Joe Pickett

**Joe Pickett** is the titular protagonist of the TV series, *Joe Pickett*. He is a family man and the local no-nonsense Game Warden in Saddlestring, located in the county of Twelve Sleep, Wyoming.

Joe is married to Marybeth and father to Sheridan and Lucy.

## Personality

Joe is a man who simply cannot be moved by force. He is warm, rugged, and stubborn.

## Biography

### Childhood

Joe's personality was likely formed as a strategy used to survive childhood. It’s no coincidence that Joe has dedicated his life to defending the defenseless – animals, children, the disenfranchised. He was once vulnerable too – when he was a child in a violent home. Back then, Joe found solace in nature and dreamed of a time when rules would matter.

His early life clearly gave rise to Joe’s protective nature -- and the heartbreak he still carries. From as far back as he can remember, Joe was intensely drawn to the order of nature. In the wild, the rules are unbiased, consistent. Animals make sense to him because they’re always true to their own nature, and they behave in predicable ways. People, on the other hand, are often not what they seem. People can be corrupt. They lie. Wolves masquerade as sheep. Predators play the victim.

This facet of human nature troubles Joe. As a kid, Joe couldn’t help but notice that you’d never see an animal intentionally hurt its own young. He often daydreamed of being an animal instead of a boy.

### Adulthood

As he grew up and became a man, Joe swore he’d never wind up like his father - abusive, cruel, drunk, and full of rage. As a result, there are whole parts of himself that he has a hard time acknowledging—parts that he’ll have to learn to reintegrate as the hardships he faces challenge his buried childhood trauma. He also struggles to accept the permanent scars of his childhood, especially the loss of his younger brother, Victor, who died at a young age of a suicide that their mother still refers to as “an accident.”

Joe feels like he failed to protect Victor, and it haunts him. Joe’s obsession with getting to the truth is simultaneously what makes him great, and it’s also his Achilles Heel. This compulsion repeatedly places Joe and his family directly in harm’s way. If Joe could just look the other way, maybe Saddlestring’s economy could spark back to life. He could make so much more money for himself and his family. Really, everyone would be better off if Joe could just bend. But that would make him just like his father.

Joe has spent much of his life trying to create the safe home he wished he had as a child – where people speak truth and live by the rules. But when the cases he pursues encroach on that feeling of safety in his home, something else comes over him. Something primal and dangerous. A side of himself he is deeply uncomfortable with. Joe is no Dirty Harry. He rarely feels the need to pull his weapon and in fact is a notoriously bad shot. But he has an almost supernatural ability to see things as they are, not because he’s so much smarter than the rest of us, but because he is able to see without preconception and bias.

Joe is quick on his feet and decisive. But when he screws up, he usually does so massively and publicly. For example, Joe is already somewhat infamous for arresting the governor of Wyoming for fishing without a license, having had no idea he was the incumbent Governor.

### Game Warden

Joe achieved his dream of finally becoming a Game Warden after Vern Dunnegan, the original warden, chose to retire. His job gets off to a rough start when he gets into a faceoff with Ote Keeley, who illegally killed an animal when the season hadn't even started. Ote managed to steal Joe's gun and almost shot him until Joe got it back and revoked Ote's hunting license. Not long after, Ote's body was found dead on Joe's property. Joe begins to investigate Ote's murder, not convinced that the Sheriff and the Twelve Sleep Sheriffs Department will accurately solve the case.

Joe figures out that Ote, Vern, Wacey Hedeman, and the Scarlett family are all involved in some shady business related to the upcoming InterWest Resources pipeline. He also finds out that there is an endangered weasel species that have been getting killed and he feels it's his job to protect the weasels. Joe's family is threatened by Wacey who attempted to kill his wife, Marybeth, but wound up killing his unborn son instead. Joe confronts those involved and has a standoff with Wacey and Vern, who threaten Sheridan's life all in an effort to protect their name and get the pipeline project off the ground. In the standoff, Wacey gets shot by Vern and Joe shoots Vern. Vern is arrested and Wacey dies but Joe and his daughter get away with their lives.

Joe earns the respect and trust of Governor Budd, who reinstates his job (which he temporarily lost at the orders of Les Etbauer). Joe manages to save some of the weasels, releasing them to the Wind River Indian Reservation.

## Appearances

* Circling Vultures
* Joey, Get Your Gun
* A Conspiracy of Ravens
* Live and Look Like a Million
* Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up
* The Most Hated Man in Twelve Sleep
* The Killing Fields
* Endangered
* Open Season
* The Question Why
* Stop the Slaughter!
* Buck Wild
* Heads Will Roll
* Ducks and Falcons
* Fair Chase
* A Call For Help
* If This is Goodbye
* The Third Way