Review: Peacock's 'Joe vs Carole' a Binge-Worthy Specatcle

Streaming service Peacock brings the insanely out-of-control feud between two big cat enthusiasts – Joe Exotic, who ran a zoo in Oklahoma, and Carole Baskin, who runs an animal sanctuary in Florida – to dramatic miniseries life with "Joe vs. Carole," an eight-part adaptation of the story, starring "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" creator John Cameron Mitchell as Joe and "SNL" cast member Kate McKinnon as Carole.

A little more leavened than the Netflix documentary, "Joe vs. Carole" contextualizes its characters by providing backstory and delving into their dreams and perceptions. In the process, the series fleshes out the main players, a cast of captivatingly imperfect people who blend bug-nuts delusion, volcanic passions, and inane bumbling – sometimes with tragic results.

Joe is out, proud, and utterly without a filter. Sometimes he's without a clue as when, early on, he tries to solve the problem of a tiger that's too sick to appear for the audience by painting a sheep with orange and black stripes and trotting that out, instead. If Joe seems extreme, the miniseries asks us to take in to account a past marred by internalized homophobia and a dramatic suicide attempt that resulted in months of physical therapy – a stint that, improbably enough, led to his love of big cats and completely reshaped his life by giving him a new, and perhaps obsessive, purpose.

What we learn about Carole helps us make sense of her own obsessions, which include saving big cats from abusive breeders and exhibitors. (Clearly, she identifies with the animals' plight.) But while her ambition of shutting down exploitive businesses and ushering in a federal law to protect big cats is laudable, is her vitriol toward Joe warranted? The evidence here is sketchy; Joe might not be the most responsible person, but he's shown here as deeply loving toward his animals, perhaps more so than to the army of loyal, if ragtag, workers at his zoo, or his husbands –�five in all, though we only meet four of them in the series. (Emblematic of his determination to do things his own way, Joe married two of them at once, in a single ceremony.)

The series introduces a dazzling array of characters, each more outlandish than the last: John (Sam Keeley) is a handsome, strapping zoo worker Joe takes a shine to; he's unexpectedly sensitive, though he bears up as best he can while Joe, stressed and enraged by Carole's attacks, starts to spin out of control. Travis (Nat Wolff) is another handsome, sensitive soul; when Joe falls in love with Travis, too, he doesn't see any reason not to make his domestic arrangement into a threesome. When Joe decides to run for governor, he hires filmmaker Rick Kirkham (William Fictner), formerly on pills but now a drinker. Eventually, Joe enters into a business arrangement with the flamboyantly macho Jeff Lowe (Dean Winters), who brings along a chainsaw-wielding assistant, Allen Glover (Kenneth Radley), with whom Joe enters into a quite different, and ultimately fateful, business arrangement on the side.

(It's worth noting that, via flashbacks, we also meet Joe's first husband –�yet another delectable fellow named Brian, played by Nic English).

Carole is as tireless and too tightly wound, as Joe, and she also has a horde of memorable people around her, some for better and others for worse. In flashback we see her fraught relationships with her abusive first husband and her controlling second husband (who went missing, eventually triggering speculation that Carole might have disposed of him... by feeding him to a tiger, perhaps?). Husband #3 is Howard Baskin (Kyle McLaughlin), who seems, by contrast, altogether too perfect; he's endlessly supportive, unflappably collected, and – as someone says in what might be a supremely backhanded compliment –�"vanilla." Then there's Carole's daughter, Jamie (played marvelously by Marlo Kelly), who is as competent as Carole herself and several notches calmer.

Like Joe, Carole is someone who's not going to back down –�unlike Joe, though, she's organized and methodical. What's surprising isn't who wins in this contest of wills, but how many bizarre and improbable twists the story takes in reaching its inevitable conclusion. Like a page ripped from a trashy tabloid and folded into an absurdly elaborate, grotesque origami, the narrative becomes ever more strange and complicated, yet is unfailingly bound to the erratic logic of Joe and Carole's psyches.

If "Tiger King" entranced you, then get ready for a deeper dive in this dramatization. If you skipped the Netflix sensation, you're in for a revelation that will stun, shock, amuse, and leave you asking the only possible question: "WTF?!"

"Joe vs. Carole" premieres on Peacock March 3.