Tiger King (2020) s01e05 Episode Script

[Antle] Holy mackerel. Yes, ma'am.
I'm ready.
I don't want to cut y'all short.
You guys are ready for the party.
Get the chimp, and I'll walk right in.
[man] I don't even know
what a chimp birthday party is.
[Antle] Yes you do. It's exactly
a five-year-old's birthday party.
It's got crappy little decorations
we bought at a store,
and it has chimps who are going to be
hilaritly happy about it,
and if you got too close,
they're gonna tear your fingers off.
Oh, look at them!
They look fucking fabulous.
They look fucking fabulous.
Scoot closer to Gina.
Our social media these days is just
in the millions a week.
Millions of people a week
are following it.
- [man] How do you do that?
- [Antle] Our content is so unique.
No one's got the content
unless it came from us these days.
Make noise.
[woman hollering]
[Antle] Where's the other one?
Don't let them bite it.
Easy. Don't bite. Don't bite.
Hit it. Hit it.
[Joe] It wasn't the zoo anymore.
It was nothing but a big scam.
[woman laughs]
Paws will come out of that.
[Joe] Jeff conned everyone.
Because he's jealous.
He's a little man with a little dick
and a limp, and he's bald,
and he's got to pay everybody
to have sex with him.
This man has got more criminal shit
going on than you can imagine.
Well, sooner or later he's going to jail.
[theme music instrumentals]
[Saffery]
From the time Jeff came into the picture,
the whole dynamic of the park changed.
Joe only cared about one man's opinion,
and that man didn't do anything on park.
He didn't clean cages.
He didn't do book work.
He didn't check in customers.
He didn't feed cats.
Nothing.
[Antle] Jeff somehow seduced Joe
by hook and crook.
Joe fell in love with the premise.
Joe handed over the keys to the kingdom
to prevent Carole
from taking the keys to the kingdom,
and then through that,
Jeff proceeded to try and circumvent
Joe's opportunity authority
and separate him from his wealth.
In my opinion.
[Lowe] Everybody was loyal to Joe
when we got here
and I think they kinda were skeptical
that these two people were gonna
come in here and make things better.
Jeff Lowe fired half the staff
when he walked through the door,
called a couple of them "fucking faggots"
and stirred up a bunch of shit.
[Lowe] I had a guy
who worked for me for years,
a great guy.
I called him when we moved here,
and we couldn't find anybody good
around locally.
I said, "Allen, what would you think
about moving out here?"
I said, "I'll give you a place to stay
and you just take care of the park.
Be a handyman for me."
[man] When I first got to the zoo,
I didn't know anything about the zoo.
I don't think I've ever
really been to one, so
[chuckles]
Jeff said, "I'll give you money
and a place to live and whatnot,"
so I was like,
"I'll take him up on his offer."
[Lowe] Allen was kind of a transient
all of his life.
Great worker and very, very loyal.
[man] Let it down.
[Glover] I went to prison
when I just turned 18.
Did my time for that.
I've had many other encounters
with the police,
but moving on with life.
- [Glover] Let's go.
- [man] I've got the primate kennel.
[Lowe] We were doing okay the first year,
and we made some improvements
that Joe didn't have the resources
to make.
I wanted to operate a family zoo,
a nice zoo
but they required a lot of money.
So, we met this guy named James Garretson
through Joe, who I trusted.
He had some pretty lucrative strip clubs
and restaurants and bars.
[man] Done a little of everything.
I've been in the bar business.
I ran strip clubs. Worked in the circus.
You name it, I've done it.
I got into cats when I was about 17.
Bought a lion cub
out of the Dallas morning newspaper.
Been around them ever since.
[tiger yowling]
[Garretson]
I've known Joe a span of about 20 years.
Not great friends with him, but friendly.
He introduced me
to a gentleman named Jeff Lowe,
and then that's when
me and Jeff became friendly,
and then Jeff talked me into giving him
$14,000 to open a pizza restaurant.
[Joe] You can sit down on the patio
right next to real-life tigers,
and you can have some of the best pizza
that I make from scratch.
And that's a Joe Exotic promise.
[Garretson]
He used the Walmart donation program
to lower the food cost.
[Reinke] They have the best pizza here.
[man] Do you think most of the meat
was from Walmart?
Yeah.
[Reinke] Mmm. Mmm, mmm, mmm.
[Garretson] Joe was always trying to be
bigger than what he was, you know,
and that's just how Joe does business.
Joe told me several times.
He says [as Joe] "People don't come
to see the tigers. They come to see me."
Joe was the entertainment director
by title.
Even though
Jeff was the owner of the park,
Joe was the star of the show.
Jeff was the star of his show,
so which one was gonna rule this world?
Joe Exotic is how many people know him.
He mailed off this form to the federal
election commission last Friday,
announcing his intent to run for president
as an independent.
Mic check. Check, check, check.
[man] Whenever you're ready.
Brr!
Hello, America. Let's see, fuck this.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen of America.
Let's try that again.
Hey, can you shut that off for a minute!
When he said he was gonna run,
for president, it about floored me.
I said, "Holy crap, man."
"I got a chance. I got a chance."
He actually thought he had a chance.
He didn't have a chance.
He ain't got a chance in hell.
Joe Exotic for the people of America.
How was that?
[man] Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
are among the most disliked
presidential candidates in history.
And and luckily, there are a great many
third-party options out there.
There's independent write-in candidate
Joe Exotic,
who claims to run the world's largest
private zoo for tigers
and produces incredible campaign videos.
I'm not changing the way I dress.
I refuse to wear a suit.
I am gay.
I am broke as shit.
I have a judgment against me
from some bitch down there in Florida.
And this is all paid for by the committee
of Joe Exotic Speaks for America.
- [applause]
- Wow.
Just wow.
[applause]
Joe Exotic is truly the candidate
you'd want to sit down
and have a beer with,
then another beer,
and then several more beers
until you're drunk enough
to try meth for the first time.
[Garretson]
Whenever that clip went to John Oliver,
Joe got a big head.
Even though they were making fun of him,
Joe was the star.
Everybody was adding him on Facebook
and stuff,
so he thought he was a celebrity
from that point on.
Is America ready for the first redneck,
gun-toting, mullet-sporting,
tiger-tackling, gay polygamist president?
You know, I think they are.
I'm outspoken, good-looking.
Mm-hmm.
- I love to party and have fun. [laughs]
- Hello.
- Let's go blow some shit up.
- Blow some shit up?
Anybody that wants to threaten
an American citizen
- by cutting their head off
- Yeah?
deserves this kind of treatment.
[man] We're getting a good look
at your national defense program.
[Joe] When he's ready, Travis.
- [loud explosion]
- [Joe] Ahh!
[Travis] Whoo!
That's how we take care of ISIS
right there, buddy.
- [man] Dude, that went right through me.
- [Joe laughing]
I was Joe's campaign manager
for about a year and half.
Uh, it was
the worst experience of my life.
It was horrible. Horrible, horrible.
[shudders, coughs]
I'd like to introduce my friend today.
[Dial] Joe Exotic for president was 100%
a complete and total publicity stunt.
It was all about outrage.
Get as much views as possible.
I'm as gay as a three-dollar bill,
and I'm standing in a cage with five
full grown tigers and lions, and I
When that fell apart
he decides to run for governor.
Next best thing.
I think his exact words were,
"I couldn't wait another four years,
so I decided to run for governor."
When I got the job offer to work for Joe,
I was like, "You know, what's the job?"
He said campaign manager,
and I was like, "Holy shit,
that's my dream job. I'm going to take it.
I don't care what he is."
And I already knew he was bat shit crazy
from our conversations at Walmart.
I was a manager at Walmart at the time,
and I worked at the ammo section,
and he'd come in and buy bullets,
you know, like, every day damn near.
Tannerite, which is something
you can shoot and it explodes.
[Joe] I'm using nothing more
than what I can buy legally
over the counter at any gun shop.
[loud explosion]
[loud explosion]
I know a lot more than he knew
about politics,
and that was my main value to him.
[reporter]
Primary elections are next month
[man] Joe Exotic for governor,
he thought he was going to win.
[reporter]
could become our state's next governor.
[interviewer] What did people think
of Joe running for governor?
- Locally?
- Yeah.
It was a source of entertainment.
[woman] You are a political anomaly,
and on Twitter, you know,
you're not afraid to respond to viewers
with expletives.
Guess what, motherfucker,
even the day is
[Corkill] When people are running
for any election,
there's a lot of glad-handing,
there's a lot of baby kissing.
Joe passed out condoms
with his face on them.
[Joe] Political condoms.
Vote for me, or you need this
'cause you're screwed.
[Corkill] And of course, if you put it
to social media, the comments are endless.
Probably got more hits talking about him
than really than content
of everyone else who was running.
It's more entertainment.
[Joe] What are you doing?
- [man] Watch it.
- [Joe] We had nothing to
[Joe laughs]
Watch your back.
[Joe murmurs, laughs]
What a wild interview!
This is one of my stranger interviews.
[Dial] Joe was running
for governor of Oklahoma as a Libertarian.
Joe Maldonado aka Joe Exotic.
He had no idea what a Libertarian is.
He still has no idea
what a Libertarian is.
I'd like to introduce my wife,
but my husband's at home
feeding my brand-new baby kangaroo.
Always wanted to say that.
[laughs]
Our eventual platform was my platform,
and that was less government,
less spending, less bills.
There's two laws that they're introducing
into Congress this year to try and pass.
One of them's the Big Cat Safety Act.
The only problem is it's all a fraud.
Just spending millions trying to decide
whether or not I should own
a fucking tiger or not?
This is my way of living
and nobody's gonna tell me any other way.
[Carole] The only people who opposed
the Big Cat Public Safety Act
are those who are breeding these cubs
and using them as pay-to-play props.
This is a sweeping federal bill.
It will cover all of those states,
and nobody will be allowed to be keeping
these big cats as pets any longer,
or breeding them,
or using them as pay-to-play props.
[Joe] You want to know how come
these people can get everything
that they want introduced into law?
Carole Baskin and Howard Baskin
spend most of their time and money
sucking ass to the politicians.
[Antle] They wanna take it all
away from us.
This seems entirely un-American,
entirely unconstitutional to me.
[Antle] Doc Antle brought exotic cats
into the halls of Congress,
because if you can get somebody
to sit down and pet a cheetah
and have their picture made,
then when I come in there
and say, "This is really cruel,
and that's why it's cruel,"
they've already done it,
so they're like,
"Well, if I say this is cruel,
people are gonna say I'm a hypocrite."
And so, our opponents are really smart
in the way that they get out there
ahead of us
in a way that we just can't.
I mean, we're not gonna take wild animals
into public buildings to make our point.
[announcer] Watch this ride, Johnny!
Here's your bumper sticker.
I'm running for governor.
Put a bumper sticker on the horse
and let's keep the animal rights people
out of Oklahoma.
[man laughing]
Want a free shirt?
We're gonna change this state.
It's time that somebody
as broke as me and you get in there.
Joe, he had a lot of charisma.
Uh, anyone that I could get him
in front of, we had their vote.
[overlapping chatter]
Do you still have the exotic farm?
Yep, yep. Up to 227 tigers.
I got 22 coming in on Sunday.
- It's huge.
- I have to see it.
It is huge. Do!
- Pleasure seeing you.
- Good seeing you.
I'll give it to her. I'll give it to her.
[Lowe] Joe thought
that his political aspirations
would lead to more business at the park,
which it didn't, you know, of course.
It actually I think it hurt us
more than anything else.
And he had signs up on the gift shop,
he was gonna run for president in 2020.
And I made him take those down.
I said, "You know what?
The park isn't gonna fund
your political campaign,
and I think it's time to focus
back on the animals."
[Joe] Just get the front on them,
is all we need first.
[woman] You guys lift.
[grunting]
- Don't jam it.
- Drop back.
[Lowe] Joe turned into a little bitch
and started griping and complaining
about Allen every fucking day.
When I first met Joe
things were all right, I guess,
and then it turned like to shit quick.
[Lowe] Joe would ask him to do something,
and if Allen thought it was stupid,
he'd say, "Fuck you, Joe.
I don't work for you. I work for Jeff."
So Joe calls me up.
"Allen was telling me"
Well I said, "Well, technically
he does work for me.
He doesn't work for you."
I think Joe thought that I put Allen here
as a plant
to report back to me what was going on.
Tell them if I have to come in there
one more time
and tell 'em to answer that radio,
they're going home.
Goldilocks bitch.
[Lowe] Allen calls me and says,
"I'm cutting some trees down today
and Joe's behind me."
He says, "Is it okay if
I dropped a chainsaw on him?"
Allen wanted to take Joe out.
He hated him that much.
Fucking
Unimaginable, man, he was hateful.
Communication! Stay alive!
[Glover] Call you names over the radio.
It did Not just me. Anybody.
God damn, girl. Feed the goddamn animals!
Never in my life ever
put up with anything like that.
And I've worked for quite a few people.
He tops it off.
Ready?
[Saffery] There was just a lot of
burned bridges, man.
You got sound?
The fucking staff
tried to get me killed in a cage.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to video message number 113.
They put cologne on my shoes.
[Lowe] We heard that Joe was
out in the arena while he was filming
one of his stupid campaign videos.
And this cat was sniffing his shoes
and sniffing his shoes.
Okay, well first of all,
you haven't recognized
the rest of us 40 people
that are running.
She was just fascinated
by his shoes that day.
And the list goes on. Ow, son of a bitch!
God damn you!
[gunshot]
[Carole] Here's all these people filming
Joe being dragged around,
and nobody's going in there to rescue him.
Get down! Go!
- [gunshot]
- Get!
Ain't nobody help me. Nobody.
Get out of here, you bitch!
[Lowe] He came out with a story.
"Somebody put something on my shoes
to get that cat to attack me."
I'm gonna shoot you right between
the fucking eyes, bitch.
What scent makes a liger attack your shoe?
I were gonna you know,
if somebody wanted to kill you,
then they would put, like
sardine oil all over you.
Something the cat wants to eat,
not something the cat wants to drool on.
'Cause the perfume, that's all they want
to do, is just drool all over it.
They're just like [moans, laughs]
[Lowe] All of the confusion
that the Carole Baskin lawsuits
were causing him, and all the money
it was costing him
Somebody like Joe just goes crazy.
His mood swings were significant.
I don't give a shit.
Next time you're in jail
and you're homeless,
be sure you don't call me.
- You wanna see how crazy
- [Finlay] He didn't care who he hurt.
He didn't care who he stepped on.
Okay, don't This is my fucking
[Reinke] Yeah, Joe was very controlling.
If John Finlay went to visit his brother
in Texas, or anything like that,
he didn't want him to go.
If he went, he wanted him back
the same day.
I don't know how much love was involved,
but I'm sure it was the cars
that he bought John Finlay,
the guns he bought John Finlay,
the four-wheelers he bought John Finlay.
This gun right here, Joe bought for me.
I mean, I like pink camo.
Lot of people make fun of me for it,
but you know what
it's just something I like.
He was
showering me with gifts and stuff.
He bought me a truck.
Actually bought me, like,
four or five different trucks.
If they wanted it, they got it.
I mean, all they had to do was ask,
and I think that's how
he kept them close to him.
John and Travis were both 19
when they met Joe
and at 19 years old, man,
the one thing that a 19-year-old guy
wants to do is party,
have fun, live it up.
You know, no tomorrows.
[Joe]
Travis, he didn't really work at the zoo,
he just rode his four-wheelers
and shot his guns
at the lake and the river.
Travis was a pothead from hell, and
Which Who cares, you know,
that's all Travis had in his life.
He was trapped here in Wynnewood,
a boy from Cali,
and Joe kept him pumped full of weed
to keep him from waking up and realizing
this isn't a life to live.
[laughs]
[man humming]
I knew there was drug use going on
because of statements made
by John and Joe.
Oh, girls!
I've always been worried
about you being a spy. Run!
- [women] No, don't Ahh!
- [gunshot]
[Joe] I've had my days of coke.
I had my days of drinking.
I had my days of meth.
And this is my mother-in-law. Run!
[laughter]
[Rhodes] One thing that meth does:
somehow or another
it concentrates in your teeth.
We call it meth mouth.
Meth was the main one that we did.
It was starting to really fuck me up
in the head.
I mean, I'm still kinda fucked up
in the head from it now.
When Travis came around,
Travis would smoke his meth.
I guess Joe was smart enough
when he walked up and seen a young boy.
"Hey, he's on meth.
Come here. I'll provide your meth.
I'll give you everything
if you come over here and marry me."
You know.
So I guess that's how Joe did it.
[Garretson] Travis, he would always say
that he wanted to go
to the strip bar with us,
but he said Joe would freak out
if he left the property.
I mean, he told me with his own mouth
that he wasn't gay.
I told Joe at least three times
Travis was not gay, okay?
Travis was banging every girl in the park,
and I find out later,
John Finlay came out and said,
"Look, I gotta tell you,
I'm really not gay.
I've been sleeping with the girl
at the front desk,
and we're going off to get married."
All through school, I was dating girls.
From the time of kindergarten
till I graduated,
I had a girlfriend every time.
He actually slept with the secretary,
Amber, there at the zoo.
And Joe was pretty close to Amber
because she'd been around for a long time.
[indistinct speech]
[Joe] He left me for a girl,
and the hardest part I had
in dealing with that was
I can't compete with that, you know?
Leave me for a man
and we're game on, okay?
But leave me for a woman,
I can't compete with that.
Come to find out
John Finlay got her pregnant, so
I've seen a few fights.
I think the saving grace
in that situation was Travis.
You know, Joe wasn't alone.
Joe still had Travis.
[Dial]
Neither Travis nor John Finlay were gay,
and Joe admitted that to me.
Fell in love with straight guys,
because there's not too many gay guys
in Wynnewood, Oklahoma.
You guys edit this shit.
I want you to show it to him.
He maybe asks me what's wrong,
but he only spends five seconds listening,
and then he'll walk out on me.
[loud banging]
Pretty fucking sad.
He doesn't give a fuck about
any of my problems, like
Is he trying to make me blow my top?
I don't know.
I don't know what he wants.
[tapping]
[Dial] There are people out there.
They will look at a person who is
in desperate, dire need of something.
In Travis's case, he was addicted to meth.
And they take that need
and they fulfill it
until they become the only person
that can fulfill that need.
And in exchange,
that person gives them whatever sexual
or any other favors they want.
That's the relationship Joe had
with Travis.
- What?
- [chuckles]
- You know what? You know what?
- What?
What? [laughs]
Bad dream, baby.
That ain't even funny.
That's not even funny.
[Dial] Travis came into the office
and started complaining to me.
Travis was sitting underneath the camera,
but it was pointing directly at me.
He complained that there was
That he was a prisoner,
that he was never allowed
to leave the park.
He wasn't allowed to get a job.
All this was true, and frankly,
he was upset
that he didn't have enough pot.
My last cigarette before I die.
[man] He's smoking his last cigarette
before he dies.
[Dial] He'd always pointed guns at people
all the time out there at the park.
Sometimes he'd wake you up
pointing the gun at you.
He'd done that to me
on multiple occasions.
So, he'd done that to me again
in that office that morning
and said, you know,
"Freeze, motherfucker,"
which is just what he did, and I told him,
"Dude, you know not to point guns,"
'cause I've told him before,
don't point a gun at me,
and he said, "Aww, man, this is a Ruger.
There's no clip in it. You know
a Ruger won't fire without a clip."
I was sitting in the chair,
you know, looking at him
when he put the gun to his head.
[Dial] It's not like
on the movies.
I knew he was dead the second
that he pulled the trigger, but
at the same time I didn't, you know?
I thought it was a joke,
because, you know, Travis was a jokester.
He was a prankster.
He liked to play pranks on people.
But when I showed up at the zoo that day
to get some order going on,
Joe's passed out
on the front porch, shaking.
Uh, the ambulance is there
taking care of Joe.
Sheriff's department's got everything
shut down.
I mean, you had to climb
I almost had to climb a fence
to get in the place
to find out what was going on.
[reporter] Garvin County officials
are investigating the incident
[Cowie] This fucking clown?
I Goddamn, one of the best people.
I've know him four years, man.
Joy, a joy.
Absolute joy of life.
[reporter] Joe is now thanking the world
for the support
[Dial] I just kinda felt like I was
attached by pain to Joe.
Like we had a bond of pain
and I couldn't leave him,
because of course I wanted to leave.
You know, why do I want to come back
to the office every day that,
you know, a horrific accident happened?
Um, but, you know, he really loved him.
[Joe] We're gonna try and make this
not a day of mourning,
but a day of celebration
to celebrate the life
of Travis Michael Maldonado.
We spent the last four years
of our lives together.
I asked him every day,
I said, "Why me?"
And he said, "Because God put me here
to make you smile, and that's my job."
And it didn't matter how stupid
he had to get
or if I was sittin' there concentrating
as hard as I could on the computer
to write a letter
to a senator or a congressman
or something else, he'd come
and rub them balls in my face.
[mourners laugh]
[clears throat]
Everybody that works here
knows exactly what I'm talking about,
'cause you've seen his balls.
They were like golden nuggets to that boy.
This old town is where I want to be ♪
Is where I'm gonna be ♪
I moved up here
And I took a chance here ♪
Started my brother's dream ♪
Ain't much left here ♪
Aside from some beat up cars
And the one satellite ♪
[woman]
He has to do dramatics, you know, drama.
He has to do a show wherever he goes,
whatever he does.
He was even acting there.
It's the worst thing ever
in my whole life.
My son being gone.
I miss him greatly.
[Joe] You know, we got married
when he was 19 years old,
and there was 32 years difference
between us.
Joe is a year older than me.
And yeah, I thought it was very odd.
I don't know,
I just didn't think that was right.
But if Travis was happy, I was gonna
accept it, no matte, you know
[clears throat]
This was right before he came to Oklahoma.
He came to see me, and
see how young he is? [sniffs]
I don't know
I don't know what happened.
I don't know how he ended up with Joe.
Joe changed when Travis shot himself.
Joe's whole demeanor changed.
Come on in.
[Joe] I do this every year,
Christmas and Thanksgiving.
I've been cooking all night.
- Yes, sir.
- Jesus.
Please, Lord, look out for those
who are spending this holiday alone
without their loved one
and are going through the same rough time.
Jesus' name, Amen.
[crowd] Amen.
Guys, start at this end
and enjoy your meal.
- This is the only family I ever have.
- Man, this is great. I appreciate it.
[Joe] I am third in the polls right now
out of 12.
- [man] Oh, wow, that's good.
- Yes.
I have tried all day
to hold this together.
The local biker clubs all came
and helped me build this memorial.
They actually built this
and it's got his four-wheeler
and his go-cart, and
I had a little different vision.
I was gonna tier step it,
and then they decided
to do it with the rocks and concrete,
and I actually like
the way it turned out they did it.
Built the signs and everything else.
Every morning before I open the park,
I sit out here with him by myself,
and smoke a cigarette. And
people think I'm crazy,
but I take pictures of the sky
while I'm doing it.
The word "hi" in clouds has floated by
that I've got pictures of.
I've got pictures of perfect angels.
[Lowe] It was after Travis's death
that Joe really completely lost it.
James and I would go off
into the dark spots of the park
and talk about Joe
and just how bat-shit crazy he had gotten.
And he was so devastated, and
cried about it for forever,
and he was playing this part,
which I think he was playing a part.
I think he probably had some onions
in his pocket,
rubbed his eyes or something.
It's all bullshit.
He wanted so much to support me
in my political career running
for governor of the state of Oklahoma
because he always said, "Hon, if anybody
could get the people in this state
to love and respect each other,
it would be you.
I told Lauren, I said, "You know,
if he wants to run this zoo,
we have to get away from here
because I'm gonna kill this guy."
So, I said, "Let's go lease this spot
right on Las Vegas Boulevard,
and we'll do this there."
[Lowe] Vegas was crazy.
We had the big Vegas mansion,
and we had the Vegas parties
and we had tigers in our house.
He decided he wants to stay in Vegas
and try and make money out there.
He talked a sponsor into buying a bus,
and they called it the jungle bus.
[Saffery] Like a party bus with animals.
[Reinke] He could actually haul people
from casino to casino
and let them play with cubs
while they're doing it.
[Lowe] We thought it would be a good idea,
but we were wrong.
That was a big fucking mistake.
All right, I got 15 minutes,
so we gotta get them cats loaded,
and I got to change clothes.
[man on radio] He's right up the gate.
The white one I named Travis,
was born two days after Travis died.
Come on in.
I got his lamp that they made me
that stays on 24 hours a day,
and then his ash box.
Gotta get the Prince Albert in there
[man] How long have you had
a Prince Albert?
Oh, hell.
Eighteen years?
And believe it or not,
them padlocks there on the side,
I wear those on the end
of my Prince Albert.
[man] You wear the padlocks on the
Oh, my god.
Because they don't make a ring that big.
[Joe] First date since Travis died.
I'm gonna get the curls out,
'cause that's my sex appeal.
[chuckles]
A jacket for the date.
[car door closes]
- Excited?
- What?
Excited?
- Yeah.
- Cool.
- [man] You ready Joe?
- I'm ready.
Now we gotta go find where the parade is
'cause that's where I gotta
that's where I gotta do the news thing
real quick.
I met Dillon in a chat room.
Took me a couple days to talk him into
going to dinner,
and, you know, you can believe
what you want to believe
about whether or not
things are sent to you
or people are sent to you or whatever,
but we went to dinner
and he never went home.
Are you gonna ride
Where do you wanna ride in the parade?
In with the tigers?
- Yes.
- Do you really?
- Yeah, that'd be cool.
- Okay. Deal.
- I'll ride with the tigers.
- All right.
If you're gonna ride here,
I need you to stand here
and let them get used to you.
They're not gonna bite you.
They're just babies, so.
When Travis died,
he didn't give a fuck about the campaign,
about his family, about anything.
All he cared about was that
he find a companion,
and he was not satisfied until then.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
When he found Dillon,
he started to bounce back.
[laughing]
[Passage] His energy
was just so strong, you know,
and like, when he proposed to me,
it was one of those things
I couldn't think about.
I just had to, you know
just gonna go with the flow.
It was like, my whole life
I've just overthank everything, you know?
When he proposed, I just I said yes.
[Cheryl] Two months after my son died,
he married Dillon.
Invited me to the wedding.
Okay, I thought
it was going to be a wedding.
No, it was the cameraman,
me, and the flower girl.
So on the social media
"Well, Travis's mom is fine with it,
so everybody else should be."
Then I didn't hear anything
from him again.
He was done with me.
My name is Joseph Maldonado
A.K.A Joe Exotic,
and yes, I'm running for governor
of the state of Oklahoma as well.
I mean, not everybody gets the opportunity
to see a tiger, you know,
especially in a parade.
They're not mine.
I don't have to, like, raise them, do I?
[Joe] Take these bags of snow
and kinda just fluff it up
to where the lights glow.
- No, the lights glow under it. Okay?
- Oh, all right.
[children chattering, laughing]
[horn honks]
[marching band playing]
Merry Christmas.
Let's free Oklahoma for a change.
[Dial] Towards the end of the campaign,
when I felt like we were probably surging
because he started listening to advice,
he asked,
"Josh, what are we going to do if we win?"
Joe Exotic will make just as good
a governor as we ever had.
He's not afraid to say
what he wants to say,
and do what he wants to do,
and sorry if he steps on some toes,
but he does it anyway, so
Well, who knows, you know?
I mean, I would say
stranger things have happened.
[overlapping chatter]
[Joe] Better mental health.
Let all the potheads out of jail
and put them crooked bastards
where they belong.
[reporter] Close to 2,000
across Oklahoma
We don't have this yet.
Among those
that they are casting votes for,
the next governor of Oklahoma.
[man] Breaking down the numbers,
Karen, let's start with you.
What do you see numbers-wise?
- [man] Joe, what happened tonight?
- What happened tonight?
We fucking lost.
[laughs]
[man] You do everything against the odds!
I do, I do. I'm gonna jump off
this fucking roof here in a minute.
[Joe, crowd laughing]
[man] Don't say that.
We're worried about that.
Fuck.
[applause]
It's been great running against you.
You've done a tremendous job,
- and I'm glad we're friends.
- We had fun.
- How many death threats did you get?
- A couple.
Okay, that's the sign
of a successful campaign. Trust me.
- A couple. Yeah.
- It's fear.
[Saffery] His governor campaign,
I think that's where he kinda lost
his path,
as far as what was the priority.
It wasn't about the animals anymore.
Everything was falling apart,
from finances to animal care to employees.
[Cowie]
The passion was there, but he lost it.
I don't know where and how he lost it,
but he lost it.
[Dial] You could always read Joe.
He didn't have a poker face.
We knew something was going on.
You know,
he was already a paranoid person
throwing people out, accusing them
of being spies and stuff.
But the paranoia was not unfounded.
We found a microphone and an antenna
on top of the gift shop roof.
It was about that tall, you know,
little metallic base with a short antenna.
I don't pretend to be a technical wizard,
but I could tell
it was a listening device.
[Joe muttering]
[Dial] That's when I knew that there was
something serious going on.
She told me, she says,
"I hear Joe is under some kind
of federal investigation."
And I said, "What did you hear?"
And she says, "I don't know." She says,
"They were talking about it here
one morning."
- And that was Okay.
- [man] I got it
Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Bye.
- Sorry.
- [phone ringing]
[man] So we just interviewed Jeff Lowe
and the entire time,
he had incoming calls from a federal agent
over and over.
Like, who the hell still talks to Joe
that would even
He told me that Joe's going down,
Joe's it's over for Joe.
[woman on phone]
Oh, my god. I can't believe
I mean, it was sort of funny
when they started,
but it's gotten really dark.
[cub yowls]
[closing music theme]