Lionesses in the vault
Being short of money is the one crisis that needs no translation. It levels degrees, backgrounds and good intentions. It makes otherwise sensible people calculate the unthinkable in the quiet of the night.
We’ve all felt the squeeze — the big bill that arrives early, the not-so-big salary that arrives late, the small humiliation of checking your balance before you check your pride. Most of us swallow it, adjust, compromise. But what happens when that squeeze hardens into something sharper? When survival stops feeling patient and starts feeling urgent?
Set in the South of France, the eight part, money-heist, French series Cash Queens (Les Lionnes or lionesses) takes that universal anxiety and pushes it past morality’s comfort zone — into the vault and quite literally too, for this series is about women bank robbers.
With 1.3 million views in the last week, the series has been trending in the Top 10 in over 30 countries including France itself, where the series tops the charts and comes in at #1. Cash Queens also ranks highly in Brazil, Chile, Kenya, South] Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
Stolen cash, and a bunch of women, my mind raced to Good Girls (2018-2021) and I decided that very moment that Cash Queens sounds very similar and hence must be added to my watch-list. A second later I thought, no, this has to be watched straight away. That night I binged more than four episodes because I couldn’t stop until divine intervention occurred, and that [legendary or mythical] evil fish in the bottom of the ocean chomped my wifi away!
The reason for my swift change of heart was simple. I expected Cash Queens to be a lot like Good Girls) which ran for a good four seasons, by which time we were so completely enamoured by the characters including the charismatic antagonist Rio played by Manny Montana, the dramatic lives and the shenanigans of the three leading ladies, that even four seasons of the series were not enough and left us wanting more.
The comparison between Good Girls and Cash Queens felt inevitable, and not merely because both shows centre on women who turn to robbery when conventional routes fail them. Good Girls trained audiences to see financial desperation through a distinctly female lens — one that balanced domesticity with danger, humour with dread. It reframed the suburban mother not as passive victim but as reluctant outlaw. So when Cash Queens opened with cash-strapped women weighing impossible choices, it was hard not to measure its pulse against that earlier series.
Yet the compulsion to compare also reveals something else: how rare it still is to see heist narratives anchored unapologetically in female friendship. When a story arrives in that narrow but growing lane, we instinctively look for its closest relative.
Creators Olivier Rosemberg and Carine Prévôt kicked the series off with a super entertaining introduction to characters and their incredulous story where Rosalie (Rebecca Marder) and Kim (Zoé Marchal) are in a toy store aisle, debating about which of two Barbie dolls they should get for their friend Sofia's daughter's birthday.
Soon, we find Kim encouraging the pregnant Rosalie to get both, as she has "room" for them. We soon get clued in to the fact that Rosalie isn't actually pregnant, but she safely stows the Barbies inside a bowl under her shirt masquerading as a pregnant belly.
In the next few following scenes, we ascertain that there are some are real and highly relatable issues behind the fun in Cash Queens. Rosalie, Kim, and Sofia are all in desperate financial straits in their own ways, as is Rosalie's young cousin Alex. So, when they know that they are not going to get any help from the French government or their employers, they make the hard but inevitable choice that will change their lives. They plan to steal 100,000 euros from the bank where Rosalie works.
Yet despite a broadly similar premise — cash-strapped women joining forces to rob a neighbourhood bank, convinced the heist will transform their futures — Cash Queens moves faster and tighter. Wrapped in just eight pacey episodes, it gives viewers little time to sit back and speculate. The build-up, the robbery, and the rapid spiral that follows unfold at a brisk clip. Soon, the lionesses are forced to improvise an escape plan to keep themselves — and their families — safe.
Which brings me, at the risk of a spoiler, to a fabulously filmed car chase — easily one of the show’s standout sequences. It evokes some of Hollywood’s most iconic pursuits, from Bullitt and The French Connection to more modern spectacles such as Mad Max: Fury Road and The Matrix Reloaded.
Cash Queens is based on the real-life “Gang des Amazones,” five working-class childhood friends from L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse region of France. Beginning in 1989, they committed a series of seven bank robberies and one agency heist, disguising themselves as men with wigs and fake moustaches. Between January 1989 and July 1990, they stole nearly 300,000 francs to support their children before being arrested in 1991. Their audacity and unusual methods earned them lasting notoriety.
The series also arrives at a time when women in crime narratives are no longer confined to the margins. From passive damsels in distress, women have moved into central roles as investigators, protagonists and architects of chaos. Pioneered in literature by figures like Agatha Christie and Anna Katharine Green, female-driven crime storytelling now explores power, rage and resilience across genres — from cozy mysteries to hard-boiled thrillers.
Cinema has mirrored this evolution. Women in crime films have shifted from 1940s femme fatales and helpless victims to complex detectives, assassins and heist leaders, reflecting a growing appetite for female-driven action. True crime, particularly among women viewers, remains immensely popular — perhaps because it blends psychological intrigue with a sense of self-preservation. It can function as a kind of “dress rehearsal,” offering insight into criminal psychology while allowing audiences to confront fears within a controlled space.
There are still relatively few heist shows built around an all-female ensemble. After the success of Sky Rojo (2021), this French dramedy feels like it bridges a lingering gap — delivering the fast-paced, women-in-crime narrative many viewers crave.
That said, while the creators clearly intended the series as a dramedy, it might have been stronger as a straightforward crime thriller. The reliance on occasional bawdy humour dilutes the tension and distracts from what could have been a sharper central narrative, especially given the gravity of what the women are navigating.
To be fair, certain characters — particularly Kim and Victor — are naturally funny without trying. However, several side characters struggle to land their comedic moments. At times, roles brimming with potential feel underwritten. Even so, the cliffhanger ending compensates somewhat, leaving viewers curious about what lies ahead.
What lingers, however, is the uneasy question of justification. The series clearly wants us to understand these women before we judge them. Their debts are real, their options limited, their responsibilities heavy. But does understanding slide too easily into endorsement? By framing them as struggling mothers and daughters cornered by circumstance, the show risks softening the moral edges of what they do. Financial desperation is presented as the spark — but at times it begins to feel like a quiet alibi. We are invited to root for their escape, to admire their ingenuity, to thrill at their audacity. Less space is given to the anonymous employees, the shaken customers, or the broader cost of their actions. The bank becomes a faceless institution, which makes the theft easier to swallow. Yet crime, even when born of hardship, rarely lands on abstractions alone. The tension between explanation and excuse hovers just beneath the surface, and it is in that unresolved space that the series is most interesting.
Overall, Cash Queens makes for engaging weekend viewing. It launches strongly, dips slightly midway, and regains footing with a well-handled finale. The final moments saw Rosa asking Sofia to take care of her kids while she surrendered to the cops. The other two friends Kim and Sofia took Alex to the hospital while Chloe and Malik, two important characters are passed out in the latter’s car after the crash.
None of these arcs are really finished and there’s lots of unanswered questions too, including what happened to a dead body in a suitcase at the airport, and the outcome of Marionnaud, the town’s shady and corrupt mayor’s arrest.
While it never quite realises its full potential, it delivers brisk, entertaining heist drama — and leaves one wondering if there is another season on the horizon.