General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Average Joe

Average Joe is an American dark comedy crime drama television series created by Robb Cullen, starring Deon Cole as Joe Washington, a Pittsburgh plumber who learns that his recently deceased father secretly stole $10 million and a Lamborghini from the Russian mob, and that the mobsters now believe Joe knows where the money is.¹^•² The series premiered on June 26, 2023 on the streaming service BET+ and ran for ten one-hour episodes in its first season.¹

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	June 26, 2023 on BET+, with the first two episodes launching together¹
Creator	Robb Cullen; the series is inspired by his life¹
Premise	Plumber Joe Washington's late father Teddy skimmed $10 million and a Lamborghini from the Russian mob, and the mob comes after Joe²
Lead cast	Deon Cole (Joe Washington), Tammy Townsend (Angela), Malcolm Barrett (Leon), Cynthia Kaye McWilliams (Cathy), Michael Trucco (Benjamin "Touch" Tuchawuski)¹^•²
Seasons	Season 1: 10 episodes (2023, BET+); Season 2: 8 episodes (2026, Paramount+), 18 episodes total¹^•³^•⁴
Reception	Metacritic Metascore 73 (generally favorable); Rotten Tomatoes season 1 Tomatometer 88%; IMDb rating 7.3/10⁵^•⁶^•⁷
Current home	Paramount+, after the BET+ service was discontinued in June 2026⁸

Spoilers

Premise and setting

The series is a darkly comedic, intense one-hour drama set in "The Hill" district of Pittsburgh.¹ Joe Washington is a blue-collar plumber, a devoted Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and a husband to Angela and father to teenage daughter Jennifer.¹^•² The day after his father Teddy's funeral, Joe is attacked by Russian mobsters at his father's towing company office and learns that Teddy, who died in a fire, had been secretly working for the mob and skimmed $10 million and a Lamborghini from them.²^•⁹ A bloody confrontation then forces Joe and his close-knit circle of family and friends into a life-or-death race to find the truth and the money.¹

The mob boss Nicolai Dzhugashvili, played by Pasha Lychnikoff, hires the ex-assassin Arina to find the man who killed his son Dimitri, and the season follows Joe, his friend Leon, Leon's wife Cathy, and the family friend Touch, a Pittsburgh cop, as they dispose of bodies, hunt for the hidden cash, and dodge both the mob and Pennsylvania State Police sergeant Pam Talford.²^•⁹

Season 2

Season 2 premiered on August 19, 2026 on Paramount+, with the first two episodes available on premiere day and one new episode each Wednesday through the season finale on September 30, 2026.³^•¹¹ The eight-episode season moves the action to Cape Town, South Africa, where a mysterious new threat targeting Joe's family sends Joe, Leon, Cathy, and Touch in search of answers about his father's past.³^•⁴ New cast members include Katlego Lebogang as Imani, a young woman whose connection to Joe's family changes what he knows about his past, and Hakeem Kae-Kazim as Sipho, a Cape Town crime boss who pursues the group.³

The season's arrival on Paramount+ followed a change in where the series lives. The BET+ streaming service was discontinued in June 2026 and folded into Paramount+, which became the streaming home for BET programming, including Average Joe.⁸^•¹² Season 1 had also been added to Netflix in the United States in August 2024.¹³

Production and cast

Robb Cullen created the series and writes for it; it is inspired by his own life.¹^•³ Executive producers include McG, Robb Cullen, Eric Dean Seaton, Corey Marsh, Mary Viola, and Deb Evans, and the show is produced by Wonderland Sound and Vision and DAE Light Media.¹ Directors across the first season included Eric Dean Seaton, Christoph Schrewe, Marshall Tyler, David Katzenberg, and Joy T. Lane.¹

Deon Cole leads the cast as Joe Washington, his first lead role in a scripted series.¹^•¹⁰ Cole, a comedian and actor known for playing Charlie on ABC's Black-ish, won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series three consecutive times, in 2020, 2021, and 2022, for that role.¹ The principal cast also includes Tammy Townsend as Angela Washington, a diner waitress with a pain disorder and a strong moral compass; Malcolm Barrett as Leon Montgomery; Cynthia Kaye McWilliams as Cathy Montgomery; Michael Trucco as Benjamin "Touch" Tuchawuski; Ashley Olivia Fisher as Jennifer Washington; Pasha Lychnikoff as Nicolai Dzhugashvili; Chris Petrovski as Dimitri; and Ashani Roberts as Sgt. Pam Talford.²

Reception

Season 1 received generally favorable reviews. On Metacritic it holds a Metascore of 73 based on five critic reviews, four positive and one mixed.⁵ Entertainment Weekly scored it 83, praising its "enjoyably manic" energy, and the Wall Street Journal scored it 80, calling Cole's portrayal of Joe the centerpiece of the series.⁵ The Hollywood Reporter's review, at 70, highlighted the ensemble, especially Malcolm Barrett and Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, while RogerEbert.com's mixed review, at 50, judged that the writing diminished the cast's lively dialogue.⁵ On Rotten Tomatoes, season 1 holds an 88% Tomatometer from eight reviews.⁶ The series carries a 7.3/10 rating on IMDb from about 2,700 user ratings.⁷

Critics placed the show in the wrong-place-wrong-time crime thriller tradition. Reviews noted visual and tonal influences including the blue lighting of Ozark, the overhead highway shots of True Detective, and Coen brothers-style dialogue and staging, and several drew comparisons to Breaking Bad as a story of ordinary people drawn into the criminal underworld.¹⁴^•¹⁵^•¹⁶ Commercially, the first season became BET+'s No. 1 scripted drama during its debut week.³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Organized crime and heist series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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