 of Lioness to be told through multiple timelines 😂😂😂,” he wrote. “Completely confusing and in my opinion doesn’t add to the value of the show. Feels like they’re just doing it to do it.”
He continued: “It’s not like it’s True Detective telling the tale thru the different lens of each year, it’s just like ‘let’s tell this f***in story out of order, man!’”
Clancy admitted he has found himself confused while watching the Taylor Sheridan show, adding, “Every time I think we are in the time line where Jo has been kidnapped she pops up on the screen ahahah I still love you tho @lionesspplus.”
In the comments section, Saldaña urged Clancy not to give up yet.
“Just keep watching! Promise you won’t regret it!” she replied with several laughing emojis.
Created by Sheridan, 56, the hit Paramount+ series is a spy thriller that follows the leader of a CIA team that enlists female operatives — known as Lionesses — to go undercover in the war on terror.
The first two seasons followed Joe (Saldaña) as she recruited Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira) and Josie (Genesis Rodriguez) to go undercover. A season 2 mission put the team at risk and nearly ended in a group sacrifice. Season 3 raised the stakes even higher while jumping back and forth from the past to the present.
During the premiere in August, the show pivoted away from introducing a new Lioness into the fold. Instead, the team got a new mission when Joe was abducted. The twist? She was nearly taken six months prior, which introduced a dual timeline for the remainder of the season.
“I will say I had to ask them for a chart of the time, because sometimes I thought I would be in one place and then the clothes wouldn’t match where I thought that we were,” De Oliveira, 34, exclusively told Us about the Paramount+ series jumping back and forth.
De Oliveira admitted she sometimes struggled with differentiating where each scene was, adding, “I want to shout out the wardrobe team, because that’s very hard to do when you’re shooting out of order, and so that also helped me connect with the timeline that we were in.”
Star Jill Wagner, meanwhile, explained what inspired the shakeup.
“I know that, behind the scenes, we were dealing with some scheduling issues with some of the characters,” she told Us. “So I was even talking to Taylor and I was like, ‘How are you going to get around this?’ And he’s so brilliant. That’s when he came up with, ‘Oh, we’re just going to move. We’re going to play with time.’”
Lioness airs new episodes Sundays on Paramount+.
