Joan Premiere Transforms Sophie Turner Into Real-Life Jewel Thief — How Accurate Is The CW Series?
Five years after being crowned Queen of the North, Sophie Turner is back on TV playing another desperate woman pushed to her limits by men and misfortune. But while Sansa Stark was a work of pure fantasy, Turner’s new role — the titular jewel thief of The CW’s Joan — is all too real, proving that fact can be just as wild as fiction. OK, maybe with a few less dragons.
Turner stars as Joan Hannington, a real-life criminal whose 2004 memoir serves as the basis for this six-part limited series, which kicked off on Wednesday. When we meet Joan in 1985, she’s a relatively carefree single mother working as a waitress (in a cock-ta-a-il bar!) to support her young daughter. But everything changes when a pair of gangsters shows up at Joan’s apartment looking for her no-good boyfriend, threatening to kill her daughter if she doesn’t cooperate.
More from TVLine
This jarring turn of events puts Joan in a wig on the run, forcing her daughter into foster care while she attempts to make a better life for both of them. Cutting hair at her sister’s London salon proves a temporary solution, until Joan gets a taste of the good life — a very literal taste, actually. Less than a month into her second gig at a jewelry store, Joan impulsively swallows a handful of sparkling diamonds. It’s a bold move, but her new boss is also a total perv, so we aren’t about to snitch on her.
Joan nurses her expensive indigestion with a drink at a local pub, where she brazenly introduces herself as a “thief” to a handsome stranger named Boisie. And when Joan awakens on his couch the next morning, her first order of business is to, uh, retrieve the swallowed diamonds. For his sake, we really hope she threw out that strainer when she was finished.
Joan, who has now gone all in on the jewel thief thing, offers to sell the diamonds to Boisie during a visit to his shady antique store. A thief in his own right, Boisie is intrigued by Joan, and the two agree to become business partners.
Given that Joan is based on a memoir written by Hannington herself, the six-episode limited series is an accurate retelling of her life as one of England’s most notorious (and glamorous) criminals, albeit with a few creative liberties taken. Boisie, for example, was actually Ronald Thomas Hannington, later nicknamed Benny Boisie. And here’s another fun fact: the bartender in the scene where Joan and Boisie met was played by Joan Hannington’s real-life son! We love an Easter egg.
Did Joan successfully steal your attention, or did you find her story hard to swallow? Weigh in via our polls below, then drop a comment with your full review.
Best of TVLine
Sign up for TVLine's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
