At the end of Lioness’s best season yet, creator Taylor Sheridan left fans with the perfect cliff-hanger. The mastermind behind CIA agent Joe McNamara’s (Zoe Saldaña) kidnapping, an event that led the Lioness team on a wild goose chase throughout season 3, was actually a returning character—a scorned Aaliyah (Stephanie Nur) from the first season.
It’s a great twist, but it’s not the only major change to Joe’s life in the Lioness season 3 finale. After Joe finally returns home, she finds that her husband Neal (Dave Annable) is gone. He’s taken the kids and put their house up for sale. Why? Because Joe refuses to take a desk job after putting herself, and her family, at risk. Now, we’ve learned that it wasn’t the original ending that Sheridan had in mind. According to Saldaña, he wanted to keep them together until she convinced him that something had to change.
“I just kept calling Taylor as he was writing this season and sharing with him, 'I don't know why [Neal] would stay... If violence and threats approach the door of our home because of what my partner does, I would have to put my children first and leave,'" Saldaña told Entertainment Weekly.
This is what Saldaña must look like when she’s reading Sheridan’s scripts.
“Taylor and I would have these little micro-disagreements about it,” she continued. “He believes in their love and that their love can withhold and survive everything. And that may very well be the case. I am grateful to Taylor that he gave Neal the f**king strength to leave her in order for him to make a point."
Lioness has yet to receive the official word on a renewal for season 4. Though it seems inevitable at this point—season 3 garnered 7.1 million viewers in its first week on Paramount+—the CIA drama’s cliff-hanger all but ensures at least one more season to finish out the story.
“I'm selfish, and if we are able to come back and do a Season 4, I wouldn't want their story to just have ended like that,” Saldaña said. “Because these are two people who really found each other. I feel that Joe and Neal are like doves, they mate for life.”