Lioness Season 3 Confirms Cruz And Josie Are Really Together, And Episode 3 Makes Their Relationship More Complicated
Cruz Manuelos and Josie Carrillo are still together in Lioness Season 3. Episode 2 makes their relationship unmistakably romantic, showing the two sharing an intimate domestic moment at Fort Bragg after their connection developed throughout Season 2. Episode 3 does not reveal a breakup, an affair or either woman being ordered to seduce someone else.…
Cruz Manuelos and Josie Carrillo are still together in Lioness Season 3. Episode 2 makes their relationship unmistakably romantic, showing the two sharing an intimate domestic moment at Fort Bragg after their connection developed throughout Season 2. Episode 3 does not reveal a breakup, an affair or either woman being ordered to seduce someone else. What it does introduce is “honeypotting” as a major espionage tactic, and that idea carries unusual weight for Cruz because her first Lioness operation already taught her how easily an undercover relationship can become emotionally real.
For viewers worried that Episode 3 means Cruz or Josie is about to cheat, there is no evidence of that yet. The interesting part is how easily Season 3’s new intelligence war could eventually put their professional obligations against the relationship they have finally managed to build.
Spoiler Alert
Are Cruz and Josie Officially Together in Season 3?
Yes, Season 3 presents Cruz and Josie’s Season 2 attraction as an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time encounter. When Cruz returns to Fort Bragg in Episode 2, the two are comfortable enough together for the episode to place them in an intimate setting away from the rest of the team. Contemporary coverage of the episode describes what developed during Josie’s Lioness training as a full relationship by Season 3.
That progression follows what Season 2 had already been building. Cruz initially returned to help guide Josie through the Lioness program, giving Josie something Cruz never really had during her own first mission: a mentor who understood exactly what it felt like to be the expendable person at the center of the operation. Their professional closeness gradually became personal, and both survived the disastrous final mission together. Paramount+’s own Season 3 material confirms both Cruz and Josie remain active members of Joe’s world.
So there is currently no ambiguity about whether they still care about each other. The uncertainty concerns whether Lioness will allow that relationship to stay separate from their jobs.
Does Episode 3 Give Cruz or Josie a Honeypot Mission?
No. Episode 3 does not order Cruz or Josie to seduce a target, and neither woman cheats on the other in “The Bear Is Infected.” The honeypot discussion comes from Oleksandra’s explanation of how foreign intelligence services weaken a powerful country from within. She lists sexual compromise alongside disinformation, disruption and blackmail as methods for turning people with useful access into assets.
That distinction is important because the word itself naturally sounds significant when two major operatives are now romantically involved. It would be easy to interpret the scene as immediate setup for Cruz or Josie being sent after another romantic target. Episode 3 has not made that promise.
What it has done is establish that sexual and emotional manipulation belongs to the espionage playbook driving this season. For Cruz especially, that is uncomfortable territory the series has explored before.
Cruz Has Already Learned What Happens When an Undercover Relationship Becomes Real
Cruz’s relationship with Aaliyah in Season 1 is the reason a future honeypot scenario would be much more complicated for her than for an ordinary operative. Cruz was sent into Aaliyah’s life because getting close to her offered access to her father, terrorist financier Asmar Ali Amrohi. What began as an intelligence relationship developed into genuine emotional attachment, leaving Cruz caught between what Joe required from her and what she actually felt for Aaliyah. Paramount+’s own Season 1 summary specifically describes Cruz struggling with her personal feelings as the assassination mission closes in.
Cruz ultimately completes the mission, but success does not make the experience emotionally clean. She kills the target and leaves the operation questioning whether what the CIA asked her to do was morally justified. That history becomes essential now that Cruz has a real partner who is also part of the same intelligence apparatus.
Josie understands dangerous missions. She may not yet understand every part of what Cruz went through with Aaliyah, however, or how rapidly professional intimacy can stop feeling professional.
Would a Honeypot Operation Count as Cheating for Cruz and Josie?
Lioness has not answered that question, because neither Cruz nor Josie has been assigned such an operation in Season 3 so far. From an intelligence perspective, sexual or romantic contact used to manipulate a target could be treated as part of an operative’s job. From the perspective of a couple, however, the emotional boundary is much harder to define, particularly when both people understand how deception works professionally.
Cruz’s history makes a neat separation between “mission” and “relationship” especially difficult. Aaliyah was not simply somebody Cruz pretended to like until an objective was completed. Her feelings complicated the mission precisely because the connection stopped fitting comfortably inside Joe’s operational rules.
That does not mean Season 3 will repeat the same story with Josie watching Cruz seduce someone else. It means Sheridan has already established a character for whom undercover intimacy carries consequences long after the mission ends.
Why Cruz and Josie’s Relationship Is Different From Cruz and Aaliyah’s
Cruz and Josie begin from a much more equal position because both understand the world they inhabit. Aaliyah did not know Cruz’s real identity or the purpose behind their relationship, creating a fundamental deception that could never survive the truth. Josie knows Cruz is an operative, knows what Lioness missions demand and has herself been used as the center of one. That shared experience removes one of the most destructive problems Cruz faced with Aaliyah.
It creates a different problem in its place. Both women can be ordered into situations that endanger them, require deception or force them to prioritize an operation over each other. They also work within a program where Joe expects personal feelings to become secondary when national security is involved.
Cruz once hated being the person asked to make that sacrifice. She is now experienced enough that she could one day be the person asking somebody else to make it.
Is Season 3 Setting Cruz Up to Replace Joe?
Joe clearly sees Cruz and Josie as more than temporary field assets. Zoe Saldana has explained that Joe’s hope is for the younger Lionesses eventually to be capable of filling her position, because she knows the program will continue to need women prepared for that work. Saldana also described Cruz and Josie as people from fractured backgrounds who have found family and purpose through the program.
That makes their relationship relevant beyond romance. If Cruz or Josie moves closer to Joe’s level of responsibility, they may eventually have to make decisions about operatives that resemble the decisions Joe once made about Cruz. Their personal bond would then exist inside the same system that routinely exploits personal bonds to accomplish missions.
For the moment, however, Season 3 has not broken them apart. Cruz and Josie remain together, Episode 3 contains no confirmed cheating, and the honeypot briefing is about Russia’s methods rather than a new assignment for either woman. The reason the scene deserves attention is subtler: Lioness has just reminded viewers that intimacy itself can become an intelligence weapon, and Cruz knows better than almost anyone what happens when the person inside the operation stops pretending to feel something.
