'Joan's Bungled Heist Costs Her Everything in Her Final Hurrah

We head into the Joan finale with the stakes higher than ever. Our titular jewel thief was arrested a few episodes prior for her involvement in stealing a painting from an estate in Sussex. She can either take a deal and rat on the members of the IRA who offered to buy the painting from her and Boisie, risking the terrorist organization killing her in retaliation, or she risks spending ten years in prison. The alternative plan is to go on the run. Boisie is all in on helping Joan rob her former employer and abscond to Spain to live in a villa with a pool. But he doesn't know that Joan plans to take her seven-year-old daughter with them, and the plan to rob Bernard's is more complicated than any heist they've pulled off before. 

Lying to Boisie stresses Joan even more than the upcoming job because Albie demands that she tell him the truth before the job. Joan doesn't get to tell Boisie beforehand because Albie's wife, Val, warns Boisie that Albie and Joan are planning something separate. Boisie then finds the suitcase Joan packed for Kelly. Boisie is ready to call the whole job off and rightfully calls Joan selfish for putting them all at risk by adding this unnecessary wrinkle, especially when he's already volunteered to return and get Kelly once they're settled in Spain. Joan counters that she wants to be happy and have a family. Boisie would rather feel safe, but he loves Joan and concedes to doing whatever she needs. 

Heist day comes, and Joan has lessened the timings for robbing the shop so she can make it to Kelly's school in time. Bernard takes a call for Joan but only tells her it is "urgent" about "this afternoon." He's close to starting inventory early, which would throw off the whole plan, but Joan manages to convince him to take a break to buy her and the team more time. Boisie shows up at the shop to inform Joan that their third man doesn't trust her and won't be joining them, so Albie has to find a replacement at the last minute. Joan has already cut the security wires, so they have to do the job today, or they won't get another chance. 

Of course, Albie picks Joan's ex-husband Gary (Nick Blood) as the replacement. He's brash and breaks all the cabinets, which creates too much noise. Joan confronts him, which reveals the shotgun Gary brought with him is loaded. Boisie takes Bernard to the front and tells Gary to get out of the shop, but not before Gary tells Bernard that Joan is in on the heist. Bernard gets to Gary's shotgun, and Boisie gets shot while trying to save Joan. Gary takes off with the jewels he'd already packed, telling Albie to drive. Joan manages to get Boisie outside to the alley even though he's bleeding profusely, only to find that the escape van is gone. Boisie dies in the alley, and Joan has to leave him there before the police find her. 

She doesn't have time to grieve before she's due at Kelly's school properly. She's going through with the plan to kidnap her daughter before she knows how much Gary got away with and whether he and Albie are still going to cut her into the deal. They make it to a hideout trailer, and Joan has second thoughts as she watches Kelly investigate the dilapidated hideout. Joan's heart entirely breaks when Kelly makes a family drawing: herself with her foster mother rather than her and Joan. 

It goes from heartbreaking to absolutely terrifying when Kelly finds a gun in Joan's suitcase. Joan is thankfully able to grab it before the unthinkable happens, but it reinforces the idea that Joan is not the best person to keep Kelly safe. She decides that Kelly must return to her foster family once and for all. 

Without Kelly or Boisie, Joan realizes she doesn't have the family she did all of this for. She turns herself in to the police. She gets out four years later, allegedly for good behavior, and meets up with Albie to get the money she was owed from the heist. He asks her what she plans to do next, and she says she will build an empire. He assumes she wants to talk business, but Joan says she'd never work with him again; she's done with men. (A-men sister!) 

She then turns to the camera and speaks directly into the lens, "And you, you better watch your back." 

The ominous ending implies that there could be a Season 2 to watch Joan build her criminal empire. However, that would divert from the source material, Joan Hannington's memoir I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain's Most Notorious Jewel Thief. The real Hannington never served prison for her crimes and was only arrested for stealing a car to see her daughter, depicted in the pilot. A second series would take the fictional Joan in a different direction, making for extremely good television. However, no official word has been given about whether we'll see more of Joan in the future. But for now, she's out, free, and ready to make the world her oyster. 

Joan episodes are 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.