Let’s be honest, any episode that had to follow up the introduction of the maniacal murder- clown Sweet Tooth was always going to have an up hill battle. After all, the character, split between the physicality of wrestler Samoa Joe and the vocals of Will Arnett, was the perfect vehicle to tie the anarchic, tongue-in-cheek armageddon that Twisted Metal is striving to provide.
However, by temporarily benching the clown, the show runners are choosing to focus on the long game by choosing the granite-faced Agent Stone as the next opponent John Doe and Quiet have to pass if the overarching plot is to gain any traction. Thus, with the aid of flashbacks, a typically stoic drawl from Thomas Haden Church and a vengence themed thread for Quiet who has a sizable score to settle, the show attempts to stand on its own four wheels..
After recovering from the sizable amount of voltage zapped into their bodies by new recruits Mike and Stu, John Doe and Quiet are taken to the nearby staging ground of Agent Stone’s quest to clean up America. After recoiling at the fact that stone has transformed the Hoover Dam into some gigantic, hellish version of the Department of Motor Vehicles, both of our heroes settle down for some harsh interrogation. Both deal with it in their own, particular, fashion, but while John’s gift of the gab almost gets them out if the situation, Quiet’s hostile attitude drops them right in it when she chooses to spit wash Stone’s face with a good old bit of projectile saliva.
In case you’d forgotten, Quiet hates Stone, like, a lot, due to the sadistic murder of her brother at the Agent’s hands and the fact that she’s still carrying a very painful brand on her shoulder; but worse for her, Stone remembers her just as much as she remembers him. However, it’s the discovery of John map that really stews Stone’s noodle as it shows a route that by-passes all of his meticulously laid out checkpoints and so until he finds out where it came from, both John and Quiet have to endure some fairly eccentric torture.
However, while the two are filling out forms in triplicate while Barbie Girl by Aqua is played on repeat at full volume, Mike is growing ever warier about Stu’s inability to get with the programme and follows Stone’s brutal orders to the letter. Stu simply isn’t mean enough to perform the executions and various human rights violations expected of him and he finally snaps under the pressure and helps his charges try to escape.
However, in the chaos, Quiet gets a small measure of payback by beating Stone’s second in command to death in a rage-fuelled frenzy, but it seems she isn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.
If Episode 2 was Twisted Metal finding its voice, Episode 3 is the show starting on the long highway to building up its multiple plot threads as our mismatched heroes overcome their second road block. This means instead of the cackling bulk of Sweet Tooth, thecshow focuses more on the craggy poker face of Agent Stone, a wholly different type of murdering lunatic altogether. However, while Thomas Haden Church’s shades wearing despot is hardly the live wire that a machete pointing clown us, the episode instead chicanes around his frosty demeanor by giving us a peek at his past when the apocalypse kicked off back in the grand old year of 2002. Long story short, after the world falls due to a computer virus shutting down the earth and launching missiles to the strains of Steal My Sunshine by Len, self important rent-a-cop, Stone, struggles to uphold the law, even getting raided by his own neighbours. However, when he attempts to stop a group of guys from looting in order to feed their families, he snaps when the little amount of power that he has is ridiculed and kills everyone in a bullet blazing tantrum. It may be basic, but then Stone’s kind of a no-nonsense guy and while his origin may not hit us with the usual razzamataz the show usual packs, it’s still fun to witness day zero of the end of everything.
While Haden Church glares at everyone while submitting the odd growl of humourless wit (Barbie Girl was his jam back in the day, apparently), both Anthony Mackie and Stephanie Beatriz continue to settle into their roles although it still feels like the former is still trying too hard to make the jokes land. Still, the pair are inherently likable, swapping barbs about how much or how little the other one talks or Quiet’s inability to decide whether she’s going to go it alone or not.
However, running parallel to this is the fracturing relationship between Mike and Stu and while it’s progressing quite quickly, I’d be lying if I said I was engrossed. In fact, the trials and tribulations of these two side-players only seem to take such up a large amount of the episode purely due to the fact that our leads are captives and our villain is monosyllabic – so someone needs to move the plot along. With Stu accidently abandoned in the wake of the escape and at the mercy of Mike, there should be some drama attached there, but its tough to drum any up when we’ve only met these goons only one episode ago.
However, one area where Twisted Metal still revs high on the rev counter is the cartoonish world building of the cockamamie place society has become. Stone turning Hoover Dam into a DMV is one of the shows more inspired ideas as it takes the patience grinding process of getting a licence to a dystopian degree. While getting an actual licence doesn’t involve such torture as getting a bast of mace in the face while trying to complete an eye test or the undignified end of being thrown off the dam, it’s the little details that really go a long way here.
Yes, it’s a only a variation of the previous episode as it’s just our leads trying to survive in the dangerous orbit of yet another, reality-challengdd lunatic, but every show needs to find its groove somehow and Stone and Sweet Tooth are different as nutzoid night and deranged day.
I have to say, now that it’s in full swing, I’ve settled into Twisted Metal nicely so far and am intrigued at where the show goes next, but it can only go a limited number of times to the prisoner-of-a-maniac well before the show will start spinning its wheels.
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