Five Hundred Children – The episode begins with Joe (Zoe Saldana) sharing her discovery with Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) and Byron Westfield (Michael Kelly) at Langley Headquarters. Joe clearly views Josie/Josephina Carrillo’s (Genesis Rodriguez) deception as unforgivable while Byron believes she had no other option to lie in order to protect her family. Although Kaitlyn is practically silent, she keeps Joe’s rage in check while offering the ultimate solution of treating Josephina like a double agent. They spend several more moments bickering before Joe leaves with the assignment of finding a handler for Josephina, who can also eliminate her if needed.

Joe is updating Kyle (Thad Luckinbill) when she realizes she’s being followed. This will also later lead to her learning that Kyle was following her as well, but at the moment, her priority becomes obtaining her pursuer’s plate number, which she does with relative ease. The vehicle is registered to Randall Newman who was supposedly convicted of money laundering in 2021 and later scored an immunity deal with WITSEC and the DEA. Although it takes a bit more effort, she and Kyle lure the driver into a trap and uncover his identity as Special Agent Gutierrez (Kirk Acevedo). According to him, he has been tasked by the DOJ to discover what they are doing on the border. Gutierrez spends several minutes chastising their sloppy tactics while stressing the enormity of their enemy’s reach. Despite remaining stoic, Joe extends an offer for him to join them on their next operation.

A routine organ transplant goes from bad to worse for Neal (Dave Annable) when they discover that the organ is riddled with cancer tumors after the Radiologist had claimed she’d been through six rounds of chemo. As the events unfold, he not only gets into a verbal argument with his colleague, Steve Cannon (Donny Boaz), but he walks out as the young female flat lines. After storming off and scrubbing out, he finds a white envelope addressed to him, but his priority at the moment is to inform the family of the loss.

After a day at the range, Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira) returns home to find Joe in her office. It doesn’t take very long before Joe criticizes Cruz’s life choices while Cruz hits back at her with the public fiasco on the border. Despite this, before the encounter ends Joe admits to revering Cruz for her commitment to the mission and willingness to do whatever is necessary to accomplish it. Cruz maintains the claim that she wants nothing to do with Joe or the mission but later pushes for more details. Joe also reminds her that she has the authority to simply have Cruz reassigned to her team if she chooses to do so. Joe tells her to be ready to go in three hours and leaves.

Just as Joe arrives for a lunch meeting with Kaitlyn and Byron, she receives a call from Kyle with information on their new mission. According to him, he’s been authorized to use the team to raid a warehouse 30 miles south of the border. Learning that the lead came from Gutierrez only frustrates her further and it’s seconds later that she’s bringing it up at the lunch meeting. Byron justifies the change by simply stating that everyone wants to play a part in an operation such as this and it’s best to bite the bullet and let them get involved from the begging.

Although Joe leaves the meeting unhappily, she, Kyle, Cruz, and Kyle arrive at Fort Bliss airport where they are then taken to plan the op. Things only get worse as the team learns that Gutierrez’s info is based on old recon maps and he only suspects that the area is being used as a staging area for a massive contraband huddle. Despite this, they make plans to go in that night.

Josie is already hesitant about the operation but when she learns on the spot that she is being used as a distraction, it makes matters worse. Despite this, she goes along with the mission and although things are going in the team’s favor, an unexpected convoy of local police changes everything. Just as the ground team discovers a large group of kids, Joe orders Josie to take them out and then come pick them up. Josie follows Joe’s orders and that is practically where the episode ends.

 

Lioness Review

It was not a horrible episode, but it was certainly not a great episode. It almost seemed useless but ultimately proves that Josie will carry out her orders. It was nice to see Cruz return to the team and she looks like an entirely different person with longer hair. The discovery with the children was something intriguing and I’m interested to see where this goes. I’d give the episode a 5 out of 10.

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