Lions, Tigers, and Crime Oh My! The new Netflix docuseries centering around Joe Exotic, the titular Tiger King.
Marketed as a murder documentary, it proves to be so much more. The docuseries dives into the world of the private zoo and exotic animal ownership and the eccentric personalities that live in that world.
The popularity of the docuseries looks like it has become an instant hit as innumerable memes have populated social media referencing the docuseries. Rotten Tomatoes gives the series a 91% approval rating and IMDb a 7.9/10.
The Mid-West Jack Sparrow, like the character of Joe Exotic, is contrasted with his arch-nemesis Carol who has his sorted past and matched by a Polyamorous Cult leader and an ill-tempered Vegas PlayBoy. With music that creates the atmosphere of the wild west as the story becomes crazier and crazier.
The 7 part series feels like a time commitment to watch all the way through, but you fall the rabbit hole fast, and it only goes more in-depth as when you think it can’t get crazier, it does.
The docuseries brings up more than the crazy cast of wild people and caged animals; it partially takes a look at the varied view people to have on the private ownership of exotic and endangered animals, beyond the mayhem and the glamour you begin to see the darker side of the industry.
While some of the more incidental interviews can add length to an already long story about the Tiger King, they were also engaging in and of themselves but did not add to the narrative of Joe Exotic.
From Guns and gay hilly billies to gangsters and an unsolved cold case, the roller coaster ride of the Tiger King throws you every type of curveball and bizarre surprise you could imagine.
The show shows all sides of the crazy characters that fill it, and by doing so creates an emotional ride as well as a shocking one as we see people go from friends to enemies and watch some characters unravel beneath the craziness of the exotic animal ownership world.
While watching, it feels like it should have been a reality series, and come to find out that someone was trying to make one. In many ways, the series id a hybrid of a reality show and documentary strange an appealing as a Liger.
There are moments throughout the series that cast more questions that remain unanswered and other moments where you have to press pause to be in shock or hysteria as the spectrum of events that comprises the documentary episodes.
Watching the series felt more like a TV show populated with fiction characters than a documentary focused on real people. Joe Exotic is aptly named as he is genuinely as exotic, if not more so than the Tigers he identifies with.
