I was late to watching the second and likely final season of Jon Glaser’s Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter, which aired on Adult Swim between 2015 and 2017. Like all Adult Swim products, Glaser’s show is an outrageous and absurdist postmodern pastiche of small town soap operas, horror films, sitcoms, and even romance novels. The show isn’t without heart though, making it more light-hearted than many of the channel’s more ironic or nihilistic works (Too Many Cooks, anyone?).
In the first season, Glaser played the title character, an all-neon clad werewolf slayer with a Creole accent summoned to a small Vermont town to fight a murderous werewolf. The debut season had a Twin Peaks quality where many of the town’s residents received ample screentime for their various B-plots. The show’s second season is much tighter as Joe’s retirement is interrupted when he’s framed for the murder of his rival Plaid Jeff, played with uptight control by Godfrey. The show is absurd (an Elon Musk-type billionaire is described as just that) and Neon Joe is not without virtue as he fights to prove his innocence and save humanity. Like Kenny Powers, Andrew Dice Clay, and other lovable TV oafs, Neon Joe has a heart of gold buried beneath his loud bravado.
Aden Thomas Jordan 