Millions of viewers locked in to watch Netflix’sTiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness docuseries in 2020. The hit series premiered at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, so it’s hard to tell whether its global success is credited to people being home or because viewers were truly intrigued by the bizarre story. [Ed Note: We imagine it’s the latter.] The streamer is looking to answer that question by releasing a second season of the series, which is titled Tiger King 2, arriving on Nov. 17. According to Netflix, Tiger King attracted 64 million households in the first four weeks after its March 2020 premiere. Thanks to the show, its titular character Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, became a worldwide sensation. The show became so widely popular that Exotic was a go-to Halloween costume last year, and his story inspired a Peacock / NBCU miniseries starring Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mitchell that’s currently in the works.
Following the release of the show, Exotic is currently in prison after he got caught hiring someone to kill CEO of Big Cat Rescue Carole Baskin. The activist was fighting to have Exotic’s Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma shut down for years, and her longstanding feud with Exotic became the main focus of the docuseries. Exotic was clear about his feelings toward Baskin in the show and even went as far as to accuse her of killing Don Lewis, her husband who went missing in 1997 under mysterious circumstances. So much has happened since the show premiered in 2020, and the streaming giant is now looking to recreate the success of the controversial first season by focusing on how the show has changed these people’s lives. This second season will reveal more of the story viewers didn’t learn about the first time around and judging by the trailer, there’s no doubt that it will be just as batshit crazy as the first. Netflix is promising more “madness and mayhem” with Season 2, so here’s everything you need to know ahead of Tiger King 2.
Millions of viewers locked in to watch Netflix’sTiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness docuseries in 2020. The hit series premiered at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, so it’s hard to tell whether its global success is credited to people being home or because viewers were truly intrigued by the bizarre story. [Ed Note: We imagine it’s the latter.] The streamer is looking to answer that question by releasing a second season of the series, which is titled Tiger King 2, arriving on Nov. 17. According to Netflix, Tiger King attracted 64 million households in the first four weeks after its March 2020 premiere. Thanks to the show, its titular character Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, became a worldwide sensation. The show became so widely popular that Exotic was a go-to Halloween costume last year, and his story inspired a Peacock / NBCU miniseries starring Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mitchell that’s currently in the works.
Following the release of the show, Exotic is currently in prison after he got caught hiring someone to kill CEO of Big Cat Rescue Carole Baskin. The activist was fighting to have Exotic’s Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma shut down for years, and her longstanding feud with Exotic became the main focus of the docuseries. Exotic was clear about his feelings toward Baskin in the show and even went as far as to accuse her of killing Don Lewis, her husband who went missing in 1997 under mysterious circumstances. So much has happened since the show premiered in 2020, and the streaming giant is now looking to recreate the success of the controversial first season by focusing on how the show has changed these people’s lives. This second season will reveal more of the story viewers didn’t learn about the first time around and judging by the trailer, there’s no doubt that it will be just as batshit crazy as the first. Netflix is promising more “madness and mayhem” with Season 2, so here’s everything you need to know ahead of Tiger King 2.
Where did Season 1 leave off?
The first season followed the Kansas native and told the story of how he created the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma. The zookeeper bred big cats including tigers, lions, and pumas, and his business proved to be more reckless and dangerous than any regular zoo. Season 1 also documented his disdain for Carole Baskin, a Florida-based animal activist who had been trying to have Exotic’s park shut down. Exotic tried to fight back, but his solution to the problem landed him in jail. In January 2020, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for two counts of murder-for-hire as well as eight counts of falsifying wildlife records and nine counts of violating the Endangered Species Act after he is said to have hired two men to murder Baskin and got caught.
The Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park has shut down. Jeff Lowe bought the attraction from Exotic in 2016, but a federal judge transferred ownership to Baskin in May 2020 to satisfy a $1 million judgment she won in a trademark lawsuit against Exotic. The Big Cat Rescue CEO sold the property a year later for a reported $140,000. The new owners agreed not to use the property to replicate or reference Exotic’s old business for a century after the purchase. “When we sold the property in June [2021], we required that it never be used as a zoo, or for anything related to Tiger King or anything like that,” Baskin told Yahoo Entertainment in August. “If it became an RV park or storage unit, we don’t want it named the Tiger King RV Park,” her husband added. “We would like the 20 years of mistreatment of animals there to be forgotten and be history.”
Will Joe Exotic appear in the ‘Tiger King’ sequel?
Nothing will get in the way of Joe Exotic appearing in Tiger King 2. The notorious zookeeper will return to Netflix for the sequel via phone calls and video chats since he is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence for the murder-for-hire plot to kill Baskin. He has maintained his innocence and continues to fight for his release. Exotic went as far as seeking a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump in September 2020, which according to the trailer, will also be explored this season. Exotic’s story got so much attention in 2020 that it inspired an additional documentary and multiple scripted series about his life are said to be in the works.
In November, Exotic announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. “Doctors called me in today to break the news that my prostate biopsy came back with an aggressive cancer,” he tweeted, along with a photo of a handwritten note asking to be released from prison. “Carole Will have her own party over this! Say a prayer everyone & be my voice.” There’s no indication of whether or not his cancer diagnosis will be covered on the show.
What do we know about ‘Tiger King 2’ so far?
According to Netflix, Tiger King 2 will pick up right where Season 1 left off and will provide the “madness and mayhem” that grabbed audiences the first time around. “Thought you knew the whole story?” the streaming platform teased in a press release. “Just you wait.” The story will continue to dive into the backstories of the show’s outlandish characters and give updates on how their bizarre lives have changed thanks to the show’s popularity. Tiger King 2 also promises to show newfound revelations of “the motivations, backstories, and secrets of America’s most notorious big cat owners.” Jeff Lowe, Tim Stark, Allen Glover, and James Garretson are set to return for this season, as they continue to give viewers insight into the stories that made the Emmy-nominated show the undeniable hit it was.
The dramatic first trailer for the series included audio footage of Exotic calling in from prison while showing how the show’s success has led to some of its subjects becoming celebrities. “Everybody from the zoo is out there making money, and I’m paying the price for every one of them people,” Exotic says in a phone recording from behind bars during the trailer. For those who don’t remember, Lowe bought the park from Exotic before Baskin took possession. Stark, who was another exotic animal owner, will be back along with Glover, who was the alleged hitman Exotic hired to kill Baskin. Garretson, who was known as the jet ski guy, will also appear in Tiger King 2.
Is Carole Baskin returning for Season 2?
Although she was one of the standouts in Season 1, Baskin will not be returning for Tiger King 2. Baskin doesn’t seem to be pleased about the new series using old footage of her either. Even though she did not want to be part of the upcoming season, Baskin appears in the Season 2 trailer. She has stated that the new footage of her and her husband, Howard Baskin, that Netflix used was filmed for Season 1. The couple filed a lawsuit against the streaming service in November to block the company from using footage of them in Tiger King 2. A Florida judge denied their request for a temporary restraining order. According to court documents obtained by Fox News on Nov. 5, the judge ruled that the Baskins “are not entitled to the extraordinary remedy of a temporary restraining order, which would be entered before Defendants have had an adequate opportunity to respond.” The ruling stated: “While the Court understands the Baskins’ frustration, it does not appear that inclusion of Defendants’ footage of the Baskins will cause any immediate harm that cannot be compensated with monetary damages.”
However, Baskin will get to tell her side of the story in her own documentary. Discovery+ previously announced a new documentary series that will focus on Baskin’s investigation into the treatment of animals at the zoo formerly owned by Joe Exotic. The series is titled Carole Baskin’s Cage Fight, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, it will see Baskin and her husband looking into the property awarded to Baskin by a judge in 2020.
The streaming giant wasted no time in responding to the lawsuit. Netflix and the production company Royal Goode Productions are arguing that Baskin’s suit doesn’t hold any weight. People obtained court documents filed a week after and they say Baskin agreed to give them permission to use footage of her in future projects. According to the companies, she signed agreements in 2019 which “explicitly permit Defendants to use the footage in later projects.” The judge determined Netflix and the production company didn’t need additional permission to include the old footage in the upcoming season. “Defendants did not need to obtain a release from Plaintiffs to use the footage in Tiger King 2 or its promotional trailers,” the documents read. “And there is nothing in any of the appearance releases that prohibits any use of the footage. Accordingly, Plaintiffs have no claim at all, much less one that can evade Defendants’ First Amendment.”
Will Season 2 live up to the hype of the original?
It’s hard to say whether viewers were drawn to the show because of its suspense and absolute insanity or if it was because it helped us all get through the first couple of weeks of pandemic isolation. Social media users took to their timelines to share their thoughts and opinions on the bizarre show, unifying them at a time where everything else seemed so bleak and uncertain. There’s no telling whether people will still be interested in the Tiger King crew’s shenanigans this time around but Hollywood is certainly still riding the hype train. NBCUniversal got the rights to the podcast on which the series is based on in April and the studio is already working on a scripted Joe Exotic-inspired series in Brisbane, Australia. The series stars actor John Cameron Mitchell as Joe “Exotic” Schreibvogel and Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon as his foe Carole Baskin. Netflix wasn’t going to fall behind on reaping the benefits of the success of the show they created, so the streamer was undeniably going to release a Season 2.
Exotic and Baskin are two of the most peculiar people we’ve seen come out of TV in recent years, and their stories involving violence, exotic animals, and overall weirdness are bound to produce a strong follow-up. The docuseries is such a train wreck and for some reason, audiences couldn’t look away in 2020. Viewers will be able to judge for themselves if the story is still as captivating as the first time around when the new season drops on Wednesday, Nov. 17 on Netflix.