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REVIEW: Netflix Docuseries ‘Tiger King’ Is A Bizarre And Fascinating True Crime Tale

   DailyWire.com
A Bengal tiger, newly arrived in Pakistan from Belgium, roars inside a cage in the municipal zoo in Karachi on July 17, 2012.
ASIF HASSAN/AFP/GettyImages

Hey all you cool cats and kittens, are you ready to dive into one of the strangest true crime docuseries ever produced?

Big cats, wild outfits, gunfire, greed, and murder-for-hire. Yeah. You might think you’ve seen it all, but I can near-guarantee you haven’t experienced anything like Netflix’s “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness.”

Meet Joe Exotic, the gun-toting gay polygamist owner of Oklahoma’s G.W. Zoo, around which the series revolves. Exotic, a troubling mix of chaos and charm, wrangles tigers while talking to the camera as if his life is anything but unusual.

Sure, the tigers, lions, and bears (oh my) at the G.W. Zoo are fascinating, but the real attraction isn’t the animals, it’s the madcap antics and intense personality of showman/owner Joe Exotic, who drives the documentary’s narrative forward like a freight train, even when the series seems like it might be carrying too much cargo for just one story.

From the very beginning, Exotic’s boiling feud with Big Cat Rescue owner Carole Baskin drives the primary plot of “Tiger King.” Did Exotic hire a hitman to take out Baskin? Does Baskin have any skeletons hidden away in her own closet? Does either really care about the welfare of the animals they claim to fight for?

Any and all detours, engrossing and disturbing as they may be, inevitably lead right back to the nexus of the narrative, and that’s Exotic versus Baskin.

Though consistently captivating in a watching-a-car-wreck sort of way, some might have a difficult time downloading the enormity of “Tiger King.” It’s main plot becomes obscured, even lost, somewhere within the middle portion of the docuseries, potentially leading viewers to wonder if the producers forgot how they began this sordid tale, and if they can ever manage to find their way back.

That said, the detours and rabbit holes mostly serve a larger narrative purpose, which is to paint a dynamic and sometimes damning portrait of Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, and the half dozen other supporting characters in this peculiar tragicomedy.

Anchoring the docuseries are Exotic and Baskin, but those interviewed along the way – friends, partners, producers, a zookeeper who lost an arm to one of Exotic’s tigers – offer compelling commentary about the two leading figures in this saga. And the series isn’t just a two-hander, as the narrative is stretched to encompass not only Exotic and Baskin, but several other key players who are only slowly revealed as the series unfurls, and who provide crucial context to the larger story.

It all comes to a head in a way that will likely leave viewers conflicted and asking themselves who to stand behind when all is said and done. Can you even choose a side when there isn’t an archetypal “hero” or “villain” in the story? Perhaps that’s the central question the makers of “Tiger King” are asking, eschewing typical true crime trappings, and asking viewers to simply watch as this utterly bizarre story plays out before them.

Through the twists and turns you never see coming, all the way to the somewhat disconcerting final moments, this true crime docuseries from Netflix will leave many viewers satisfied and genuinely curious as to what will happen after the final credits roll.

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