Netflix Tiger King 2 takes off from where the first season signed off, it promised much more than the series one, but you will feel utterly disappointed. It kicks off where the season ono, with Joseph Maldonado-Passage serving a 22-year prison sentence for violating the Endangered Species Act and an attempted murder-for-hire plot against rival big cat sanctuary owner Carole Baskin. The docuseries is a middling true-crime series, while audiences would have thought it would be very compelling home entertainment during the covid19 hit time, they are left high and dry.
The interwoven tale The Tiger King 2 is a frustrating mess, with none of the gripping storytelling that made the original run such a compelling entertainment; Baskin and her current husband, Howard, have said they felt let down by their portrayal in the first season of the show and refused to participate in the second. The series revisits the disappearance of Baskin’s first husband, Don Lewis, but doesn’t bring any energy the title would mean.
The interwoven tales of warring Oklahoma big cat enthusiasts “Joe Exotic,” Carole Baskin, and the wild cast of characters surrounding them proved irresistible. That the show wasn’t particularly good or well-made didn’t really matter. “Tiger King,” in all its tacky glory, was entertainment in the purest sense. In that moment, that’s all it had to be.
The first episode almost entirely deals with the effect “Tiger King” had on its subjects, most of whom apparently spent the darkest days of the pandemic ignoring it completely and charging crowds of fans for selfies. Baskin went on “Dancing With the Stars” and uploaded dozens of videos of herself reading old diary entries to discourage internet sleuths from digging into the cold case of her second husband’s disappearance — a gambit that has, unsurprisingly, backfired spectacularly as people trawl through her every video for more clues.
Joe Exotic is still in prison after failing to get a presidential pardon from Donald Trump before he left office, but continues to make righteous vows of vengeance over the phone against all those who have ever wronged him.
Tiger King 2 has no energy
The rest of the returning cast of Tiger King 2 colorful characters seem to be enjoying the notoriety “Tiger King” has brought them.
The timing of “Tiger King’s” initial release in March of 2020, in hindsight, couldn’t have been better. The timing now feels like a bit of a snooze. Assuming that counts as the concept’s second life, let’s hope nobody’s planning on seven more.
If you’re feeling nostalgic for the the early days of the pandemic for some reason or eager to see what Joe Exotic (as well as several lawyers) are up to, the five-episode season of “Tiger King 2” is streaming now on Netflix.
