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I'm a big fan of Taylor Sheridan's. Wind River is a near perfect film which I've watched eight times. His western series Yellowstone, 1886 and 1926 are also excellent. But when it comes to writing about world politics and foreign affairs, he needs to go to back to school, because NOTHING about this season of Lioness made any sense.

The main storyline was a convoluted mess about the Chinese using Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate intelligence agents across the southern border into the United States. What? Why would China need to do that when they could just as easily fly into JFK under aliases?

The stupidity got worse in a subsequent episode where the Lioness team tried to intercept the cartel trafficking children across the border along with some Chinese intelligence agents and an IRANIAN SUICIDE BOMBER?! What?

Not only was the story convoluted and ridiculous but it was also totally wrong. First of all, Iran would have no interest in this kind of an operation because it would not benefit them at all. Secondly, Iran doesn't do suicide bombings. That's Sunni Islamic extremists like ISIS and the Taliban.

But wait, it gets even dumber. To retaliate against this flagrant attack against the security of the United States, our top intelligence agency, the CIA captures the brother of a cartel leader and blackmail/recruits him by allowing him to move his deadly fentanyl operation into the United States and operate freely without the threat of arrest as long as he gives them information about Chinese agents trying to enter the United States. What? Also, how is that even OK? Isn't that what the CIA did in the 1980s allowing the Colombian drug cartels to import their cocaine into the US causing the crack epidemic in order to fund their secret war against the communist regime in Nicaragua?

Then, in the big finish of the season, to retaliate against Iran by showing them that we can mess with their border too, the Lioness team conducts an operation to kill some Chinese nuclear scientists who are crossing the border from Turkey into Iran to help with their nuclear program. What? Why would those scientists take this ridiculously dangerous route when they could've just as easily flown directly from Beijing to Tehran? The US wouldn't been able to do anything about that. It's clear that Sheridan doesn't have a clue of the subject matter he's writing about.

This series is Warners' blatant and pathetic effort rip off and cash in on Denis Villeneuve's brilliant two films.

The creators of this lackluster series have nothing new or original to offer, so they've opted to steal from other successful franchises instead. The backstory is that ten thousand years before the birth or Paul Atreides, the humans defeated the 'thinking machines' that oppressed them. (Skynet anyone? Totally irrelevant and unnecessary as it has ZERO relevance to the main story. But okay) From that war, rose the Bene Gesseret sisterhood determined to guide the future of humankind by infiltrating all the great houses of to put one of their own on the imperial throne. Let the Games of Thrones begin. Add in some Mulan inspired martial arts training, (none of which the Bene Gesseret do in the Dune books) Throw in a giant Sandworm here, some hot and horny CW level actors being cutesy and cringey there, and hope for the best. Oh, and were also expected to swallow they they've been living with exact same problems with Fremen and sandworms on Arrakis for all those millennia? And they were using the same IDENTICAL tech like those personal fighting shields we saw in the movies back then? That this civilization has not advance one iota in TEN THOUSAND YEARS?

HBO and Warner's give us a break. This cynical and cheap knockoff is an insult to the intelligence of the fans of the books and Villeneuve's movies.