Instantly taking its place alongside The Staircase, Making a Murderer and OJ: Made In America as one of the great documentary mini-series, Tiger King, a jaw-dropping seven part Netflix tale of wild and criminal shenanigans among the big cat fraternity – that is, people who love (and exhibit) tigers, leopards and so forth – will also always be remembered as the first viral sensation of Covid 19. In a way, there couldn’t be a better moment for this show to drop, as only something this nuts could take our brains away from our current sensational concerns.
Among the series’ endless qualities, it is the astonishing vivacity of the characters that towers above all. Every one of these insanely idiosyncratic individuals feels like they’re being played by the world’s greatest character actor giving their career-best performance. It’s all lead by a truly charismatic freakshow named Joe Schreibvogel, who goes by Joe Exotic. Flamboyant, queer, tattooed, pierced, and, most distressingly, always armed (he openly carries a pistol in a holster on his right hip), Joe is as redneck as they come and yet also so oddly progressive. He absolutely defines himself by his gayness in a world where that may seem tricky. But nothing’s tricky to Joe, who has more confidence than anyone who routinely tickles tigers should.
His antagonist is Carol Baskin, who runs Big Cat Rescue, a rival organisation to Joe’s GW Zoo. She wants to shut him down; he wants to shut her up. Things get illegal, intense, and insane.
You will not believe your eyes, your ears, your brain. And you will love every minute of it. I binged it, I miss it. I even miss Joe, although I’d never, ever want to meet him, nor any of these deranged sociopaths, malcontents and freaks. They can stay where they are, in a world that seems like it’s on another planet, but is actually just more of Crazy, USA.