Tiger King Winners and Losers
Who came away with the crown? Who got put through the meat grinder?
How do you win in Tiger King? Some might argue that there are no winners. In the world of high-stakes exotic animal trafficking the stench of villainy soaks into everyone’s skin too deep to wash out. But like the great Abraham Lincoln famously said, “Everything’s relative.” So, relatively speaking, what makes a winner in the Tiger Kingdom?
Sorting winners from losers in this exotic shit pile is not a science, but certain questions must be asked: Is America rooting for you? Do you have over/under 1.5 wives or husbands? Do you have over/under 12 teeth? Do you have over under 3.5 limbs? Have you looked a doctor in the eye and told him you want him to cut your arm off? Are you a sociopath? Do you look like a walking advertisement for gas station boner pills? Do you ride off into the sunset on your jet ski while Eye of the Tiger plays? Have you recorded multiple low-budget country albums? Are you in prison or likely going to be in prison?
After a thorough investigation, here’s how the chips fell.
Joe Exotic: Loser. A suicidal youth finds purpose by bonding with animals–it’s a heartwarming story on its face and it’s why Joe had America on his side from episode 1. And while his teeth somehow hadn’t rotted out by show’s end, you can’t say the same about his dignity. When he was found to have killed 5 tigers he was stripped of most of his public sympathy. The time he turned his dead husband’s funeral into a Joe Exotic concert also wan’t great for the optics. Pile on 22 years in prison, getting conned out of his zoo, and being revealed as a meth peddling manipulator, and even “Here Kitty Kitty” couldn’t salvage a win for Joe Exotic.
Carole Baskin: Loser. When the dust finally settled, everything came up Carole. Her arch rival is behind bars, she’s free to bike laps around her Neverland Ranch and spend her missing husband’s money, and her legions of fans and unpaid volunteers are rabid as ever. So how did she lose? She lost in the court of public opinion. She’s a meme now. And in zoom chats around America, you rarely hear her name mentioned without it being followed by a quiet but resolute, “… that bitch.”
Howard Baskin: Winner. He’s a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting in the Florida sun. He makes Joe Biden look energized. And yes, he has to live with Carole. But he married into money, has the feds on his side and got Joe Exotic off his back. Plus he actually came off as reasonable.
Doc Antle: Loser. Dude was riding high for most of the doc. He created a commercially viable polygamist cult — the Shangri La of exotic animal zoos. But it turns out he was killing and cremating tigers on his property. Joe Exotic snitched on him to the feds and I can’t imagine the fallout will be good for business.
John Finlay: Winner. He got out from under the thumb of Joe and kicked his meth habit. He ran off with a woman and is living his sexual truth. He got a badass new jaguar tattoo. Plus, with the revenue he earns from the show’s success he might be able to get some new teeth. That’s a W.
Winner: Rick Kirkham. I’m not sure how much Rick sold his footage from Joe Exotic TV to Netflix for, but he deserves every penny. He may be a poor man’s Hunter Thompson, relegated to doing field reports for local news stations and low budget internet shows but remember, everything’s relative.
Jeff Lowe: Loser. A douchebag’s douchebag, Jeff Lowe is misogynistic, materialistic and manipulative. He’s like Cypher from the Matrix, if Cypher just got done with a photoshoot for a gas station boner pill product and was on his way to a kid rock show.
Allan Glover: Loser. They say you’re the average of the five people you hang around the most, and somehow Jeff Lowe is bringing up Allen’s average. Allen accepted $3,000 as the “hitman” in a fake murder-for-hire scheme and he immediately spent it on a bender of indeterminate length. Despite avoiding any legal ramifications for his actions on the show (so far), his vacant stare makes me pessimistic about his overall future.
Joshua Dial: Winner. A Walmart gun section clerk with dreams of becoming a political campaign manager, Joshua saw his dreams realized when Joe Exotic plucked him off the gunroom floor and made him his chief political strategist. Then things got weird. Maybe it was the effects of the vape pen, but Joshua seemed unfazed by the twisted saga that unfolded around him. Joshua is normal, which in Tiger King is fucking weird. If you’re normal in Tiger King, you win.
John Reinke: Winner. The GW Zoo manager with two prosthetic legs was one of the few people in the show who wasn’t a sociopathic meth head. By show’s end he’d escaped Joe, Jeff, the Feds and his unhappy marriage. America is rooting for you, John.
Kelci Saffery: Winner. 24 hours after having his hand mangled by a tiger he looked a doctor in the eye and said, “Amputate it you bearded clam, or hand me the saw and I’ll do it myself.” 10 days after that he was back at the zoo taking care of cats. Among a dim witted, drug addled cast, “Saff” came across as a comparative genius. The amputees were the coolest cats on the show. And Joshua.
Erik Cowie: Winner. Perpetually wearing sunglasses and dropping pithy disses on everyone who deserves it, Cowie is a straight shooter. It’s hard to say that Erik is objectively winning. But is he outright losing? The shades and the rock star haircut give Erik the nod. Winner winner, WalMart meat truck chicken dinner.
Tim Stark: Loser. The Wildlife in Need sanctuary owner seemed like a simple enough exotic animal nut–Florida’s crocodile Dundee, flicking a southern drawl at the camera with a little monkey sitting in his lap. As the reality of the exotic animal trade came into focus, Tim’s sheen of southern hospitality faded. The lap monkey became more distressing than endearing. Now he’s got Joe Exotic dishing out who-knows-what kind of dirt on him as Joe tries to squeal his way out of prison. I’m not sure what animal rights violations Tim is sitting on but tally one in his loss column for the impending lawsuits.
James Garretson: Winner. Did he do Jeff’s bidding? Yes. Does he have snitch tendencies? Yes. Does he look like the Gruden brother that they never talk about? Yes. But the world of Tiger King is a morally muddy world and ultimately James was a pawn in a scheme much bigger than himself — a scheme which he was able to wriggle out of unscathed. Plus, the jet ski scene is an instant classic.
Dillon Passage: Winner. You could say that Joe Exotic’s roster of husbands is a backfield by committee. And like Mike Tolbert after a long, hard, DeAngelo-Williams-lead drive, Dillon Passage swooped in and vultured a win. He has 55,000 Instagram followers and the government took his psycho husband off his hands.
Don Lewis: Winner. Whether he’s dead or living off the grid in Costa Rica, he’s free of Carole. Rest in peace, Don.
Amanda Green: Loser. Uncle sam came on the scene swinging his big American johnson in the form of the straight-laced federal prosecutor, Amanda Green. Is she on the right side of the law? Yes. Is she articulate? Yes. Does she have all her teeth? Yes. But for christ’s sake the kids are hopped up on sugar over here throwing water balloons filled with tiger piss. Don’t ruin the party. Despite having every moral and legal reason to shut down Joe Exotic, for playing the party police Amanda Green catches an L.
Sylvia Corkhill: Winner. Who thought the next Veronica Corningstone would rise to international fame on the back of a documentary about a narcissistic zoo owner in Oklahoma? Will she be Good Morning America’s next host? Doubtful. Will she fade into relative obscurity when the next Drake Tik Tok dance captures America’s fishlike attention span? Probably. But for a brief moment, Sylvia Corkhill was the world’s news anchor. Thanks for stopping by, Sylvia.
WalMart: Loser. They’re actually doing the right thing in allowing their expired and returned meat to be put to use. But the image of destitute zookeepers sifting through trash buckets of expired, dripping, room temperature meat to find something to cook for dinner will forever be burned in the American psyche. WalMart is a loser by association.
