TV shows can only coast for so long on an interesting hook or premise. What keeps audiences engaged and invested over the long run is an ensemble of compelling characters. Taylor Sheridan has all but perfected this with his expanding Yellowstone franchise, and his standalone series, Lioness, is no different. The spy thriller fleshes out complex and morally gray protagonists who are all the more relatable because they’re far from perfect, and one in particular proved such a standout that they survived their original Season 1 story arc.
Joe McNamara (Zoe Saldaña) endures absolute hell to get things done in the series, battling rigid bureaucracy while surviving field missions that constantly went sideways. It doesn’t help that she’s also working with operatives who go rogue on a whim, especially Kyle McManus (Thad Luckinbill), her loose cannon colleague. Kyle quickly became a fan-favorite character because he amplifies every scene with his intensity and cowboy swagger, but he was actually written as a side character. Speaking with MovieWeb, Luckinbill said he did not expect his character to last long in the show.
“Kyle was a little bit of a last-minute addition to the show. He wasn’t one of the original series regulars. I came on in the third episode of the first season, and I don’t even know if there was an intention of him being part of the series.”
Kyle is an agent of chaos in Season 1. He repeatedly puts Joe’s life and career at risk by running poorly planned missions, and he always chooses to escalate instead of defusing situations when things go south. He’s a complete foil to Joe, who always plays by the book and abides by protocol. In contrast, Kyle is a gun-toting cowboy who likes to cut corners. He is Joe’s antithesis, and that’s why the showrunners kept him around. “The way Taylor wrote him, he clicked right in with the group that was already there, and it made a lot of sense with Joe,” Luckinbill added.
Kyle is but one of the handful of “promoted” main characters across the Taylor Sheridan universe. Ryan and Colby were initially relegated as comic relief or background characters in Yellowstone, but both were later given their own subplots and romantic arcs. In Tulsa King, Freddy started as a security guard at Dwight Manfredi’s weed dispensary before he was brought into the crime family’s broader operations. Spencer, James, and Margaret Dutton were first teased in brief Yellowstone flashbacks before they were introduced as the main protagonists in the prequel spin-offs.
Sheridan’s character-first approach to storytelling is the reason his universe feels organic. His shows may be formulaic with their heavy reliance on narrative tropes and archetypes, but he allows the characters to outgrow those templates when they connect with audiences. Characters are not merely inhabitants of the Sheridan universe; they are active participants in the expansion, with each new season or spin-off serving as a natural extension of the lore viewers are already invested in.
- Release Date
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July 23, 2023
- Network
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Paramount+
- Directors
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John Hillcoat, Anthony Byrne, Paul Cameron, Stephen Kay, Taylor Sheridan
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Laysla De Oliveira
Cruz Manuelos
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