Lioness Star Elizaveta Neretin Explains Why Oleksandra's Season 3 Fate Was Inevitable

The death of Oleksandra figures among the "Lioness" Season 3 finale's twists, though actress Elizaveta Neretin doesn't believe her character could have met a different fate. 

A Ukrainian double agent, Oleksandra facilitates the CIA's capture of a Russian target and helps rescue Joe (Zoe Saldaña) from foreign kidnappers. Entering witness protection doesn't save Oleksandra, as Byron Westfield (Michael Kelly) and Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) suspect her involvement in Joe's abduction and decide to have her eliminated. The CIA's theory turns out wrong, of course, and Aaliyah Amrohi (Stephanie Nur) is eventually revealed to be seeking revenge against Joe and the team for her father's killing in Season 1. 

Neretin admittedly wasn't thrilled when "Lioness" creator Taylor Sheridan informed her of Oleksandra's death. Despite preferring a happier ending for her character, the star saw why killing her off made more sense. "I thought it was going to happen. So when he called, and he told me, I was like, 'Yeah, I get it,'" Neretin told Fox News. "I'm sad for Oleksandra and what Oleksandra represents, but I understand the choice. It does serve this. It serves to show how the whole system is. Like American or not American, the whole system and the people that work in the system. It's all sharks, you know, so it just demonstrates how people are."

Although Elizaveta Neretin's Oleksandra featured as a pivotal character in "Lioness" Season 3, her bleak ending doesn't even make it on-screen. The finale merely shows two Delta Force operators taking Oleksandra from her safehouse before a later scene depicts a jogger stumbling upon her corpse near a trail. It's perhaps a strange omission coming from Taylor Sheridan, whose shows often tackle the brutality of the American West and criminal empires in addition to the violent military operations "Lioness" depicts.

During an interview with Decider, Neretin shared her thoughts on Sheridan's choice not to include Oleksandra's final moments alive. "We didn't film her actual murder, but I wonder if that's more of a question for Taylor," she said. "He writes some pretty gruesome things... Good writing means you don't write the things that are obvious. The viewers already knew she was going to die. So, what would be the purpose of showing her being murdered? Every scene has to have a purpose. Again, I don't want to speak for Taylor, but perhaps that's why the audience only saw her dead body. That's all they needed to see."

Neretin found herself in a similar position on Sheridan's crime thriller "Mayor of Kingstown" when her character Vera was killed in the 2021 pilot episode. Some might argue that Oleksandra deserved better at the end of "Lioness" Season 3, but she gave the series a tragedy for the finale.