Tiger King 2 review: Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin at centre of new murder plot
Locked up behind bars for animal cruelty charges and an attempted murder-for-hire plot, eccentric zoo owner Joe Exotic knows a thing or two about karma.
But as Tiger King 2 launches on Netflix today, revealing the latest insane twist of a murder plot to kill Joe, it seems he’s lucky to be alive.
Joe was the breakout star of lockdown, as Netflix smash hit docu-series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness followed him at his Oklahoma roadside zoo - 64 million households were hooked in the first month of its release.
Filmed from his exotic animal park, home to more than 230 lions and tigers, it was a barmy world of big cat owners, black market animal trading, dangerous feuds, cradling baby tigers, mauled staff, murder charges, mullets and some incredibly cheesy country songs.
Now, despite being on T-shirts, perfume (Eccentrica by Moonpig since you ask), mugs and memes across the globe, the mega-famous 58-year-old is languishing in jail, serving a 22-year sentence for 17 counts of animal abuse and an attempted plot to kill his nemesis, big cat conservationist Carole Baskin.
And he’s pretty bloody furious that everyone except him is making money from the Tiger King brand, while President Trump wouldn’t even give him a pardon.
“I’m fed up with the whole mess. Why am I in here?” he rants.
“Who benefited from having my mouth shut?”
Comically, we only ever see the blurry top half of his face (sporting a new fringe), as he speaks on the phone from prison.
The colourful five-episode true crime series whizzes through the crazy aftermath of the first season as people capitalised on the show and viewers became obsessed.
The series is guilty of wheeling out anyone who has ever had a vague connection to the madness, even if they have nothing to say - and it’s a slow start.
A couple of episodes get caught up in a directionless ‘deep dive’ into the cold case of missing presumed dead Don Lewis, ex husband of Carole Baskin - putting her uncomfortably on trial.
Tiger King’s success comes from the ludicrous characters (watch out for an Attorney General Elvis impersonator), not a 24-year-old investigation with zero new leads and an armchair detective and psychic medium at the helm.
With Joe largely absent, it’s a relief when we meet the loathsome Wildlife In Need boss Tim Stark, who becomes the much-needed villain of the piece.
When Joe was packed off to jail, foul-mouthed, abusive Tim took advantage and started Thackerville Zoo (complete with strip club) with zoo owner Jeff Lowe. But the pair fell out, animal cruelty campaigners and law enforcement came knocking, and another zoo of horrors bit the dust.
Tim likes to whack golf balls, pretending they are Jeff’s head, while Jeff is often spotted in his zebra-print throne-like chair, while his wife Lauren watches on in her lingerie.
By this point, the series has finally meandered back to its sweet spot and it’s as bonkers as ever. Then the revelations come thick and fast.
Alleged hitman-for-hire Allen Glover says, in a sworn statement made just two months ago, that he never planned to kill Carole. In fact, he claims he and Jeff plotted to kill Joe.
“I wanted Joe’s head on a spike. I was going to kill Joe Exotic, I hated him that much,” says Glover, coming clean now as it’s “the right thing to do”.
“We came up with a plan to decapitate Joe’s head to kill him, to clear him away from the property so that Jeff could take over the animals.”
We even see Glover back at the zoo to find the wire he planned to string up between two trees, hoping Joe would drive through it in his open-top jeep.
While this series feels at times to be flogging a dead tiger, with wild hearsay and a vague mention of animal conservation as an afterthought, right at the end Tiger King 2 revealed its hand.
With Joe possibly wronged and in with a chance of freedom, it seems that there is - and will be - much more to say on this headline-grabbing saga.
Tiger King 2 is available now on Netflix.
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