By Sam Riley

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Watching Netflix’s recent hit series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness was an absurd experience, unlike almost any show I’ve seen before. The show is a seven-part Netflix docuseries that takes a closer look at the community of tiger and other “big cat” owners in the United States. At its base, this show is a look into the minds of some of the most eccentric people I’ve ever seen. As Upper School English teacher and Match adviser Vlastik Svab puts it, “I’ve met a lot of strange people in my life, but the people in Tiger King are in a class all their own. They’re all hucksters and morally depraved, focused only on money and attention. It’s a classic American story.” 

One of the first characters the audience is introduced to is Joe Exotic (real name: Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage) the owner of a roadside zoo in Oklahoma. Exotic is the main character of the series. And the description of the man is more than enough to raise eyebrows: he is a mulleted, tiger-owning, gun-toting polygamist country-western singer. As the introductions continue, we meet Exotic’s zoo staff. An odd collection of people, including both of Exotic’s husbands, a few convicted felons, and underqualified workers who answered a Craigslist ad and soon after were working with dangerous animals.

We also meet Carol Baskin, a victim of Exotic’s harassment, who runs Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida. This animal sanctuary collects big cats from around the U.S., doesn’t breed them, and claims to let them live peacefully until death. The intense feud between Exotic and Baskin becomes a large part of the story as the show progresses. The next main character, Doc Antle, runs a zoo out of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Doc Antle’s zoo seems to be run much better than Exotic’s zoo, but it might be an even darker place. 

In the first episode, we get a glimpse of Exotic in prison after being caught in a murder-for-hire plot, which immediately grabs the viewer’s attention. Antle is examined more thoroughly in episode two and has built somewhat of a cult around himself and the animals he owns. In the third episode, we take a much closer look at Baskin, whose wealthy first husband disappeared without a trace in 1997 after trying to place a restraining order on her. Exotic regularly uses this disappearance as ammunition against Baskin, saying that Baskin had him fed to the tigers or that the man’s body is in a septic tank. As the series goes on, the focus shifts more to the relationship between Exotic and Baskin.  

The show also becomes considerably darker as the episodes continue, with one moment sticking out as particularly tragic and a turning point in the tone of the show. One of Exotics’ husbands, Travis Maldonado, while having a conversation with Exotic’s Oklahoma gubernatorial campaign manager, shoots himself in the head. The moment is sobering, to say the least, and the viewer can feel the tone of the show change. You witness the psychological deterioration of Exotic as he fights a losing legal battle with Baskin and loses ownership of the zoo he worked to build. Eventually, Exotic pays a handyman that works at the zoo $3,000 dollars to kill Baskin in Florida, but the plan never materializes. This leads to the FBI arresting Exotic.

In September 2018, he was convicted on two counts of murder for hire, eight violations of the Lacey Act, nine violations of the Endangered Species Act, and a sentence of 22 years in prison, which he is currently serving. Clay Ryan (‘20) thinks that “the show was amazing. I think that the slight sense of humor it brought to many situations really elevated it.”

This show has no good guys, and by the end of the show, there is nobody to root for, which was something I had never experienced before. All the characters are extremely flawed in their own way, which makes the show captivating to watch, but it also means it’s hard to want any one of them to achieve their goals. The series also started as an examination of the tigers that are being kept in captivity in the U.S. By the end, I had barely even thought about a tiger for three episodes as the show morphed into more of true crime story. As Variety’s Caroline Framke writes in her review, “Though the story begins with their respective love for their animals, ‘Tiger King’ quickly devolves into the complex and downright bizarre tale of the rivalry between Joe Exotic and Baskin.” 

There’s also something to be said about the timing of the show’s release that lent to its popularity. As the coronavirus hit and people were cooped up in their homes, Tiger King came out, and the crazy nature of the show was perfect quarantine entertainment. Although Tiger King isn’t a critical masterpiece and lacks a message or any likable protagonists, it’s definitely worth the watch for the pure entertainment value alone.

Featured image credit: Netflix.