Joe vs Carole

Stan began streaming the series March 4, with every episode now available for viewing. Additionally, a new trailer for the show dropped on Friday detailing the ...

Stan's Tiger King series Joe vs. The results prove dangerous,' the description reads. 'She sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry.

Kate McKinnon stars in a misguided docudrama that veers haphazardly between bad taste dramatics and hairbrained comedy.

By the time Carole is set up by the makers of Tiger King and “turned into an internet meme” in the show’s eighth episode, Joe vs Carole has had its cake and eaten it, too: critiquing a culture that catapulted two troubled people to instant fame, while simultaneously recreating their stories for laughs and faux concern. Tiger King’s appeal – however misguided – was its proximity to reality, and the voyeuristic thrill of watching a convoluted and undeniably loopy story. Tiger King explored the stranger-than-fiction saga of Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, flamboyant rivals in the big cat world.

Reviews are in for Kate McKinnon's new Peacock series Joe vs. Carole, and it's tough out there in the wild.

Let’s take a look at the reviews — roasts are probably a better word for them — and some of the more interesting opinions about Joe vs. Despite starring the unquestionably talented John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon as the title characters, the critics seem to think this story was one best left back in 2020, and they are not pulling their punches. Critics were able to screen the series ahead of its release, and well, it’s tough out there in the wild.

This wildly entertaining series starring John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon as Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin explores the tragedies told so ...

Reporting like this is vital for democracy, for fairness and to demand better from the powerful. Its tone so far is more suited to energetic hijinks than it is to death and sorrow.For now though, it tries to find the humanity in the story and in the characters caught up in it. But there is also a sheep spray-painted to look like a tiger, a kiss with a camel and Exotic striding into a gay bar with a big cat on a chain, looking for love. For all of the operatic insanity, there are tragedies at the heart of it, and by the end of episode three this has to address them. Joe vs Carole review – it’s Tiger King the drama … and it’s surprisingly sensitive Half absurd, half empathic … John Cameron Mitchell as Joe Exotic in Joe vs Carole. Photograph: Peacock/Mark TaylorHalf absurd, half empathic … John Cameron Mitchell as Joe Exotic in Joe vs Carole. Photograph: Peacock/Mark TaylorThis wildly entertaining series starring John Cameron Mitchell and Kate McKinnon as Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin explores the tragedies told so bombastically in Tiger King … and never tips into parodyf all the true-life dramas that have made their way to our screens lately, Joe vs Carole (Peacock/Now TV) is the most perplexing. It is hard to see why it needed to be made, given that the sheer outrageousness of the Joe Exotic/Carole Baskin big cat feud already seen in Netflix’s bombastic documentary Tiger King (though this new show is based on a podcast, rather than that series). It is also hard to see how the makers would ever be able to shape a story so far-fetched that if it were not true, it would be beyond the realms of possibility to seem in any way believable.

The creator of the queer cult classics “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus” steps into the mainstream as the flamboyant zoo owner Joe Exotic.

Then there are the moments when he’s both of those people at once, gently coercing the stray young men who find sanctuary at the zoo and ultimately a place by his side and in his bed. “His relationship with his husband of 17 years, who died of AIDS, which is barely touched upon in the docuseries, defined him fully,” Mitchell said. Later, he hosted a monthly dance party, which was the eponym of “Shortbus,” at the Greenwich Village club West 8th. Although it’s a sympathetic portrayal — the same way that McKinnon plays Baskin as a woman plagued by emotional and physical abuse — Mitchell doesn’t shy away from Exotic’s explosive nature. He was lured back with a guest-starring role on Lena Dunham’s “Girls” in 2013 and, since then, has worked on and off as a character actor in series such as “Mozart in the Jungle” and “Shrill.” Exotic detailed allegations of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of his father and brother in “Tiger King: The Official Tell-All Memoir,” which was published after the death of his father last year. Although he found directorial success with 2010’s “Rabbit Hole,” which earned Nicole Kidman multiple best actress nominations, Mitchell didn’t act on screen in the 2000s outside of his own productions. “I was told I had to be in the closet. Hedwig is abandoned shortly after making it to the U.S., one of a series of heartbreaking rejections. Mitchell was so intrigued by the character that he sent in a self-taped audition, his first in 27 years. “But that was more autobiographical,” Mitchell said of playing the podcast lead. Both tragic figures are forged by inhospitable surroundings, what Mitchell described as “the lower classes, a homophobic, kind of rednecky environment.” Exotic, or Joseph Maldonado-Passage (né Schreibvogel), was born in Kansas and grew up in Oklahoma, Texas and elsewhere, as the family was moved around by his Korean War veteran father.

John Cameron Mitchell is terrific in Peacock's otherwise unnecessary limited series.

The ragged seams of a hurried cash-in are plainly evident in Joe vs. But for the purposes of the series, Mitchell brings a crucial texture and thoughtfulness, rescuing Joe vs. He’s worked plenty since, as a director and an actor, but he’s probably not the biggest name the producers of Joe vs. Peacock, that fledgling bird, hopes that there is enough nostalgia for the Tiger King phenomenon that people will tune into the new scripted series Joe vs. Those people may reach for the individual pastime markers of that era: for the “Imagine” video (it’s possible!), for the first season of Love Is Blind (now in its second season), and, of course, for Tiger King. One of the peculiarities of the human mind is that we can grow nostalgic for almost anything, even something awful.