The Beating

**The Beating** is the second episode of the first season of the Paramount+ espionage thriller *Special Ops: Lioness*. It aired on July 23, 2023, as part of a two-episode premiere.

## Synopsis

Joe continues her training with Cruz; her methods are questionable; Cruz starts to build a relationship with Aaliyah; Kate gets into a fight during her soccer game; Neal has to deliver difficult news to a patient.

## Plot

Joe updates Meade on Cruz's assignment, revealing that she exchange numbers with Aaliyah Amrohi and that they have been texting. Cruz covered for her lack of social media by saying that her father wouldn't allow her to have any. While she's smart, Joe wants to put her through the grinder with CAG. Meade reluctantly agrees and asks for Cruz's location. To her surprise, Joe has Cruz in an apartment. Fearing that the mark may decide to come to Georgetown and possibly run into Cruz on the street, Meade orders for Joe to get Cruz some place more secure. Meade then asks Joe about her home life. Joe replies that she and Neal do the best they can. As for the girls, Charlie is doing well in school, but Kate is a bit more complicated. Meanwhile, Kate has gotten into a fight on the field with a player from the rival soccer team.

Neal and his colleagues discuss options for a six-year-old girl with a terminal brain tumor. Neal sends the patient, Maddie, down the hall to pick out a toy while he discusses treatment with her parents. He reveals that Maddie suffers from a brain tumor approximately the size of a baseball. The tumor has spread to her eye already. And if they were to attempt to remove the tumor, they would have to remove her eye. She'd have six months to live without surgery. With surgery, assuming she survives, her time would still be limited and not even Neal can give them an exact estimate. Additionally, her life would be nothing but pain. Neal advises that they simply spend as much time with their daughter as they can, doing the things that she loves. Mr. Rawlins becomes enraged by Neal's suggestion to do nothing and punches him before being escorted out. Neal then gets a call from Kate's school.

Neal picks Kate up from school and tells her that there is no excuse for fighting, but Kate retorts that he didn't hear what the girl called her, adding that she can't have this conversation with a white man. Neal pulls the car over and reminds her that he is her father before anything else. The only thing she accomplished today is getting suspended from school and forfeiting a win for her team. She can't beat the hate out of someone, but Kate argues she can at least try.

Joe arrives home to learn from Kate that Neal took her phone. Joe goes out back to speak with Neal, whose eye is a bit bruised from his scuffle at work. Neal reveals to Joe that he was having a drink with a classmate from medical school, Valentino. He became a plastic surgeon. Neal assumed he became one to play with women's breasts all day, but he was wrong. Valentino became a plastic surgeon because he didn't want his patients to die on him. He does this for a decade but eventually becomes bored and feels unimportant. So he joins a reconstructive surgery firm that tries to make people resemble the people they were before an accident, such as a car crash or house fire. There was this one girl thrown from a vehicle, skidded face-first down the street, shaving off most of her face. He spent 16 hours reconstructing her face, only for her to die in recovery, leading Valentino to quit and teach anatomy in Georgetown. He asked how Neal does it, knowing that half his patients aren't going to see their 18th birthday. Neal replied that he does it knowing the other half will. Joe embraces Neal, at which point, they are interrupted by Kate, who asks for her phone and if they're getting a divorce, but Joe simply tells her to go back inside.

Joe enters Kate's room and orders her off her computer. Kate asks if they're getting a divorce. Assuming they are, she tells her mother not to bother fighting for custody, because she wants to live with her father. However, Joe informs her they aren't getting divorced. She then asks Kate what she wants to be when she grows up. Kate simply replies that she wants to be something important. Joe advises her to think hard about it because those jobs come at a price. Kate is already aware, saying that she is the price. Contrary to what she might think, Joe tells Kate that her suspension isn't the worst thing to happen to her father today. If Kate loves him even a little, Joe tells her to find a way to show it, as he could really use it right now after a tough day at work involving a little girl who won't live long enough to see another Christmas. Before leaving, Joe warns Kate that if she gets into another fight at school, she'll smash her phone with a hammer.

Joe joins Neal in the kitchen, where he is preparing dinner. They begin kissing until Kate enters and hugs Neal, apologizing for making his bad day worse. She then brushes past her mother and says "How's that for love?"

Cruz has been set up in a CIA apartment, where after a bit of exercising and a shower, she attempts to go to bed. But feeling restless, she goes out for a jog, where she is ambushed by a group of men and abducted.

Joe and Neal are having sex when they both receive work related emergency phone calls. Neither will be home by morning. Fortunately, the kids are used to it, so Neal goes into Kate's room and wakes her up from her sleep to instruct her to make Charlie breakfast in the morning. If she needs anything, he tells Kate to call Stan next door. Rather than going back to sleep, Kate goes into her parent's room, where she finds her mother arming herself with a gun. She questions why her mother needs a weapon, but Joe assures her it's necessary and tells Kate to get out.

With a bag over her head, Cruz is put on a boat and taken to a base out at sea. Upon their arrival, she is locked in a chamber and hosed down with water pressure so high that it pushes the bag off her head as well as her underwear down to her ankles. After being thoroughly hosed down, her captors turn on the air conditioning and begin to blare a mix of death metal layered with chainsaw, screaming babies, and other disturbing sound effects.

When Cruz awakens, she finds her restraints have been cut and that a change of clothes sit at the center of the chamber. After getting dressed, she is attacked by three men. She immediately goes on the attack but is outnumbered and restrained once more. They demand her name, but she refuses to talk, and so they simulate drowning as a torture method while also punching her repeatedly as she makes another attempt to escape.

Cruz has been blindfolded and restrained to a chair. To her surprise, it is Joe who removes the black bag from her head, realizing then that she's in the midst of another training exercise. To achieve her objective, Cruz will have to blow her cover. Can she escape before they know what she's done, and most can't, Joe answers. Most likely, she will be taken and must survive until they can get her. Joe will need to know how much time she has to do that before it's too late, before Cruz breaks, though, she insists she'll never break. In an attempt to get under Cruz's skin, Joe mentions her lack of parents and even mentions her abusive ex-boyfriend Edgar, who is dead after being beaten, stabbed, and shot. She then reminds Cruz of her days as a stripper and asks why she stopped. Perhaps someone got rough with her, and she wasn't strong enough to stop them. There's always someone bigger and stronger, Joe adds. That's the story of Cruz's life, who tries her hardest not to cry. Joe then gets from her seat and exits the chamber, declaring that it's time for round two.

Cody needs Cruz to sign the waiver before they can take it any further, but Joe says that she doesn't exist. Nevertheless, Cody needs someone's signature, and so Joe signs and instructs Cody to take Cruz down to the ground and restrain her movement, as that'll be the thing that breaks her.

Joe stays behind and watches as Cody and Mag enter the chamber to resume their torture of Cruz. Cody asks what was Cruz's dead little brother's name, but she doesn't respond, humming to herself as Cody says the boy's name, Josecito. He surmises that Josecito died on Cruz's watch. Cody explains that he's not trying to make her a better operator. This is about how she survives when the operator in her is done. She has to know where she's breaks, so she learns where to push it further. He proceeds to approach Cruz from behind and cut her restraints, at which point, she goes on the attack, but she is overpowered by Cody, who tackles her to the ground and lies on top of her.

After hearing Cruz's scream out, Delta Captain orders for the exercise to come to an end, fearful of a possible congressional hearing. Joe refuses to call it off, but Delta Captain puts in the call for Cody to stand down. However, as he's getting off of Cruz, she takes the opportunity to attack, knocking out Mag before taking out her aggression on Cody. Joe blames the Delta Captain for interfering with her operation, as now Cruz feels like she won. She needed to know Cruz's breaking point, and now she doesn't. Cruz is on a suicide mission, and they all know it. Joe was just trying to give her a shot, but the Captain retorts that suicide mission don't have a shot, hence the name.

Joe takes Cruz to Fort Bragg, where she will be staying with the team. Joe explains that there are all sorts of terrorists, but Amrohi's brand of terrorism is fueled by greed. He's a prince who seeks unrest on behalf of other princes so the 150 million subjects of their regions keep their focus on the U.S. and never the half a trillion dollars his family controls, and does not share. If Aaliyah brings Cruz close, and she gets a chance to seizes the moment, she must find a way to survive whatever hell he puts Cruz through until Joe can get there. That's what the exercise was about, showing Cruz what it will take to survive, and Joe learning how much time she will have to get to her. Cruz tells Joe not to bother and just send a missile, as she never wants to go through that again.

Bobby gets caught in the middle of Randy, Tucker, Tex, and Two Cups' CQB training. Aggravated, she sets off a smoke grenade in the middle of the house and tells them to take their training to the CQB training room. Cruz then enters, beaten and bloody. She asks if they got a bedroom for her, and Two Cups offers his.

Cruz takes a shower, washing the blood off her and even spitting out a tooth. The following day, she joins the team in the living room, where Randy offers her something to eat. The team presumes she got into a bar fight, but she informs them that they ran her through some kind of unsanctioned S.E.R.E exercise.

Bobby leads Cruz and the rest of the team down to the bar, Charlie Mike's, where she throws a glass bottle at Cody's face, warning him against ever running an unsanctioned SERE school on her teammate. Cody explains it was sanctioned by Joe and to take it up with her. Two Cups then tases Cody, resulting in a brawl between Bobby's team and Cody's. Cruz takes this opportunity to get on top of Cody and choke him. She nearly kills him until Randy intervenes. Cruz then gets a call from Aaliyah and rushes outside to answer.

Cruz lies to Aaliyah, claiming she got into a car wreck to explain her cuts and bruises. Aaliyah asks for a picture, but Cruz declines. She then reveals that she's flying to Chesapeake tomorrow and asks Cruz to meet her with a bathing suit, as she will be bringing boys with her.

## Cast

* Laysla De Oliveira as Cruz Manuelos
* Dave Annable as Neal McNamara
* Jill Wagner as Bobby
* LaMonica Garrett as Tucker
* James Jordan as Two Cups
* Austin Hébert as Randy
* Jonah Wharton as Tex
* Stephanie Nur as Aaliyah
* Hannah Love Lanier as Kate McNamara
* Nicole Kidman as Kaitlyn Meade
* America Olivo as Dr. Elsa Ramirez
* Michael Park as Dr. Gary Brown
* Josh Crotty as Delta Captain

Co-starring* Gigi Grace as Soccer Girl
* Nora Winer as Maddie Rawlins
* Alex Podulke as Mike Rawlins
* Marguerite Stimpson as Vickie Rawlins
* Imani Love as Nurse Jenny
* Jared Shaw as Delta Cruz Interrogator
* Joshua Graverholt as Ranger QRT Residence
* Michael Jibrin as Delta Operator
* Sean Avery as SF Operator