‘Lioness’ Ep. 7: Babat’s Motivations Revealed! [PREVIEW]

Lioness viewers have finally met the instigator for Season 3 and he's a bad, bad man. Babat's motivations aren't quite clear yet, but they will be soon.

We're going to find out why he's after Joe during Ep. 7. A new trailer for the penultimate episode of Season 3 also teases a huge gunfight between several law enforcement agencies and Babat's motorcade. It's the sort of scene you'd expect from the finale.

• Ep. 7 of Lioness is called "Kiss the Girls." It premieres on Paramount+ this Sunday (Sept. 13).
• Pictures from the episode (seen below) are mostly closeups of various cast members.
• Season 3 of Lioness is eight episodes long, with the finale streaming on Sept. 20.

Spoilers coming, so if you've not yet watched the first six episodes of Season 3 of Lioness, be warned. There's also a theory that just makes too much sense to be wrong.

Lioness, Season 3 Episode 6 Recap

One of two timelines driving Season 3 of Lioness appears to be nearing a conclusion. The government's roundup of all foreign operatives working to advance communist goals is complete, with dozens of arrests, several U.S. officials resigning and one suicide that Cruz and Tucker were there to witness.

Joe tells her family they can return home and everyone prepares to celebrate a job well done. We still don't know how the agents identified Joe, but the country is more secure when the dust settles. It was probably the Russians anyways, right?

Except it wasn't. Apparently the Russians are too afraid of going to war with the U.S. and they weren't the ones targeting a senior case officer. This means the mission to capture Yurimov in Ep. 1 was subterfuge. What's playing out is more personal.

Kyle (played by longtime Young and the Restless star Thad Luckinbill) locates the Urkanian double agent who provided information necessary to tumble these dominoes. Her name is Oleksandra Balakin but she now goes by Paige Weaver and lives in witness protection in Tulsa, Okla.

The meeting takes place in present day, six days after Joe's abduction. Balakin disputes the government's working theory that the Russians are behind all of this and wonders if Joe had upset any Iranians. Kyle can't bluff.

Joe has indeed upset Iran. At the end of last season, she led a team that bombed a motorcade carrying Chinese scientists through Iran to assist with the country's nuclear program. Is that enough motive for what comes next?

There are at least two more theories.

Who Is Babat and What Does He Want?

The final 15 minutes of Episode 6 of Lioness are brutal. An Iranian named Babat emerges as the true leader of the operation and he begins to abuse Joe in preparation for her extraction. His speech (watch actor Kamyar Jahan's audition tape on his Instagram) is chilling.

It's hard to believe he's simply acting as an agent of the state however.

At the end of the scene, Babat scrapes his knife down Joe's body and cuts off her pinky toe just to hear her scream. Then, they all pack into a pair of black SUVs and drive out of the Houston neighborhood they were hiding in.

Lioness, Season 3 Episode 7 Preview

The trailer shared after last week's episode indicates that Babat and his men don't get far. There is an intense gunfight and Joe's team arrives via helicopter. It's hard to believe the good guys all survive but their track record is impeccable through three seasons so I'm not placing bets.

We'll surely learn why Babat's feud with Joe is so personal. Some have suggested it goes back further than the Season 2 Iran confrontation and that maybe he's a relative of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a real-life terrorist that the show says Joe helped kill some 20 years ago.

He wasn't Iranian however.

Another theory is that this goes back to Season 1, when Joe embedded Cruz in with Asmar Ali Amrohi, the leader of an Iranian-backed mission in Iraq. That theory checks the "personal" box, especially if Babat was kin to Amrohi.

Could a single man finance the kind of mission Balakin talks about however?

If so, then Cruz is definitely in trouble because she seduced Aaliyah on her way to killing Amrohi. Sunday can't get here quick enough.