Steph: Holy
Steph: Shit
Jessie: What?
Riley: Are you okay?
Steph: Tiger King.
Steph: TELL ME you guys are watching it.
Charlotte: That new show on Netflix?
Jessie: I heard some of the miners talking about it.
Riley: I haven’t gotten a chance to see it yet. We’re catching up on Grey’s Anatomy.
Steph: Drop WHATEVER you’re doing and go binge. Binge it NOW.
Charlotte: I read a thing online, that people are going nuts over it.
Jessie: So did I. Is it really that crazy?
Steph: Dudes. Let me paint you a picture.
Steph: A zookeeper, a former police officer, a candidate for the Governor of Oklahoma, a meth addict, the FLAMINGEST of homosexuals, a talk show host, a country music “star”, a polygamist, and a convicted felon.
Riley: Jesus, that’s a lot of people.
Steph: Oh no, honey. That’s one guy.
Jessie: … what?
Steph: Go watch. This show is fucking WILD.
Ryan: You will NEVER guess what I just saw.
Alex: What?
Ryan: I was getting the oil changed in my truck, and Mac was the one doing the work.
Ryan: We were BSing at the end, while I got rung up, and guess who walked in the door with his lunch?
Alex: Um… his uncle that owns the shop?
Ryan: Only if his uncle suddenly learned to walk, talk, and look like Lindsey Clark.
Alex: WHAT
Ryan: Told you.
Alex: Like, just dropping it off because she’s still being nice to him for saving our assess during the blizzard?
Ryan: Given the kiss she gave him, and how they both went to enjoy food together in the break room, I’m going to guess that there might be a little more to it than that.
Alex: The WHAT that she gave him?!
Ryan: Apparently, they’ve been a thing since the festival.
Alex: Knock me over with a fucking feather. Good for him.
Ryan: And Lindsey. We’ve been worried about her since her husband died. It’s nice to see her finally seeing someone again, even if it is Mac.
Alex: Hey, she’s a single mother to three kids. If he wants to be in their lives, all power to him.
Alex: Besides, he’s doing much better while he’s sober.
Ryan: Fair enough.
Pike: Can I make a song request?
Steph: Sure. What is it?
Pike: I Saw A Tiger.
Steph: Dude, that is fucking hilarious.
Pike: Can you do it?
Steph: I don’t think so. I need the music track, and it’s not in my software.
Pike: It’s on YouTube.
Steph: Yea, but there’s legal stuff involved if I do that.
Steph: Also, the guy’s a convicted felon. Should you be supporting him?
Pike: Probably not. I just think it would be funny as hell.
Steph: Facts. You know that’s not Joe singing that song, right?
Pike: It’s not?
Steph: It doesn’t even remotely sound like him, dude. Why would you think it was?
Pike: I just figured it was a singing voice.
Steph: Oh, it is. It’s just someone else’s.
Riley: … is your offer to help still good?
Alex: With what?
Riley: Nana’s co-pays.
Alex: Of course it is. How much do you need?
Riley: $400. The neurologist gave her a new prescription at her last appointment, and it’s expensive.
Alex: <copay.venmo>
Riley: I cannot thank you enough.
Alex: Are you having any luck finding other work?
Riley: They’re rotating shifts to help in the kitchen at Brown Bear. Other than that, no.
Riley: I’m still looking. I even applied for a phone sex line.
Alex: Jesus, Riley, please don’t do that.
Riley: Even if I wanted to. They told me they’ve gotten too many applications since the lockdown.
Alex: Just take a breath. This won’t last forever. You’ll be back working for us before you know it.
Riley: I hope so.
Alex: I’m gonna float an idea past you.
Ryan: What’s that?
Alex: What if we brought a tiger for the bar?
Ryan: Jesus, that’s the fucking gold medal of bad ideas.
Alex: But it’s only two thousand dollars!
Ryan: Did you see how much those tigers ate?? They were bringing in truckloads of food!
Alex: That was for a bunch of them. I bet it’ll be way cheaper to feed just one.
Ryan: Where the fuck do we put it?
Alex: Clear out the back room, where the pool table is. We’ll build a caged wall.
Ryan: Yea, because that worked out so well for Saff.
Alex: We’ll tell people not to stick their hands through the bars!
Ryan: And I’m sure a bunch of drunken miners will follow our instructions to the letter. Also, where the hell would we even buy a tiger?
Alex: Hey, if Joe Exotic could figure it out, so can we.
Ryan: … I will grant you that the two of us are probably way more intelligent than him.
Alex: Think about it. Haven Springs’ very own tiger. You know how many people would flood the bar to see it? Or even better, pay to see it? There is money to be made here.
Ryan: I’m gonna have to put my foot down as majority owner and say that no, we cannot buy a tiger for the bar.
Alex: Buzzkill.
Steph: Is SubTerra still working during all this? I sent Ted an email days ago, and I just realized that I never got anything back.
Jessie: Ted checks his email, like, once a week. So I’m not surprised. But yes, we’re still working.
Steph: How? There’s a stay-at-home order.
Jessie: We’ve been deemed essential at the federal level. The uranium we mine keeps nuclear power plants in business, and nobody can afford for those to go out.
Steph: Fair enough. I guess the last thing we need is a nation-wide power outage on top of all this.
Jessie: Especially when half the country is still catching up on Tiger King.
Steph: It really is like a train wreck you can’t turn away from.
Charlotte: This woman 100% killed her husband.
Steph: I know, right?!
Riley: How do you figure?
Charlotte: It’s the eyes. She’s got those crazy eyes.
Alex: That and she has wedding photos of her new husband on a leash. That’s just disconcerting.
Riley: Okay, yea, that’s weird. But there’s nothing that says she killed him.
Steph: Literally the entire rest of the cast says she did.
Riley: Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the polygamist, the leader of a sex cult, the walking definition of meth-mouth, and the influence behind Scarface were reliable sources of information.
Alex: Maybe not, but she’s definitely a criminal in the fashion sense. Who wears leopard print to meet a congressman?
Charlotte: And she’s not paying her workers.
Riley: You mean the VOLUNTEERS??
Steph: Why are you on her side?
Riley: Because the entire country hates her for no reason! There is zero proof that she killed her last husband!
Riley: And she’s trying to stop Joe Exotic from abusing his tigers! She’s not exactly wrong about private ownership of big cats!
Steph: We haven’t seen him abusing the tigers!
Riley: ARE WE NOT WATCHING THE SAME SHOW?!
Jessie: I just realized something.
Alex: What’s that?
Jessie: You remember the part of TK where Saff got her hand bitten off?
Alex: His.
Jessie: Huh?
Alex: Saff’s transgender. Female to male. They’re misgendering him in the show. It’s ‘his’ hand.
Jessie: Oh. I had no idea.
Alex: Not your fault. I remember, what about it?
Jessie: Did you notice that Joe was wearing an EMT jacket?
Alex: Yea.
Jessie: What are the odds he was wearing an EMT jacket before Saff lost his hand?
Alex: … huh. Now that you mention it, probably pretty low. Or it was one hell of a coincidence.
Jessie: Way I figure, we know he lived at the zoo. And that they all had radios. I bet he was in the house when the call about Saff’s hand came in. Which means on his way out, he stopped and made sure he grabbed the EMT jacket.
Alex: So you think the first thing he thought about upon hearing a medical emergency was to grab the right jacket?
Jessie: Would you put it past him?
Alex: Shit, at this point, I would practically expect it.
Alex: You know, between that and the whole “I’m never gonna financially recover from this” line, he’s sounding more and more like a psychopath.
Jessie: Yea. Riley might’ve been onto something.
Ryan: I need a flower arrangement.
Riley: Why?
Ryan: I said something that Jessie took exception to.
Riley: Oh boy. How bad?
Ryan: What’s the biggest bouquet you have?
Riley: Holy shit, what did you do?
Ryan: We were watching Tiger King, and they got to Jeff Lowe. And his wife.
Ryan: Jessie commented on their disturbing age gap. And how they both wanted the hot babysitter and hinted at a threesome.
Riley: I’m pretty sure I know where this is going.
Ryan: I didn’t think before I spoke. Let’s just leave it at that.
Riley: The fuck we are. Tell me what you said.
Ryan: … it may have been along the lines of “Talk about life goals.”
Riley: ROFLMAO
Riley: MAN, you’re an idiot.
Ryan: An idiot in the doghouse. Help me get out of it.
Riley: Nana says that we don’t have enough flowers for that level of fuck-up.
Riley: Her exact words, BTW.
Ryan: I don’t doubt it. Can you please put something together? With lots of lilies?
Riley: I’ll deliver it to you in a few hours. Moron.
Alex: Any luck with work?
Riley: Not really.
Riley: Brown Bear can only give me two shifts per week. And the number of flower orders Nana’s been filling has been cut by three-quarters.
Riley: I tried applying for UberEats and DoorDash, but Black Lantern and Brown Bear are literally the only restaurants close enough for it to be worth my time, and you guys aren’t even on the programs.
Alex: Yea… we thought about it, but they take too large of a cut.
Riley: That’s what I figured. And nobody else in town is hiring right now. I thought I might’ve had a shot at the grocery store, but the manager said the one opening he had was filled twenty minutes before I got there.
Alex: Shit. I’m sorry.
Riley: Not your fault.
Alex: Are you still looking?
Riley: I have one Hail Mary interview lined up. Fuck knows if it’ll pan out, and God knows I don’t want to work there, but its all I’ve got.
Alex: … okay, you’re pretty enough, but please don’t go work at a strip club.
Riley: Ha ha. Not a strip club.
Riley: Appreciate the compliment, though. Nice to know I’ve got a feasible backup career.
Steph: How is your stay-at-home experience going?
Dad: Not too bad. Though I may be coming down with a mild case of cabin fever.
Steph: You’re not working from home?
Dad: The company doesn’t like us having work on our home computers. And there’s a limit to how much I can accomplish on a virtual desktop.
Steph: Bummer. What about Addison and Paige?
Dad: Addison’s essential, on account of running a grocery store, so she gets to leave the house. Paige is apparently climbing walls between bouts of online school.
Dad: We video chat every couple of days, but it’s not the same.
Steph: Sorry.
Dad: What about you? Staying indoors?
Steph: No. I broadcast updates over the radio, so I’m essential, too.
Steph: Alex, on the other hand, is burning through TV shows like a madwoman.
Dad: The bar is closed?
Steph: To in-person visits. People can order food for delivery, but they get two orders a day, three at the most. So she spends most of her time on her phone.
Dad: Well, there’s worse coping mechanisms.
Dad: Have you guys seen Tiger King? I binged it last weekend, and it was one of the craziest shows I’ve ever seen.
Steph: Oh my GOD that show is off the rails. I cannot believe people like that actually exist in society.
Dad: I know! That whole thing with Travis? And then that speech at his funeral?!
Steph: You mean the most horrifying eulogy in history?
Dad: Please tell Alex that if you die unexpectedly, she’s not allowed to make ANY comments like that at your funeral.
Steph: She’s not a train wreck of a human being, so I’m not worried about it.
Charlotte: … why the hell is this dude in the tub?
Riley: Maybe he needed a bath.
Steph: While getting interviewed for the show?
Riley: Hey, I didn’t say that it wasn’t weird.
Steph: I don’t even know why he’s talking to them. If I was on camera taking money to kill someone, I’d have high-tailed it to Mexico.
Charlotte: What about the dude on the jet ski? Or the guy driving around with the skeleton in the passenger seat of his car?
Steph: Huh. They never did explain that.
Riley: With all the crazy shit in the show, I think they just forgot to ask about it.
Steph: Honestly? Fair.
Eleanor: Alex, are you at the Black Lantern?
Alex: Yes. Why?
Alex: ?
