Anil Krishna 
Jonathan Millar 
James Oconner 
Who Is Cruz in Special Ops: Lioness? The Story Behind the CIA’s Relentless New Recruit
© Paramount+
When Special Ops: Lioness first arrived, it threw viewers straight into Taylor Sheridan’s world of spies, soldiers and missions where nobody seems to come out completely clean. Right in the middle of Season 1 is Cruz Manuelos, played by Laysla De Oliveira, and she quickly becomes one of the most important parts of the story. Cruz isn’t your usual television spy who already knows exactly what she’s doing. She is a Marine who has survived a lot, carries plenty of emotional baggage and is suddenly asked to become a CIA operative in a world where lying to people is basically part of the job.
While Season 1 focuses on Cruz as the primary undercover operative, her journey evolves in Season 2 when she steps into a different role, helping guide and mentor the program’s newest recruit, Captain Josie Carrillo.
Laysla De Oliveira Makes Cruz Feel Like a Real Person
Laysla De Oliveira had already built up a varied collection of roles before joining Special Ops: Lioness. Viewers may recognize her as Dodge from Netflix’s Locke & Key, or from movies such as In the Tall Grass and Code 8. But Cruz gave the Canadian actress a very different kind of role, one that required her to look like she could handle herself in a fight while still making it obvious that there was a vulnerable person underneath all that toughness.
She also had to put in the physical work. De Oliveira underwent military-style training and combat preparation for the role, which shows in the way Cruz carries herself on screen. She doesn’t move like someone pretending to be a soldier for a television show. At the same time, the performance isn’t all muscles and angry stares, thankfully. De Oliveira gives Cruz little flashes of fear, uncertainty and exhaustion that make the character much easier to understand. That balance also helps her hold her own when she is sharing scenes with Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman.
Cruz’s Story Starts With Survival
Before the CIA ever comes into the picture, Cruz is simply trying to get out of a terrible situation. She escapes an abusive relationship and ends up walking into a Marine recruiting office because she needs her life to change, and she needs it to change fast.
The military gives her something she badly needs: direction. Cruz discovers that she is exceptionally good under pressure and physically capable in ways that surprise the people around her. She isn’t just making it through basic training and hoping for the best. She excels, and that combination of toughness, speed and mental resilience eventually gets the attention of Joe, played by Zoe Saldaña.
For Joe, Cruz isn’t just another recruit. She looks like someone who can survive the kind of job most people would take one look at and run from. The problem, of course, is that surviving something and being emotionally prepared for it are two very different things.
What Exactly Is a Lioness?
The Lioness program in the series is based on a real military concept, although Special Ops: Lioness takes it into the much darker world of covert CIA operations. The basic idea is fairly clever: use a female operative to get close to the women surrounding a high-value target, because there are places a male operative simply cannot access without immediately looking suspicious.
That is where Cruz comes in. In Season 1, Joe recruits her for a mission involving Asmar Ali Amrohi, a wealthy terrorist financier, and Cruz is tasked with getting close to his daughter, Aaliyah (Stephanie Nur). To do that, she has to become someone Aaliyah trusts, which means pretending to be her friend while knowing that the entire relationship is built around a mission.
On paper, the assignment sounds straightforward. In practice, it is anything but.
Cruz Starts Losing the Distance She Was Supposed to Keep
The hardest part of Cruz’s mission isn’t learning how to carry a weapon or follow CIA instructions. It’s what happens when she starts genuinely caring about Aaliyah.
Cruz was trained to operate as a weapon, but she isn’t a machine. As she spends more time around Aaliyah and gets deeper into her world, the line between pretending to care and actually caring begins to disappear. Aaliyah’s life is surrounded by wealth and privilege, but Cruz gets to see the person underneath it, and that makes the mission much harder than it was supposed to be.
The cruel part is that Cruz knows exactly what the end goal is. She isn’t simply gathering information. She is working toward an operation that will ultimately target Aaliyah’s father. The closer she gets to Aaliyah, the more uncomfortable that reality becomes, and there isn’t really a good answer waiting for her.
That tension eventually reaches its breaking point in the Season 1 finale. After the target is killed, Cruz is left carrying immense damage. She confronts Joe and steps back from front-line infiltration, refusing to remain an active undercover asset. However, her experience becomes vital in Season 2 as she transitions into a mentorship and support role for the next generation of Lioness recruits, including Josie Carrillo.
Why Cruz Works So Well as a Character
Cruz is interesting because the show doesn’t turn her into some flawless super-agent. She’s tough, but she gets scared. She’s capable, but she makes mistakes. She’s willing to do what the mission requires, but she isn’t able to completely shut off her feelings just because somebody higher up the chain tells her to.
That’s what makes her story feel different from the usual spy fantasy. Cruz isn’t naturally suited to this world in the way some fictional assassins seem to be. She is someone who learned how to survive and then discovered that the people in power were very interested in using that ability.
De Oliveira’s performance is a huge part of why it works. Cruz often doesn’t need to explain what she’s feeling because you can see it on her face, particularly in the moments when the mission asks her to do something that conflicts with the person she is becoming. She can look completely in control one minute and utterly exhausted the next.
And that’s probably why Cruz leaves such a strong impression. She’s not a perfect soldier, a glamorous spy or some emotionless killing machine. She’s a survivor who gets pulled into a world that knows exactly how to turn someone’s trauma into a useful weapon. The more successful she becomes at the job, the more it costs her personally, and Special Ops: Lioness doesn’t let either Cruz or the audience forget that.
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