Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Joe Vs. Carole’ On Peacock, A Fictionalized Take On Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, And Their War Over Big Cats

When Tiger King permeated the zeitgeist at the beginning of the pandemic two years ago, it seemed inevitable that there would be a scripted series about Joe Exotic. But as the series played out, it became obvious that Exotic wasn’t the only massive personality in the story; Carole Baskin may not be as bombastic, but she surely is as fascinating as Joe, if not more. Given how popular the docuseries was, though, is a scripted series really necessary?

JOE VS. CAROLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As ABBA’s “Tiger” plays, we follow a cat around a house into a bedroom, where a woman wearing a leopard-print robe and pants contemplates putting on a headband. The doorbell rings, and we follow the woman to the door.

The Gist: That woman is Carole Baskin (Kate McKinnon), who runs Big Cat Rescue with her husband Howard (Kyle MacLachlan). At the door are two agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife division. They’re there to tell Carole and Howard that someone has hired a hitman to kill her. The Baskins know exactly who hired that hitman: Their archenemy Joe Exotic (John Cameron Mitchell).

As we see them at a gun shop trying to find a suitable weapon to “kill a hitman,” we flash back seven years. Baskin is bicycling through her sanctuary, but once she gets into her office, she’s not the hippy-dippy lady she seems to be. She is on top of every place where cruelty to big cats is reported. One of the companies, though, is new, and Carole really wants to find out where it is and who’s behind it.

We cut to a state fair, where Joe Exotic is presenting one of his wild animal shows. He’s a bombastic guy, with his blond mullet and black fu manchu mustache. He promises the audience a tiger, but the tiger they brought to the show is very sick. So he tries to pass off a painted sheep as a tiger, and of course the audience scratches its head. Unfazed, he still has audience members paying to pose with tiger cubs. That’s when he sees a volunteer from Big Cat Rescue poking around. The spy invokes the name of Carole Baskin; Joe has never heard of her, but she’s now on his radar.

When Joe returns to the GW Zoo, the roadside zoo he owns, he talks to a new employee, John Finlay (Sam Keeley); he shows him what the most awesome part of owning a zoo is, which is when he goes straight into one of the tigers’ cages goes right up to it and pets it.

Carole looks to shut down Joe when she realizes all the companies she’s going after are all owned by him, especially after he makes a fake Big Cat Rescue website that makes people think they stage fights between big cats. Her campaign to mass e-mail every mall and fair in a 1,000 mile radius, marshalling the forces of other animal rights activists in the effort, works wonders. But Joe Exotic is far from being defeated.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Joe Vs. Carole is essentially an extremely fictionalized version of Tiger King, with a tone that feels much like the recent series Pam & Tommy.

Our Take: The entire time we were watching the first episode of Joe Vs. Carole, we had a dual feeling that we just couldn’t shake. There were aspects of the series, created by Etan Frankel, that were entertaining (and others that weren’t, which we’ll get to). But at the same time, we kept asking ourselves just what the point of the show was, for various reasons.

It’s not like Tiger King was some obscure docuseries no one saw; if you recall, it pretty much permeated pop culture at the beginning of the pandemic two years ago. Everyone knew about Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, as well as the ancillary players in their drama. They also know that Exotic, currently sitting in a federal prison on various charges, is such a bombastic personality that it seems that no actor portrayal would do him justice. Carole’s flat-affect voice and hippy-dippy personality, with some deviousness behind it, was also well-documented.

The impression is that Frankel has taken the mileposts of the story and crafted a completely fictional narrative around it. Joe’s side of the story feels at least close to the exploits Joe showed his YouTube viewers, as well as what we saw in the extensive footage of him he shot and gave to Tiger King’s producers, and Cameron’s performance is surprisingly good, less of an impression than an interpretation. He looks a bit like Exotic, especially with the mullet and mustache, and he can replicate his unhinged manner and sexual hunger pretty well.

But McKinnon as Baskin is where we are left scratching our heads. It’s not just that McKinnon is 25 years younger than Baskin; it’s that she’s playing Baskin as if she’s still in her 30s or 40s and much more bad-ass and devious than her public persona lets on. She does a fine superficial impression of Baskin’s flat affect, but it feels like the version of Carole that Frankel and McKinnon (an executive producer of the series) have collaborated on is more fictional and outlandish than the real thing (who’s pretty outlandish all on her own).

That could be an result of the fact that there’s a lot less intimate video of Baskin than there is of Exotic, so there was less for Frankel to work with. But it also could be that Frankel and McKinnon took the opportunity to remake Baskin into the bad-ass they think she is. Problem is, it doesn’t jive with the Baskin America knows. Like we said, if Tiger King hadn’t been so popular, that could have been a valid artistic choice, but because it was, the choice they made just feels forced.

Sex and Skin: Joe hits on John, who says he’s straight. After asking John whether he watches porn and what he likes seeing when he watches (which feels like it was taken from a classic Ron White comedy bit). Then Joe goes down on John.

Parting Shot: As we flash between Carole and Joe, Carole says, “You don’t fuck with Carole Baskin.” Joe says, “That bitch poked the wrong goddamn bear.”

Sleeper Star: MacLachlan isn’t quite the jowly nebbish that Howard Baskin is in real life, but he does seem to do a good job of portraying Carole’s biggest supporter. Oh, and this is a good spot to mention Brian Van Holt, who plays John Reinke and is always welcome on our screens.

Most Pilot-y Line: It’s pretty obvious that all of the animals are CGI, but the CGI tigers — adults and cubs — look especially fake.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Despite some clever writing and decent performances, Joe Vs. Carole can’t really add to the craziness that the real-life Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin showed in Tiger King and all of its offshoots.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.