Aug 30, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 13 segments
Samantha and the pseudonymous commentator Secretary of Defense Rock talk "Lioness," "Sicario," and the broader Taylor Sheridan-verse as a Rosetta stone for untangling right-wing policy from the border…
Samantha Hancox-LiHostAnd I agree with you that Sheridan is often a very political writer or a political producer, right? That these are the kinds of shows where people will turn to the camera and make a speech about American decadence.
Or in Landsman, it's like, you know, Billy Bob Thornton turns to the camera and explains that wind turbines aren't profitable and in fact produce more carbon than they save.
None of that's true, right? But like they are like almost thuddingly political shows at times, right? He's not like shying away from politics in any sense of the word.
But I guess what I want to ask you about here, we're kind of going to be unavoidably talking about politics.
But it is the aesthetics of violence that Sicario, in particular, is almost kind of a nihilistic movie, where it seems, on the surface level, at some point, Josh Brolin turns to the camera and explains the big plan for controlling drug violence or whatever.
And we just need more cool special forces guys with cool glasses and who look good in plate carriers to do more violence.
Well, it's kind of interesting.
So the first film basically ends with, there's a scene and it's at a baseball field in Mexico and you're just, you hear a gunfire in the distance and that's just how the movie ends.
And again, it leads to this, well, this cycle is just going to continue regardless of what they think they accomplished.
And then you get into the second film, which I'm not sure if Sheridan actually had anything to do with, but it's sort of like, i believe he's a writer of some kind on the second film as well so it was not directed by villanueva and you can see they dial it up as far as again this it kind of runs a lot of the same themes back but it does dial up as far as now you have predator drones now you have private military contractors but helicopters running around but it's still sort of the same theme as far as you're trying to use violence to kind of control or curtail uh the drug trade but again it really focuses on this particular against special forces special activities it's not some regular guy in the army it's this very particular type of quote unquote operator, which drives me nuts as a military term and as, or, or warfighter, whatever you want to use.
But, um, that is kind of the theme.
And it's funny again, to bring it, the lioness is how Sheridan plays as an operator, uh, I would say cosplays as an operator, really, which, again, if that's what he wants to do, then I can sort of chuckle.
But it's, again, these big manly buff men who, again, go door to door.
They kill bad guys.
They do all these different things.
But again, it's that visualization of like a little bird landing in Mexico and shooting up.
some warehouse with a bunch of drug cartel members.
That's the lore of the movie and the TV shows, but that doesn't really reflect reality.
And again, what's interesting, the difference between the movie and I think the TV show is the movie sort of, again, takes this nihilistic view, whereas the TV show takes it in sort of a political culture war type of view, which is if we just do that more, then that will resolve some of these underlying issues.
And I agree with you that Sheridan is often a very political writer or a political producer, right? That these are the kinds of shows where people will turn to the camera and make a speech about American decadence.
Or in Landsman, it's like, you know, Billy Bob Thornton turns to the camera and explains that wind turbines aren't profitable and in fact produce more carbon than they save.
None of that's true, right? But like they are like almost thuddingly political shows at times, right? He's not like shying away from politics in any sense of the word.
But I guess what I want to ask you about here, we're kind of going to be unavoidably talking about politics.
But it is the aesthetics of violence that Sicario, in particular, is almost kind of a nihilistic movie, where it seems, on the surface level, at some point, Josh Brolin turns to the camera and explains the big plan for controlling drug violence or whatever.
And we just need more cool special forces guys with cool glasses and who look good in plate carriers to do more violence.
Well, it's kind of interesting.
So the first film basically ends with, there's a scene and it's at a baseball field in Mexico and you're just, you hear a gunfire in the distance and that's just how the movie ends.
And again, it leads to this, well, this cycle is just going to continue regardless of what they think they accomplished.
And then you get into the second film, which I'm not sure if Sheridan actually had anything to do with, but it's sort of like, i believe he's a writer of some kind on the second film as well so it was not directed by villanueva and you can see they dial it up as far as again this it kind of runs a lot of the same themes back but it does dial up as far as now you have predator drones now you have private military contractors but helicopters running around but it's still sort of the same theme as far as you're trying to use violence to kind of control or curtail uh the drug trade but again it really focuses on this particular against special forces special activities it's not some regular guy in the army it's this very particular type of quote unquote operator, which drives me nuts as a military term and as, or, or warfighter, whatever you want to use.
But, um, that is kind of the theme.
And it's funny again, to bring it, the lioness is how Sheridan plays as an operator, uh, I would say cosplays as an operator, really, which, again, if that's what he wants to do, then I can sort of chuckle.
But it's, again, these big manly buff men who, again, go door to door.
They kill bad guys.
They do all these different things.
But again, it's that visualization of like a little bird landing in Mexico and shooting up.
some warehouse with a bunch of drug cartel members.
That's the lore of the movie and the TV shows, but that doesn't really reflect reality.
And again, what's interesting, the difference between the movie and I think the TV show is the movie sort of, again, takes this nihilistic view, whereas the TV show takes it in sort of a political culture war type of view, which is if we just do that more, then that will resolve some of these underlying issues.
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