'Joan' Screenwriter Breaks Down Joan Harrington's Approach to Crime After Revealing Premiere Episode

There's a new jewel thief in town, and she's not afraid to take you for all you are worth. Joan is based on a true story and introduces the world to Joan Hannington (Sophie Turner) – if you haven't read the real-life Joan's memoir I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain's Most Notorious Jewel Thief. When we meet Joan in the series, she is a struggling mother who turns to stealing diamonds after escaping a violent marriage and needing quick funds to get her daughter back from social services. While reuniting with her daughter is Joan's primary focus, the first episode shows how seductive the world of crime is for the single mother. She's just setting out on her criminal enterprise when she meets her partner-to-be, Boisie (Frank Dillaine). The rest of the series will delve into how Joan and Boisie build a criminal empire filled with rare gems and stolen art, but the first episode showcases that Joan is already skilled in adapting to the moment. 

After narrowly escaping the gang after her deadbeat husband, Joan takes her daughter to social services, where she knows she'll be safer. After a few weeks away, Joan ditches work at her sister's hair salon and steals a car to see her daughter but gets arrested on the way home. When she returns to her sister, who promptly fires her from the salon, Joan realizes that she needs to find something lucrative and quickly to get her daughter back. 

She next finds work at a local jewelry store and learns the ropes. She maneuvers herself into a position of trust so that she's asked to stay late and help take inventory of the store's gems. She uses her boss's evident infatuation with her as a distraction and swallows the diamonds they hold in the back. She then claims her time of the month has come to avoid having to do anything sexual with her boss and she absconds with the diamonds, teaming up with Boisie to find a seller for them. 

TellyVisions spoke with Joan screenwriter, Anna Symon, about setting up Joan's story in the first episode and how Joan will build her enterprise going forward. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Telly Visions: Joan pursues this path because she wants her daughter back. How does that shape her philosophy as a thief and a criminal?

Anna Symon: I think she has quite a complex reaction to it. To start with, she wants to make herself a perfect life to persuade the social services. She wants to get a job. She wants to get a flat. She wants to prove that she's got everything that it takes so that she can get her daughter back. She does start committing crimes, but I think the audience will see that she also finds a thrill in stealing. It's something she discovers that she's very good at. She hasn't been good at things or in her life. She hasn't had a lot of things go her way. She finds the fact that she's a brilliant impersonator and she's really smart at working out how to do a heist, and that gives her a bit of a buzz. She says in her memoir that stealing diamonds was her drug, and you see that, as well as her having good intentions and that she wants her daughter back more than anything in the world. That's her primary motivation for getting into crime.

TV: When Joan finds the gun in Boisie's drawer, does it scare her, or is she kind of thrilled by it?

AS: I think she's not as shocked as you or I might be because she has grown up in the petty criminal world. It is not a deal breaker for her. She's not switched off this guy because he has a gun, but she is a little bit hesitant. It gives her pause for thought. I don't think she's thrilled by the idea at all, but she's like, "Oh, okay. This is something I hadn't thought about Who is this guy, exactly?" That's why she says at the end of Episode 1, "If you rip me off, I'll kill you," because she realizes that he's not someone to be messed with. 

TV: There's a weird thing in Hollywood about expecting all female characters to be likable. Was that something you were concerned with or trying to achieve as you were telling Joan's story, or was it more important to follow the source material?

AS: I'm glad you asked that because I found that to be a fascinating part of the screenwriting process. I think that female characters are put under more pressure to be likable. You get questions, either from the network, although not from CW in this case, but I'm talking more generally. People will say, "Will we still like that woman if she does that?" in a way that we don't do for men. I was aware of that as I was writing it. 

We did have conversations about it, for sure. Will people still think she can be a good mother? Is she still a good mother? How would we think about a man if he was out doing this stuff and providing for his family? We still ask this question, and I was clear that I always wanted to show Joan, warts and all. I want the audience to see that she isn't perfect. She isn't a perfect mother, wife, or a law-abiding citizen. But within her own moral compass, I think she is a good woman who makes bad choices. That's what makes it interesting. I hope the audience is ready to see that in a female character. 

TV: How would you describe her moral compass? She's clearly not afraid of breaking the law, but what are the lines that she will not cross as we go through the series?

AS: She would never be violent. I don't want to give spoilers, but things get more difficult for her as you go through the series. She is around people who will use violence, and that, for her, is a deal breaker. She doesn't take drugs. She isn't violent. She would never, ever, [snitch] on anyone. Those are the things that the real Joan also feels strongly about, particularly not informing on other criminals. That's a really clear part of her moral code. She has a moral compass, but it is just slightly different than yours or mine.

TV: What would you say is the overarching theme of the first season?

AS: It's a rags-to-riches story where you see a woman torn between being a mother and a criminal. The themes are about a woman in a man's world, someone surviving against it all, surviving and thriving despite the odds. In the UK, the marketing campaign for the show is: "Mother. Lover. Liar. Thief." That sort of sums it up. Those are the four things that she's constantly pulled between.

Joan continues on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on CW and airs/streams weekly through mid-November. Episodes will be available to stream the next day on the CW app. The series will also be available to stream on BritBox beginning December 5, with two episodes premiering weekly through December 19, 2024.