Joanna Calo writes comedy that takes difficult people seriously without excusing the harm they cause. We rate that attention highly; our reservation is that The Bear sometimes keeps its characters distressed long after the scene has made its point.
Fi1m perspective
In the kitchen of The Bear (2022), a laugh does nothing to make the working conditions healthier. Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo let the comedy happen without pretending that the people enduring the abuse have stopped suffering. We were angry at that abuse because the programme paid attention to the workers who had to put up with it. Calo's writing is worth following for this seriousness about what people do to one another, even when they are being funny.
That seriousness was already present in BoJack Horseman (2014), where Calo worked as a writer and co-executive producer from 2016 to 2020. Its opening episode finds BoJack alone with a drink, watching his own old programme. She joined an established comedy in which a character could be ridiculous and lonely in the same shot. Alongside Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Kate Purdy and the other writers, she helped keep his harmful behaviour from becoming something the audience was asked to forgive.
Hacks (2021), another writing credit, brings that interest in difficult working lives into a comedy about two women making their job harder for each other. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder make the friction funny and sometimes moving. The scripts are less assured when they push the generational differences harder than necessary.
On The Bear, Calo's work extends to directing and co-showrunning. With Storer, she understands how easily pressure becomes an excuse for unpleasant behaviour, and how much a persuasive ensemble can do with that knowledge. Yet the programme can also seem unwilling to let a scene proceed without another confrontation. When distinct troubles keep producing the same anxious exchanges, the humour cannot provide all the variation that is missing.
The move into major feature screenwriting with Thunderbolts\ (2025), co-written with Eric Pearson, is promising rather than wholly convincing. Florence Pugh carries the film, but Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Valentina is given too few notes to play, and Geraldine Viswanathan's deadpan assistant Mel has too little to say. There is welcome feeling here, though the first act dawdles and the fights are ordinary. The smaller parts need the attention the leads receive. Start with BoJack Horseman*, and give it more than six episodes.
Biography
Joanna Calo is an American writer, director and producer. She is co-showrunner of the FX series The Bear (2022–), on which she has also directed and written episodes. She co-wrote the screenplay for the Marvel Studios film Thunderbolts* (2025).
Her other writing credits include episodes of the series Hacks (2021), BoJack Horseman (2014–2020), BEEF (2023), The Baby-Sitters Club (2020), Undone (2019) and Lost Ollie (2022). Born in San Francisco in 1980 and raised in New Jersey, she has won a Primetime Emmy Award, three Writers Guild of America Awards, an Independent Spirit Award and a Producers Guild Award.
