It really was murder, mayhem and madness!
Let’s back-track to late March early April, and literally everywhere you turned, someone was referencing Tiger King. Be that on a Zoom chat with family from the States, to hearing it on podcasts in passing conversations between two sports podcasters – literally everyone was watching and talking about Tiger King!
But what I have found since completing the show, is that everyone raves on about it when they’re half way through the series, but not so much after completing all 7 episodes on Netflix. *Raises eyebrows*.
Ok, just for those who are unaware of Tiger King: murder, mayhem, madness, it started off as a harmless documentary, the creators putting together a film following individuals in the States who have their own private zoos? But as the filming and interviews with big cat and exotic animal owners unfold, they quickly realise that there is much much more to owning/exhibiting wild animals in a backyard home zoo. And what started off as a documentary, turns into an unfolding true crime mystery with the camera crew right in the midst of it!
The series follows a number of strange individuals, Joe Exotic being the strangest of them all – i.e. G.W. Zoo owner, country music singer, Presidential hopeful, and Oklahoma Governor Candidate. And soon it’s his story and his ongoing feud with Carole Baskin (animal rights activist) which takes centre stage. And when you’ve just reached the point when you think things can’t get any stranger? It only gets stranger and stranger still, like they say, ‘only in America’. All the while you’re left wondering ‘What has Joe done?’ as built into the intro is a teaser that Joe is currently behind bars for a very very long time.
The first 3 episodes were all together riveting, as the show peeled back the layers of the onion to this complex story. However when you’ve reached the halfway point, you start to realise that everything is rotten – where it isn’t clear who is the real villain and who is the real victim of this story. And even to this day, I still haven’t worked out in my own mind who I feel sorry for in this sad tale. And I guess for this reason, it has made Tiger King a point of conversation because everyone will have their own opinion on who is the villain and who is the victim.
But the one thing which is clear, and you should feel sorry for, is the state of the tigers and other exotic animals, as they are the real victims of this tale, and have been locked up from start to finish. #Free the cats!
So if you’re one to experience FoMo and you must must find out the mystery to this sad tale, Click HERE to start binging!
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