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"Tiger King 2" protagonists Jeff and Lauren Lowe
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Courtesy of Netflix / Netflix
The joke is no longer funny, and of course it never really was. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the perverse potential of a curious, light yellow-haired, flamboyant-ailing big cat tormentor - in terms of humor and economics - of a strange, light yellow-haired, ailing big cat tormentor is manageable once the first, bright, curious varnish has flaked off. And on the other hand, the more unpleasant part of the fact that improper to revisionist receptionists completely destroy the pleasure, which is already dubious under the aspect of empathy, when one is shown at the beginning of the second season of the Netflix hit »Tiger King«, how decidedly misogynous and double-moral the verdict on the two central figures was among parts of the audience: "Free Joe Exotic" versus "that bitch Carole Baskin",The majority decision of the Grölasse seems to be so simple-minded. The fact that the former is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence because he is said to have tried to have the latter killed is, of course, in the eyes of his fans a miscarriage of justice that can be corrected quickly - while the rumored almost circumstantial evidence that Baskin had in turn fed her husband to the tigers , to be traded as quasi-facts.
Anyone who has not really caught up on what it is all about will unfortunately have to be given up for lost. Or: rework the first season yourself, because the skirmishes and shame stories about a handful of eccentric big cat owners cannot possibly be reduced to a plausible short version. Anyway, in season two you would be lost if you haven't binge-gawked the original saga openly and with a constant-is-not-there-a-look. If you don't know the background of Jeff Lowe, who might have attached the attempted murder to Joe Exotic in order to get hold of his private zoo, and who doesn't know who this Dillon Passage is, who is considering at the beginning of the new season, his in To monetize season one acquired fame with the distribution of anal bleach as merchandise,will not find their way around in the now postponed tangle of materials on the core story.
Especially since connoisseurs also have to struggle with it, all too often the second »Tiger King« infusion looks like a hastily poured together panhandle of all the colorful leftover drinks that are still standing around the morning after the big party. After a brief outline of the impact history - Joe's pardon request found its way to Donald Trump's table because he was promised a quick signature in the last few strokes of his presidency - the main character becomes a bit in the early biography rummaged around, the burdened family history of Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, the hostility he experienced in the American South after coming out as a homosexual.
The makers Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin then follow the two big questions of the Tiger King complex in detail without really getting any closer to their answers: Did Carole Baskin really kill her missing husband, or did he voluntarily leave for Costa Rica (to be there on his part possibly to commit various offenses)? And is Joe Exotic sitting innocently in jail? Both antagonists only appear marginally in the five episodes of the second season: The locked away Exotic via interview from the prison phone, Baskin in excerpts from her YouTube video series, in which she reads from her diaries (yes, all the people appearing behave still mostly erratic). She has filed a lawsuit against Netflix because she doesn't want to appear again in season two.On the other hand, the stream of new and newly viewed bizarre people does not stop. "Tiger King" remains too-good-to-be-true crime because of these staff.
In summary, one could say: every corona wave gets the Tiger King season it deserves.
In March, at the beginning of the first lockdown, when the extent of the pandemic could not really be imagined, when people were still singing songs to ensure the correct length and detail when washing their hands and awkwardly sewing makeshift masks themselves, Joe Exotic was an ideal time killer. Accomplice, his story the ideal escapism story.
Today, shortly before the next lockdown, when everything only feels ominously haphazard and chaotic, Netflix is also tipping the new tiger material as a not really thoroughly dramatized kit at the feet.
The only question is who should still have the nerve to really deal with it.