Will misogyny roar in ‘Tiger King 2’? Tiger
Netflix hit returns, but needs to atone.
Steel yourself: Joe Exotic (aka Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage) returned Wednesday in “Tiger King 2,” the sequel to Netflix’s hit docuseries, “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.” Set in the eccentric world of big-cat collectors and roadside zoos from Florida to Oklahoma, the 2020 series followed attention-seeking, mulleted wild man Joe as he sought to promote himself through any means necessary. He was a fearless tiger tamer. A sensitive country music singer. A gun-toting gay polygamist with reality TV aspirations. A gubernatorial candidate. A disenfranchised victim of the system.
But above all, he loved to talk trash about his competitors, and Netflix exploited those lies. The streamer and filmmakers Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaikin fashioned all his sideshow antics and smack-talk garbage into a seven-part docuseries — which then became an unlikely global sensation when it was released in March of last year, capturing the public’s imagination in the frightening first days of the COVID-19 shutdown.
The question now is whether Netflix can make lightning strike twice. On a more practical level, how do you make a “Tiger King” sequel when the star of the show is currently serving a prison sentence for hatching a murder plot against his rival, Carole Baskin, and the series helped propagate his smear campaign against her?
Baskin, who runs the Big Cat Rescue Corp. with her husband, Howard, is now maligned in Reddit forums, Facebook chats and YouTube videos by people who’ve never stepped foot in her Florida sanctuary, yet are convinced — thus far without evidence — that she killed her former husband, Don Lewis. (Lewis disappeared in 1997 and, since neither he nor his body were ever found, he was declared dead in 2002.) All it took was a captive COVID-era audience and a popular streaming service for Joe to promote the rumor that Carole murdered Don and fed him to her tigers.
“Tiger King 2” was not made available to the press in advance, but the trailer suggests that Netflix is continuing to cash in on the accusations. It kicks off with Joe’s voice, piped in from a prison call, suggesting an innocent man is in prison and they should take a closer look at his rivals. The rest of the trailer focuses on a host of other characters from the roadside zoo circuit ( Jeff Lowe, Tim Stark, Allen Glover and James Garretson), one of whom asks, “What happened to Don Lewis?” Another sound bite ups the ante: “In order for there to be justice, there has to be truth.” Then comes the banner “We’ve only scratched the surface” over footage that includes Baskin. Netflix has teased the show by promising this: “... sudden fame and unwanted attention from the authorities turns up the heat and unearths some stunning revelations!”
The sequel appears to still be looking for a villain, even while its namesake is incarcerated for planning someone’s murder. It’s alarming given that in the original series, Joe often ranted about killing Carole and posted countless disturbing, misogynistic videos. In one, he shows himself shoving a sex toy into the mouth of a