The promo for the final episode of Lioness Season 3 has once again changed the question that has followed us since Joe’s kidnapping. For some time, we believed the Iranians were behind everything, and they were indeed the ones who held her captive, tortured her, and transported her. However, Episode 7 made it clear that Babat and his men may have been little more than hired muscle. Someone planned the operation, selected Joe as the target, and supplied her captors with information that would hardly be available outside the most restricted circles of US intelligence.

So the question is no longer who kidnapped Joe, but who ordered her kidnapping. And everything is beginning to point to someone on the inside.

Is Oleksandra Guilty or Was She Set Up?

The main suspect presented by the series is Oleksandra Balakin, the Ukrainian operative played by Elizaveta Neretin. She was the one who approached the Russians, identified Joe, and demonstrated an astonishing knowledge not only of her life, but also of Cruz and the operation that ended with the deaths of Aaliyah, her father, and the man she was supposed to marry in Season 1.

From the beginning, there was something strange about how much she knew. How did Oleksandra have access to so many details? That was precisely what led us to consider the possibility that Aaliyah might still be alive and involved, either directly or indirectly, in a revenge plot against Cruz and Joe. That theory did not surface only here: fans on Reddit also began discussing whether the past from Season 1 had finally returned to collect its debt.

The mention of Aaliyah certainly does not seem accidental. She may have survived and supplied an intelligence network with information about Cruz, but there is also a simpler explanation: Oleksandra may have gained access to Russian files on the mission. Russia would certainly have investigated the assassination of such an important family and attempted to discover who had infiltrated its inner circle. Therefore, knowing Cruz’s identity does not prove that Aaliyah was behind Joe’s kidnapping. It proves only that the first Lioness mission continues to have consequences.

By the end of Episode 7, however, the CIA accepts a different explanation. Oleksandra supposedly orchestrated the kidnapping to provoke a US military response against Russia, force a ceasefire, and improve Ukraine’s position in the war. In theory, it is a desperate and brutal operation entirely compatible with Taylor Sheridan’s morally murky universe. In practice, there is one major problem: the plan does not benefit Oleksandra.

On the contrary, the kidnapping leaves Ukraine on the verge of losing American support and places Oleksandra herself at risk of execution. If she planned everything to save her country, she produced precisely the opposite result. That is why one of the most convincing theories being discussed on Reddit suggests that she was set up to take the blame. Someone used the Iranians, planted evidence leading to Ukraine, and then supplied the US government with a ready-made analysis capable of turning suspicion into official truth.

Is Kaitlyn’s Husband Involved?

This is where Errol Meade, Kaitlyn’s husband, becomes the most suspicious character of the season.

From the beginning of Lioness, Kaitlyn and Errol’s marriage has functioned as an alliance between two people whose lives are built on secrets. She holds a powerful position within the CIA; he moves between the financial markets, private policy groups, and Washington’s most influential circles. They both know that the other handles classified information, and they have established a very convenient rule: they do not ask direct questions about each other’s work, but they exchange fragments of intelligence whenever it serves them.

It is an intimate and cold marriage at the same time, almost a business partnership transformed into a romantic relationship. There is affection between them, but there is also calculation, coded language, and a very particular set of ethics. They do not tell each other everything, although they know enough to help one another. And it has never been entirely clear how much power Errol possesses, whom he answers to, or how he uses the information he receives from his wife.

That dynamic has always been intriguing, particularly because it reunites Nicole Kidman and Martin Donovan, who previously worked together in The Portrait of a Lady. Now, however, what once seemed merely like a sophisticated curiosity within their relationship has acquired much greater significance in the story.

Errol’s think tank was hired by the State Department to analyze Joe’s kidnapping. On its own, that could be nothing more than an extremely convenient coincidence. The problem lies in the way he guides his conversation with Kaitlyn. Errol asks who would benefit from the kidnapping, gradually eliminates the alternatives, and leads her to the conclusion that Oleksandra must be responsible. He does not simply give his wife information; he defines the framework through which she will begin to see the case.

Kaitlyn, in turn, takes that interpretation to Byron Westfield and Edwin Mullins as though it were the most rational answer. Within a few scenes, a theory produced by a private policy group becomes the potential death sentence of a Ukrainian operative. What Errol presents at home could determine US foreign policy.

If he were merely an outside analyst, why would Taylor Sheridan devote so much time to showing how he plants this idea in Kaitlyn’s mind? And why reveal only now that his organization was selected by the State Department to examine Joe’s case?

The most important question may not even be what Errol knows, but who commissioned that report and what answer they expected to receive.

Errol Could Be Guilty Without Having Ordered the Kidnapping

Errol does not need to be the man who called Babat and ordered Joe’s kidnapping to be involved. He may have knowingly produced an analysis designed to implicate Oleksandra; he may have been manipulated by whoever hired his think tank; he may be protecting financial interests connected to Russia, Ukraine, or the continuation of the war; or he may simply have served as the perfect channel through which disinformation could be transformed into government policy.

There is also a more interesting possibility: Errol may not realize that he is being used. His confidence, wealth, and certainty that he understands geopolitical movements may have turned him into the ideal instrument. In that case, his guilt would be less operational and more moral. His intellectual vanity would have helped someone manipulate his own wife while placing her program, her agents, and Oleksandra at risk.

That would also destroy the central rule of their marriage. Kaitlyn and Errol believe they can exchange information without compromising one another, as though it were possible to separate intimacy, intelligence, and power within that house. Season 3 may be demonstrating that this boundary never existed. Either one of them could always turn the other into an instrument.

Is the Real Traitor Inside the US Government?

Another strong theory points to someone inside the State Department or the group advising the president. If Oleksandra was framed and Errol’s report was used to legitimize the accusation, someone needed access both to CIA intelligence and to the channels required to hire the Iranians and subsequently steer the analysis.

According to this theory, the real objective would be to distance the United States from Ukraine, benefit Russia, and eliminate Oleksandra before she could reveal who is truly infiltrating Washington. She would not be the architect of the conspiracy, but its most dangerous witness.

There is also suspicion surrounding the group responsible for coordinating the operations, including the character played by Dawn Olivieri. During the search for Joe, some decisions appeared to delay or divert the team, and there was resistance to investigating certain leads. This may simply be the cynical bureaucracy Sheridan likes to portray, but it could also reveal that the leak does not come from a single person. There may be an internal network protecting its own interests.

Are Byron, Bobby, and Kyle Also Suspects?

Byron entered the list because he quickly accepted the case against Oleksandra and appeared willing to eliminate her before it could be fully investigated. It may simply be the brutal pragmatism that has always defined his character: if killing one person ends an international crisis, then the discussion ends there. However, it is also possible that Byron is in a hurry because he does not want Joe to reach the real mastermind.

Some viewers have also named Bobby as a suspect, primarily because of messages she sent during the operation, a few ambiguous looks, and her reaction when Joe announced that she intended to find and kill everyone responsible. I do not buy this theory. Bobby and Joe’s relationship has been built across three seasons, and turning Bobby into a traitor would require far more than suspicious gestures used in the editing of a trailer. Her expression may simply mean that she knows Joe well enough to understand how far that promise of revenge could take her.

Kyle raises suspicions because he is always close to the most clandestine decisions and operates with a freedom that not even the CIA agents seem to possess. But he was instrumental in locating and rescuing Joe, risking both his life and his career. If he is involved, it will be an enormous twist—and one that would be difficult to justify with the clues presented so far.

There is also the possibility that Joe’s family became an unwitting source. Kate may have exposed information about her mother on social media or been approached by someone connected to the operation. That could help explain how the kidnappers knew certain details about Joe’s routine, but it would not be enough to account for the entire political machinery built around Oleksandra.

What About Aaliyah?

The theory that Aaliyah is still alive remains possible and, in my view, the series would not mention her name so specifically unless it intended to reopen that story. The question is whether she will return as the person responsible for the kidnapping or as part of something even larger.

Aaliyah had personal reasons to hate Cruz and Joe, although she never learned the full truth about the mission on screen. If she survived and discovered that Cruz had killed her father and her fiancé on her wedding night, revenge would be understandable within the logic of the series. But organizing an operation involving Iranians, Russians, Ukrainians, infiltrated agents, and members of the US government would require an apparatus that Aaliyah was never shown to possess.

She may be a player, a source, or even the final revelation setting up the next season. At this point, however, the conspiracy appears too large to be merely a personal vendetta.

Who Betrayed Joe?

My guess is that Oleksandra was set up to take the blame and that Errol will play an important part in the revelation, although he may not be the mastermind behind the operation. He could be guilty, complicit, or simply the man chosen to give credibility to a lie. The real traitor is probably inside the US government—or so close to it that they can manipulate the CIA, the State Department, and private analysts at the same time.

The Iranians kidnapped Joe, but they do not appear to have chosen her. Oleksandra knows too much, but her alleged operation damages her own cause. Errol supplies the answer at precisely the right moment, although no one knows who formulated the question. And the US administration is already preparing to eliminate its prime suspect before Joe has the chance to interrogate her.

The promo for the final episode practically confirms that there is someone on the inside. Now we need to discover whether Joe will reach that person before the government kills Oleksandra, officially closes the case, and turns yet another convenient lie into the truth.

Perhaps that will be the great twist of the best season of Lioness yet: Joe spent weeks searching for the enemy in Iran, Russia, and Ukraine, when they may have been sitting in a Washington office all along or at Kaitlyn’s dinner table.