[14] Casting continued in September, with the additions of Dave Annable, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton and Hannah Love Lanier.

[17][18][19] On May 9, 2024, it was reported that returning cast members for season two include Zoe Saldaña, Laysla De Oliveira, Michael Kelly, and Nicole Kidman, with Morgan Freeman being promoted to a series regular role.

[8] It was later noted that Sheridan played a role named Cody - the KT tape-wrapped Delta Force Operator who assured an iffy Joe.

[citation needed] In May 2024, production for the second season officially began, relocating from the gritty streets of Baltimore, Maryland, to the expansive landscapes of Texas.

[29] The red carpet premiere for the series, initially slated for 18 July 2023 at the Directors Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles, was canceled due to the impact of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike in the United States.

[33] Despite praising the performances of Laysla De Oliveira and Zoe Saldaña, Anita Singh of The Daily Telegraph criticized "the one thing that lets the show down is Nicole Kidman as a CIA boss, whose frozen face these days is a total distraction".

[35] Tania Hussain of Collider praised the performance of the cast but criticised the show as "flawed story" and found Taylor Sheridan was struggling to write about women.

"[37][38] Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter criticized the script as "seems to be constructed with the assumption that most of the audience will only be half-watching while scrolling Facebook on their phones anyway" but couldn't deny the fact that "there is one aspect of Special Ops: Lioness that shines through clear as day no matter how much or how little of your focus you've directed toward it, and that is its reverence for the U.S. Marine Corps".

[40] Reviewer Mike Hale, writing for The New York Times, wrote that the show "turned out to be a moody, suspenseful, textured genre piece with characters you cared about," and that "Sheridan found a form, the action thriller, that suits him better than the western soap operas and contemporary crime dramas that he has produced up to now."

Initially, when only screening the first episode, Hale wrote the show "looks like an awful lot of other counterterrorism thrillers, with a visceral punch to its action and a ticky-tacky, backlot feel.

[34] The first season achieved a milestone by becoming the streamer's most-watched worldwide series premiere on launch day at the time, drawing nearly 6 million total viewers in its first week across Paramount+ globally and during a linear preview on the Paramount Network.

[49] According to Nielsen's latest data, measuring only U.S. views on TV sets, the second season was placed #8[50] and #5[51] position in the original series chart during the week of October 28–November 3 and November 4–10, respectively.