Setting to one side the fact that we have yet to get a new game in the main series since the 2012 installment / reboot for the PS3, Twisted Metal is the kind of batshit madness that everyone claims to like, but few claim to truly love. Having played the hell out of Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition and Black in my teenage years, I have a soft spot for the original car combat game, and so when the TV series was announced, I was cautiously optimistic, particularly when now-two-time AEW Men's World Champion Samoa Joe was announced for Sweet Tooth.
Having seen both seasons thus far, the second of which posted up record numbers for Peacock, I can safely say that Twisted Metal is a damn fun time, and is the right side of silly for its own good.
The soundtrack is admittedly hardly nu, though the prom scene does feature "Butterfly" by Crazy Town. In this viral age of needle drops and resulting spikes in streaming, the needle drops in the show scratch that primal itch in the brain, which this show does as a whole, really. Explosions, dirty jokes, recognizable music, and Stephanie Beatriz's and Anthony Mackie's chemistry all make for a hell of a cocktail, and with each episode clocking in around half an hour, it's highly bingeable.
To this end, the balance of action and humor is delicate, and while the early episodes in season two had issues with this balance, particularly in the humor department, the rest of the season does manage this well. The dynamics between John and Quiet (Mackie and Beatriz, respectively), as well as Sweet Tooth (played by Samoa Joe, voiced by Will Arnett) and Stu (Mike Mitchell), make for both gut-busting comedy and gut-wrenching drama, particularly when the titular tournament picks up in the second half of the season.
Those looking for an experience similar to the games need not apply. They will inevitably be frustrated by some of the pacing issues and some of the jokes that don't quite hit their targets. The tipping of the scales more into the wacky nature of Twisted Metal was one that initially struck me as odd, but when you remember that the co-creator of the franchise envisioned the concept while driving in Los Angeles, suddenly some of the batshit madness and slack-jawed "what the fuck?!" moments can be forgiven, if not embraced.
All told, it's a mash-up of action and comedy that may take a bit to get going, but it's highly bingeable and just as entertaining, and as little nu representation as we have in this streaming age, we'll gladly take it.
