Tiger King doesn’t need a second season – it barely needed a first one

The first season of the Netflix documentary series was a moment in time, and one we do not need to revisit, writes Clémence Michallon

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic (Courtesy of NETFLIX)

It was March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic was taking hold across the world, and everything was uncertain. The ability to make plans was but a distant memory. It was a dark, scary time, every minute of every day weighed down by the possibility of loss.

And as people were told to stay at home and away from one another, they learnt to experience the collective at a distance. They clapped for essential workers from their windows. They shared photos of their sourdough starters on social media. Above all, they watched Tiger King. For better and often for worse, the Netflix documentary – full title Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness – became one of the most successful releases on the streaming platform. It was a moment in time – one we do not need to revisit. Tiger King doesn’t need a second season. It barely needed one in the first place.

Alas, Netflix has a different view. Tiger King will return on 17 November with a second season. It will of course feature Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, aka the titular Tiger King, who was sentenced in January 2020 to 20 years behind bars. A federal jury convicted him in 2019 of hiring someone to murder his rival Carole Baskin, as well as a combined 17 violations of laws protecting wildlife. (Maldonado-Passage, in case you haven’t watched season one of Tiger King, used to – poorly – operate a zoo with a focus on big cats.)

So, what’s in store for this new season? According to Netflix: “With Joe Exotic behind bars and Carole Baskin closing in on ownership of his disreputable zoo, the Emmy-nominated saga continues its twisted course with Tiger King 2 as newfound revelations emerge on the motivations, backstories, and secrets of America’s most notorious big cat owners. Old enemies and frenemies … return for another season of murder, mayhem, and madness.” In other words… more of the same?

It’s not like the original material was without flaws. It’s easy to get carried away when it seems like everyone is raving about a specific show – and for a moment in early 2020, it did seem like everyone was watching and enjoying Tiger King. But we have the benefit of hindsight now! We can acknowledge the more uncomfortable aspects of the original show. We can start with the way Tiger King put Carole Baskin in the strangest spotlight, which resulted in people around the world speculating about whether she had a role in her husband’s disappearance. (Don Lewis went missing in 1997. Baskin has never been arrested or charged in the case; she has denied any involvement and spoken out against the show.) Baskin, in fact, has just sued Netflix, asking it to remove all footage of her from the forthcoming second season.

Tiger King often lacked empathy for its subjects – both animal and human. As The Independent’s Alexandra Pollard wrote at the time, “there’s an argument to be made that, despite the high-budget Netflix gloss, this is an ugly exercise in class tourism … In many ways, Joe and his cohorts play into the tired stereotypes of working-class southern Americans. (Although Joe plays up to them, too, and, as an openly gay man in deeply Republican territory, enjoys subverting them.) They are deeply complicated, often troubled people offered up for our escapism and entertainment.” NPR’s Glen Weldon pointed out that the series struggled to move its premise beyond a basic “get a load of these weirdos”. “Everybody on this show keeps making the same assertion over and over again, which is: ‘Everybody wants to pet a baby tiger,’” he added with relatable exasperation. “What? No, no, that is not a thing!”

There has been so much Tiger King content, with more on the horizon. We’ve had a Wondery podcast. We’ve had a Louis Theroux documentary. There’s a TV series in the works. In fact, there were supposed to be two, but Amazon recently scrapped plans for a Tiger-King-themed drama starring Nicolas Cage. “I read two excellent scripts, which I did think were excellent, but I think Amazon ultimately felt that it was material that had become past tense because it took so long for it to come together,” Cage told Variety. “They felt at one point that it was lightning in a bottle, but that point has since faded into the distance and it’s no longer relevant.”

To which I say: yes, exactly. If you don’t want to listen to me, then listen to Nicolas Cage. He is, after all, Nicolas Cage. Hear him roar.