The series is based on the second season of Wondery's Over My Dead Bodypodcast, entitled Joe Exotic: Tiger King (before being retitled to Joe vs. Carole), which follows the criminal case of Joe Exotic, a zookeeper who has been convicted of murder-for-hire.[1][2] The series received mixed to negative reviews upon release.
In March 2020, following the commercial success of the Netflix series Tiger King, development started on a limited series adaptation of Carole Baskin's life, headed by Universal Content Productions, with Kate McKinnon executive producing and portraying Baskin, and is based on Joe Exotic: Tiger King, later retitled to Joe vs Carole, which is the second season of Wondery's Over My Dead Bodypodcast.[5][6] The series was expected to air on NBC, Peacock, and USA Network (the show eventually made its linear premiere on the latter network in October 2022).[7][8] In May 2021, it was announced that the series would instead be streaming exclusively on Peacock.[9] The series was created by Etan Frankel, who also served as writer and executive producer, while Justin Tipping directed the first four episodes, including the pilot.[3] It was also announced that Natalie Bailey would direct episodes five, six, and seven.[4]
On January 21, 2022, the show's title was announced, and its March 3, 2022 release date was revealed in the first trailer.[10]
Casting
In June 2021, Dean Winters, John Cameron Mitchell, Brian Van Holt, Sam Keeley, Nat Wolff, and Dennis Quaid were cast to portray Jeff Lowe, Joe Exotic, John Reinke, John Finlay, Travis Maldonado, and Rick Kirkham, respectively.[3] In July 2021, William Fichtner replaced Quaid in the role of Kirkham.[11] In the same month, Kyle MacLachlan, Lex Mayson, Joel Marsh Garland, Marlo Kelly, and Aliandra Calabrese joined the series, to portray Howard Baskin, Kelci "Saff" Saffery, James Garretson, Jamie Murdock, and Lauren Lowe respectively.[12][13] In September 2021, Will McNeill, Jack Scott, Jenna Owen, Nic English, Benedict Hardie, Shareena Clanton, Alexandra Jensen, and Anthony Sharpe were revealed to have been added to the supporting cast during production, to portray Tyler, Joshua Dial, Amber, Brian Rhyne, Agent Thomas, Susan, Chealsi, and Erik Cowie, respectively.[4]
Review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 33% based on 27 critic reviews, with an average rating of 5.40/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mitchell do an admirable job of bringing these larger-than-life figures back down to earth, but Joe vs. Carole feels like a pale retread of an already overdone tale."[15]Metacritic assigned the series a weighted average score of 53 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed to average reviews".[16]
