TV Talk: Pittsburgh-set ‘Average Joe’ delivers ‘Breaking Bad’ vibes on BET

The premise of the darkly comedic BET+ drama “Average Joe,” set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, sat with writer Robb Cullen for a long time.

A Philadelphia native, Cullen created the 2003 FX comedy “Lucky,” which featured the first series regular role for Swissvale native Billy Gardell.

Last year when BET+ ordered “Average Joe” to the series, I contacted Cullen and asked why he chose Pittsburgh as the setting. Cullen explained he originally created “Average Joe” with Gardell in mind as the lead.

Cullen isn’t doing interviews now for “Average Joe” due to the writers’ strike, so I was unable to learn more about his early vision for the series which wound up filming at Westside Stageworks, 20 miles west of Downtown Atlanta. (Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer said the production never inquired about the availability of tax credits for filming in Pittsburgh.)

Eric Dean Seaton, director of the pilot and second episode and executive producer on “Average Joe,” said the filming location was locked before he came aboard.

“What I think happened is BET has the infrastructure in Atlanta already,” says Seaton, a Cleveland native. “I remember I was disappointed because I still wanted to go to Pittsburgh but the infrastructure made it easier for them to start in Atlanta.”

That the TV MA-rated (for profanity and violence) “Average Joe” has been in the works for many years makes sense when you watch it. The show has a “Breaking Bad” circa 2008 vibe, a show where smart people make bad choice after bad choice. But don’t take that as a knock on “Average Joe,” which is better than average and does what it sets out to do quite well. (Seaton’s elevator pitch for “Average Joe”: “It’s ‘Ozark’ without the blue tint.”)

Streaming its first two episodes June 26 on subscription service BET+ (subsequent episodes will release weekly on Mondays leading to a two-episode finale on Aug. 10), the series follows blue-collar plumber Joe Washington (Deon Cole, “Black-ish”) who learns his recently deceased father secretly stole $10 million from a Russian mobster.

Joe discovers this secret when he wanders into his late father’s towing business and he gets jumped by Russians. Then his buddy Leon (Malcolm Barrett) stops by the same shop and gets roped in, as does their friend, police officer Benjamin “Touch” Tuchawuski (Michael Trucco, “Battlestar Galactica”). Rather than going to the police, which would be easy enough to do once Touch is in on it, they vow to keep what transpires a secret. Of course, that doesn’t last long.

For the sake of comedy, that’s a good thing because Leon’s wife, Cathy (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams), is screamingly funny.

“The one time a white police officer could be useful to us and they got to go and cut (him) in!” Cathy says when she learns Joe and Leon have involved Touch in their scheme to recover the missing $10 million.

Cullen’s scripts are equal parts tension-filled snafus for Joe and his friends and bits of hilarious dialogue that, situationally, sound right for the moment.

“We are not people who shoot other people in the head and smear peanut butter on them,” Joe’s wife, Angela (Tammy Townsend), says after Cathy suggests a body disposal method she picked up watching a true-crime TV show.

While Hollywood likes to pigeonhole actors, writers and directors by genre, Seaton started in tween shows and now regularly crosses over between directing comedies (“The Neighborhood,” “Modern Family”) and dramas (“Will Trent,” “The Flash”).

“I think it comes from my upbringing,” he says. “We were the first Black family in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. I went to Catholic school and my grandparents lived in pretty much the hood of Cleveland, so in a seven-day period of my week, I lived in three different worlds: a comedy, a drama and everything that falls in between.”

That multi-genre background helped Seaton get the tone of “Average Joe” just right.

“There’s a lot of scope in the pilot and then stylistically you’ll notice the dramatic moments are tighter, the comedy is looser, but what I did not want to do and what we didn’t do is go bright,” Seaton says of the show’s visuals. “It’s real-life funny. All the jokes are very real. It’s a real response, it’s the real reaction to the situation.”

As for the Pittsburgh of it all, from a train trestle that looks convincingly straight out of Western Pennsylvania to the city skyline and frequent glimpses of the Terrible Towel, “Average Joe” largely gets its local references right. (Although the end of episode one includes a pan up above the tree line from Joe’s house, supposedly in the Hill District, to a view of the city skyline looking at The Point from the Duquesne Incline, which makes no geographic sense.)

Another oddity: Touch drives a cop car with Highland Park Police emblazoned on its door rather than Pittsburgh Police. (In reality, the Pittsburgh Police Department’s jurisdiction includes the Highland Park city neighborhood.)

Seaton says the production team would find pictures of Pittsburgh places online and then look for suitable matches in Atlanta.

“We’d hold up the picture and match it as much as we could,” he says.

Seaton also ran looks past director friends and Western Pennsylvania natives Kevin Mock (“Legends of Tomorrow”) and Sujata Day (“Definition Please”) to see if the looks were “Pittsburgh accurate.”

If “Average Joe” gets renewed, Seaton says, “(Cullen) already has three seasons in his mind. He pitched them to me.”

And Seaton wants to return to direct more “Average Joe.”

“It’s not often you get to tell stories like this that are this dark and this funny and this violent and have this much love in them,” Seaton says of the characters who, despite their repeated bad choices, truly care for one another. “My one sad thing is that Rob can’t do interviews, because he worked on this thing for so long and it’s so much in his heart. When he tells you (future) stories, all you do is get ideas. I have shots and ideas and my mind is spinning because it’s so easy to connect to and it’s so visually stimulating that, yeah, I can do this show for days.”