The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Meet ‘Joe Exotic’
Netflix’s ‘Tiger King’ docuseries full of addictive craziness; HBO’s ‘Westworld’ back for third season
Here are a few things to watch this week on various platforms while you’re holed up inside. These shows and movies feature colorful characters, some imagined and others, almost inexplicably, very real.
“TIGER KING: MURDER, MAYHEM AND MADNESS” (NETFLIX) » This probably isn’t the first you’ve heard about this seven-part docuseries — it’s easily the buzziest piece of entertainment during this, the second full week of quarantine — and there’s a good chance you’re ahead of me in it. As of this writing, I’ve gotten through only the first two episodes, largely while multitasking. And while an argument could be made for not giving a show like this your full attention, I feel like I’m missing some outlandish things. Exotic animals! Polygamy! A … murder plot? There’s a lot going on. If you don’t know, “Tiger King” centers around the exploits of one Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka “Joe Exotic,” and the, um, eccentric fellow’s Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma. A few other folks feature prominently in the proceedings, and you quickly get the idea you may not be able to root for any of them. It’s wild early, and I’ve been led to believe it gets only crazier from there.
“WESTWORLD” (HBO) » The mind-bending, at times mind-melting, science-fiction series created by the husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy is back for its longawaited third season. And while the story picks back up relatively quickly after the events of the second season, the primary setting has changed from Delos Inc’s history-themed parks featuring incredibly humanlike robot “hosts” to the real world. Joy and Nolan offer up a fascinating vision of global civilization in the late 2050s, a civilization largely organized by a complex system, Rehoboam, created by Incite, a company rebellious host Delores (Evan Rachel Wood seems set on taking down. (This new Terminator-like version of Delores is a murderous gas). Among those who seemingly will be trying to stop her are two other hosts we’ve come to know well, Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard and Thandie Newton’s Maeve, as well as Engerraund Serac (newcomer Vincent Cassel), designer of Rehoboam. Aaron Paul also has joined the cast as Caleb, a (I think) human who befriends Delores. Considering I’ve seen the first two, often-confusing seasons, it’s hard to say this with real confidence, but I think you could jump right into this seemingly less-convoluted eight-episode third season, the third episode of which debuts March 29.
“ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD” (STARZ) » This best-picture nominee from writer-director Quentin Tarantino has just arrived on the premium cable network. I had some issues with it, especially when it comes to its climax, but it’s chock full of brilliantly executed scenes. Plus, the Academy Award-nominated Leonardo DiCaprio and Oscar-winning Brad Pitt are terrific as a down-on-hisluck actor and his stuntman, respectively. Set in 1969 and featuring, if very briefly, Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) and, more significantly, Sharron Tate (Margot Robbie), “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is the kind of truthmeets-bizarre fiction that Tarantino does so well.
“THIS IS US” (NBC) » The beloved family drama from Dan Fogelman wrapped up its fourth season this week with a solid finale that includes the foreshadowed confrontation between Pearson brothers Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Kevin (Justin Hartley) over the care for their mother, Rebecca (Mandy Moore), who is experiencing cognitive difficulties. As they tend to do, Fogelman and the other writers stumbled a bit midway though the 18-episode season, but the quality has picked up in recent weeks. In the finale, we also see more of characters in a future timeline introduced at the season’s beginning. Apparently we should expect two more seasons of Pearson-related trials and triumphs, but we’ll see.
“SPY WARS” (SMITHSONIAN CHANNEL) » Hosted by Damian Lewis, an English actor who played a spy on the early seasons of Showtime’s “Homeland,” this docuseries debuted on these shores this week. The first episode, “The Man Who Saved the World,” focuses on Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB operative who provided the British with top-secret Russian intelligence. This first episode can be irritating — at one point, it cuts to Lewis pretending to use a file cabinet — but the factual content is interesting. The second episode — “Bombs in the Sky,” about efforts to stop an Al Qaeda cell in London from blowing up U.S.-bound planes — debuts March 29.