Joe is dead and I can’t see any way to pull off the he’s alive story. They’ve nearly made the character immortal. I would rather have had a story where he took some pills or drank a potion that would have killed him hours later anyway and that Hope shooting him wouldn’t have made a difference.
Well they sort of hinted at the fact that Stef knew he was going to die. Hope shooting him didn’t kill him but the disease ultimately will. I suspect he dies off camera but Hope is acquitted since she didn’t cause his death.