Netflix’s Tiger King And I: 10 Things We Learned In The New Episode

Tiger King is definitely unlike any program Netflix has delivered before, and it is certainly set apart from any other documentary you’ve ever seen. The seven-part series crash-landed onto the screens of audiences just when it was needed most, and it got them hooked from episode one.

After being out for just over three weeks, fans are excited to see the recently added installment entitled Tiger King and I in which Joel McHale interviewed several stars of the show via webcam to get their thoughts on the series and learn some behind the scenes secrets. Here are ten things fans learned in Tiger King‘s newest episode:

10 Erik Cowe Hasn’t Seen The Show

Tiger King has been number one in several countries around the world, with millions of people becoming fans in a matter of days. While John Finlay and his fiancee binge-watched it the night it came out, head zookeeper Erik Cowe hasn’t even seen it! Maybe he should have gotten up at five am like Jeff and his wife did to try and watch it before the majority of the public. Erik says he definitely needs to watch it to get some context on the memes people have been making, but he’s been busy with work.

9 Some People Aren’t Happy With How They Were Portrayed

Josh Dial thinks that Tiger King was wonderfully made and turned out to be a great production, but not everyone agrees. Both Jeff Lowe and John Finlay are unhappy with the way the show made them out to be. Jeff says that he felt that things were sensationalized in order to give the story a villain, which ended up being him.

John feels that he was represented as a “drugged out hillbilly,” but he says he had been clean for years at the time of the interview. When his daughter, now almost five years old, was born, he decided that he never wanted to do drugs again.

8 The Video Of Saff’s Tiger Attack Was Used As A Safety Video

We saw a brief clip of Saff getting his arm bit by a tiger early in the series, and he says that he has seen the footage over and over. Some good came out of it, though, because the video was shown to new employees to highlight the dangers of working with big cats. People needed to understand how serious the job is before they decide to commit to it, and watching Saff’s accident was a good way to get that message across.

7 Rick Kirkham Regrets Meeting Joe Exotic

Rick Kirkham met Joe after Joe put an add on Craigslist looking for someone to produce his show years ago, but Rick now says that he regrets coming to the zoo. After about three months on the job, Rick began to see Joe mistreating animals and doing terrible things. Rick feels that he sold himself out by not going to the authorities and instead choosing the still film and work with Joe. He says that he was sucked into Joe’s world, and he still has nightmares today about his time at the zoo.

6 More About The Tigers Joe Shot

Joe has been accused of shooting five healthy tigers, and several people interviewed in the new episode gave us some more insight on the issue. Jeff Lowe says that the cats were healthy and around two or three years old, but Joe killed them because he needed the cage space.

Rick says that he once witnessed Joe shoot a cat because he was mad at it for trying to bite him. Even Erik mentions that sometimes cats were killed who were not sick, and he regrets being a part of that. This upset Saff too, but he says that there is nothing he could have really done about it.

5 Josh Is Still Suffering From Witnessing Travis’ Death

One of the most tragic moments of the show is when Joe’s husband Travis accidentally shoots and kills himself, and Joshual Dial unfortunately witnessed the whole thing. While he does not think that Travis did it on purpose, Josh still struggles with that handling that horrendous day. He had to go into the office and see the bullet hole in the wall every day for a year afterward, and neither Joe or Jeff helped him get counseling. Today, money is being raised in the hopes of getting him some medication and therapy to deal with the awful event.

4 Jeff And Dillon Got Into A Fist Fight

One person we didn’t get to see interviewed is Joe’s current husband Dillon, but he is mentioned briefly by John Reinke. On the day that Joe quit the zoo, John witnessed Dillon and the zoo’s new CEO Jeff get into a physical altercation in the parking lot that lasted fifteen minutes! John doesn’t say what the fight was about or if anybody got seriously hurt, but he decided after the incident that he was going to quit too. Dillon has said in previous interviews that he does not have anything nice to say about Jeff.

3 Joe Was Very Charitable

In one episode of Tiger King, we saw Joe cooking Thanksgiving dinner for people, and Saff gave us some more information on that event. Joe and his family had spent the entire night before cooking for a hundred people to give them a free Thanksgiving dinner, and he did that every year for at least ten years.

Saff feels that, even though Joe has certainly done some bad things in his life, his giving personality was not shown enough on the show, and he says that Joe would give you the jacket off his back.

2 There Are Preferences For Who Should Be Cast In The Movie

There have been rumors going around that there will be a Tiger King movie, and fans have already started speculating which famous actors should play each character. Several people who were interviewed were asked their own opinions about who should play them, and they did not disappoint us with their answers. Rick thinks Billy Bob Thornton would be good in his role, and Saff is partial to Brandon Baker from Johnny Tsunami. While some people think Matthew McConaughey would make a good Joe Exotic, John Reinke wants the actor to play him instead.

1 Most People Believe Joe Belongs In Jail

Joe is currently serving 22 years in federal prison, and, while the majority of his fans are wanting him to be freed, his former coworkers disagree. When asked if Joe should be let out of prison, Erik quickly and firmly says no and, “good riddance.” Saff says that he believes justice was served, but he doesn’t want to see Joe die in prison. Rick states that even if Joe had the possibility to get out in several years for good behavior, he doesn’t think Joe would make it until then.

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