Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness (2020) s01e08 – The Tiger King and I

At the end of The Tiger King and I, host Joel McHale—sitting in his living room because the coronavirus pandemic has him in lock down (the Trump Flu plays a big part, presumably, in all the interviewees ready availabilities)—makes a crack about how there’s nothing he won’t do for money, implying Netflix hired him to do the special.

Except McHale’s an executive producer. Did Netflix have to woo him with that credit—and did it actually work—or did he pitch them on the idea, sitting around in his living room, FaceTime-ing with eight of the “Tiger King” regulars. Not Carole Baskin, who everyone thinks killed her husband. Instead it’s all Joe Exotic’s former pals; they all think he belongs in prison, some hoping he dies in there, some thinking he deserves to be released.

Pretty much everyone except “still wants to be a campaign manager” Joshua Dial and “still an abject scumbag ‘Inside Edition’ producer” Rick Kirkham think the documentarians—not involved with this after show—did a terrible job as far as accurately presenting them. Given Saff Saffery is a man, yeah, they did a bad job presenting people. Also, McHale shouldn’t be the one to finally address whether or not the suicide Dial witnessed (on camera too) was intended as a suicide.

Spoiler: per Dial, it wasn’t. Might have been nice to know during that section of the documentary.

At the same time you have John Finlay talking about how the shirtless interviews were his idea.

Does current zoo owner Jeff Lowe come off better? A little. A government conspiracy seems a lot less likely all of a sudden for whatever reason. And his wife, Lauren Lowe, shows more agency than she ever did in the actual show.

Lowe’s still a scuz and can’t resist the opportunity for a homophobic Joe Exotic impression.

The regular people employees of the park—Erik Cowie, John Reinke, Saff–seem more than willing to talk about Joe Exotic shooting animals so you wonder why the documentary makers didn’t talk to them about it. At the end, Rick Kirkham seems to start to say, “I shot a tiger,” but changes it over to Joe Exotic. They were talking about the regularity of shooting tigers… big slip there. Can’t imagine it’d have gone over on “Inside Edition.”

There are some horrifying further stories about the zoo and Joe Exotic’s running of it, which also seem like they should’ve been part of the main series. Incidentally, McHale mentions multiple times it’s the most popular documentary of all time, which is true and terrifying.

For the streaming equivalent of a cash grab, it’s not bad. It’s nice to get some idea of just how much the filmmakers of the series were manipulating things. Misgendering a main interviewee seems like a big one.

The special’s just as manipulative, of course; between the whitewashing of Kirkham and McHale’s “gesturing down” mentions of Wal-Mart, it’s not like it’s so Netflix can retroactively establish some integrity for it. Should they? Eh. But I’d probably rather watch a diss series against the filmmakers than the movie version everyone keeps talking about.

Especially since no one casts it as well as I did….

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness (2020) s01e02 – Cult of Personality

Somehow this episode manages to bury the lede. Will I spoil that lede? Not yet, but probably. “Tiger King” is a masterwork of manipulation as far as narrative non-fiction. Directors Rebecca Chaiklin and Eric Goode have a great sense of what to hold back and what to get out there.

For example, a disaster at Joe Exotic’s zoo feeling like low budget Jurassic Park for rednecks? It’s out there right away, along with Exotic’s indifference to employee Kelci Saffery’s newly missing limb. In fact, Saffery had the arm amputated so she could get back to work. Why does she want to rush back to work? So the animals don’t suffer, which then turns into the theme of the episode… Exotic, “Doc” Antle, and Carole Baskin all exploit their workers. In fact, Exotic’s the only one we know for sure is paying them. Between a hundred and a hundred and fifty a week, presumably in addition to room and board, but it’s unclear. Meanwhile, Baskin’s labor is all volunteer and Antle’s running a marriage cult. Antle and Baskin groom teenage girls through the Internet while Exotic tries to primarily hire people in dire life straits.

So Exotic and Antle seem to be running labor camps while Baskin relies on her volunteers’ sense of empathy for the animals. Given Baskin’s running a rescue… that reliance is… better? But Exotic is trying his damndest to keep the animals alive too… whereas Antle probably kills his tiger cubs once they’re too old to be petted. It’s mentioned and never contradicted.

We also find out this episode Exotic relies on reject or spoiled meat from Walmart to feed the tigers, which is better than the roadkill while not great. It’s almost like you shouldn’t have a 200 tiger zoo in the middle of Oklahoma without a dietary veterinarian on staff in addition to a sufficient, reliable endowment.

Or if you are going to have a private one… be like Mario Tabraue, who’s got a private zoo in Florida. Tabraue, the inspiration for the 1983 Tony Montana in Scarface—including the chainsaw—has the money to provide for his animals. Why? Presumably because he got rich enough selling cocaine and had enough of it stashed from laundering, he’s all good. He buys tigers from Joe Exotic, which—theoretically—means they have a better life than with Antle for sure and maybe even Baskin, who doesn’t have the deep post-cocaine pockets.

Tabraue, who’s aged better than Al Pacino, is way too likable. Like… way too likable. He’s like a cool grandfather. No one else in “Tiger King” is cool though, at all, so it might just be by comparison.

Also all the other guys—Exotic, Antle, major creep Tim Stark—are all violent misogynists. Like, it’s obvious some of the reason they have a problem with Baskin.

So Baskin having gotten rich from her mysteriously dead husband—that aforementioned buried lede—well… it doesn’t make their virulent misogyny okay (Antle’s dangerous), it does give them enough valid anti-Baskin fodder to hide some of it in. Or at least Chaiklin and Goode edit it so they can hide some of it.

But, yeah… Baskin’s rich because her (second) husband disappeared. She’s apparently on number three, Howard Baskin, who’s been on the show both episodes now without any mention of him having reformed a black widow. It’s a great cliffhanger and at just the right moment to make “Tiger King” “must see TV.”

Must see streaming. Whatever.