Ever since we binge watched all seven episodes of Netflix’s Tiger King, we’ve been dying to find out more about the cast of misfits and miscreants the show introduced us too. While the series closed with zookeeper and aspiring politician Joe Exotic in jail for trying to arrange a hit on his nemesis Carole Baskin, the ending left us with more questions than answers. Like: why did nobody address that photo of Carole holding her husband on a leash? What happened to her first husband? Why did Joe talk about his late husband’s balls in front of his grieving mother at his funeral?
Well, we might have answers to some of those questions (regrettably not the balls one) sooner than expected. While Joe Exotic’s other rival, Jeff Lowe, teased an extra episode of the Netflix series as a coda to the greatest and most demented piece of investigative journalism we’ve ever seen, the streaming giant has not yet confirmed this. But fear not! Another channel is planning a kind of sequel to Tiger King, but this time it’s Carole, not Joe, who’s under scrutiny.
The show will be produced not by Netflix but by true crime network Investigation Discovery (ID – hey, that’s our name!) and will investigate the mysterious disappearance of Carole Baskin’s ex-husband Don Lewis. Don became a focal point in Tiger King after Joe and other exotic animal collectors accused Carole of killing him. He disappeared, seemingly into thin air, 21 years ago, and has never been found. “Despite her claims of innocence, did she orchestrate the disappearance of Don Lewis to seize control of his fortune, consolidate power and lay waste to her foes?” a press release for the show asks. “No one seems to be talking — except for one man — and that man is the centre of ID’s upcoming investigative series.”
The show promises to dig deeper on Carole’s image and whether her true nature is, as Joe Exotic claimed, more sinister. “Is she a selfless crusader and protector of animals, who found unimaginable strength despite the mysterious disappearance of her husband?” it asks. “Or are we witnessing Carole Baskin’s master plan finally take effect?” Don’t know about all you cool cats and kittens, but we cannot wait.
“Viewers are understandably riveted by Netflix’s Tiger King, but the millions of true crime fans around the world were left wanting more,” said Henry Schleiff, network president at ID. He went on to call the show “an inevitable sequel,” adding that “it’s time to let the cat out of the bag and address the lingering questions that viewers demand be answered”.
It remains to be seen whether Joe Exotic will feature heavily, or at all in the new show, but the focus on Carole is probably for the best. While many people across the world empathised with the larger-than-life zookeeper, it seems the documentary presented a decidedly rosier picture of him than the reality. Tiger King’s co-creator Rebecca Chaiklin revealed earlier this week that Joe was incredibly bigoted, and that they were forced to cut his racist outbursts from the show before airing. Telling The Hollywood Reporter that the comments were edited out because they didn’t lend “context” to the show, Rebecca said: “Joe is a racist, I would say categorically. He said things when we were filming that were very unsettling.”
“I think most of it was ignorance and not having a lot of exposure,” the filmmaker went on to say. “And I think he even evolved over the course of the time that we filmed.” That may be the case, but with a movie adaptation already signed on with SNL’s Kate McKinnon at the helm, it remains to be seen how Joe will be cast and portrayed. One thing is certain though, we are not done with the Tiger King.
Okay but seriously, why did Carole have that picture of her husband on the leash? I need to know.