For the most part, the South African series Lioness (on Amazon Prime and MHz) is a gripping and solid critique of patriarchy, but with a twist at the end that instead works to conceal rather than reveal the power at the core of Afrikaner society.
Samantha (Shannon Esra), as the series opens, is just being let out of prison where she has served eight years as a co-conspirator with her husband in an attempt to defraud his clients. In a series of flashbacks that occur throughout the ten-episode season one, we learn that Samantha, who previously had lived a comfortable, gated life in an upper-middle-class district of Cape Town, was framed and not part of the fraud her husband Adrien perpetrated.
Her goal, when she is freed from prison, is to reclaim her three children and clear her name, and in that order, which is part of what gives the series its dramatic impetus.
Standing in the way of that goal are a host of men whose deception and constant deceit threaten her and her children. Adrien is supposedly dead, but there is some evidence that the middle boy, Liam, has seen him alive after his apparent suicide. Liam is played by a star in the making, Joshua Daniel Eady, a budding cross between Fast Times at Ridgemont High’s vacant Sean Penn and a brooding but hunky Chris Hemsworth in Marvel’s Thor. Adrien’s brother Jason, who has taken her kids, knows something about Sam’s husband’s final days but refuses to tell her, coming up with all kinds of lies to throw her off the trail. His wife Megan, is clinging and cloying, more male-identified in her aggressiveness than female, with her own insecurities threatening both Samantha and her children. Season one works on both axes with Samantha attempting to pry her kids away from the clutches of Jason and Megan, almost as difficult as her struggle to find out how she was framed and clear herself.
The triumvirate of male power, besides Jason, a judge who is in this series, is presented as a professional con artist, also includes Sifisa, the husband of Samantha’s black friend Amo, who was also likely in on the deception, as well as a cop, Anton, who speaks Afrikaans. Samantha, in a flashback, catches Anton spying on her but then falls for him, which doesn’t prevent him from arresting her in front of her kids as part of the fraud.
In addition, her oldest daughter, Miranda, goes through with an ill-fated wedding to Brian, who treats Miranda as his property once they are married, and when caught, says things like “I’m the only person who never abandoned you.” Caring on the surface, but just underneath, insecure and willing to resort to violence to get what he wants.
The series moves at a rapid pace, and Esra, nominated for best actress in a South African series, keeps it humming, driven by her twin goals and pursuing them even when it means breaking parole and being sent back to prison.
There are some problems. We see little of how the black population in Cape Town lives, but we can deduce something about the gap between their world and Samantha’s in that every household is gated. The most constant scene in the series is the opening and closing of these gates, unremarked upon symbols of the disparity between the two worlds, where one flaunts its wealth behind a layer of security.
Samantha’s black bougie friend Amo is at odds with her, partially because her husband’s lies about his own involvement in Adrien’s deceit have helped separate the two friends. Her other friend is a black woman she met in prison whom, out of prison, Samantha relies upon to get her fake IDs and guns. This character, one of her only allies, also perpetuates the Afrikaner fear of the black population, whom they ruled over and abused for centuries.
The main problem, though, occurs at the end, which I will not give away except to say that Samantha gets what she wants and stands to get justice for her wrongful imprisonment when suddenly she changes course and, once the truth is exposed, seals it back up to protect everyone involved.
This is the old dramatic canard that, as the French director Jean Renoir said, “Everyone has their reasons.” It was that realization that helped Renoir create a series of complex characters, but Renoir’s films, especially those of his ‘30s Popular Front period, also ultimately came down on the side of the downtrodden and against the power structure. Everyone has their reasons, but not everyone’s reasons are legitimate.
The application of this formula at the end of the series not only distorts and, in some sense, capsizes the critique of Afrikaner patriarchy, but it also fails dramatically and leaves the spectator with the feeling that their time is wasted because, in the end, no one is guilty.
Lioness is a highly engaging series that, unfortunately, at the conclusion of season one, covers up what it had spent the season revealing. The series begins as a critique of patriarchal power from the interior perspective of that society’s women and children. In the end, it loses its nerve and instead exhibits, unwittingly, how a segment of white South African society seals its lies and deceit to maintain power.
Dramatically, this choice to have none of the men’s actions be villainous sinks the second season, which, with the tension not resolved but concealed, makes it almost dramatically unfeasible to launch a new season, and indeed the second season follows a very dull path.
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