Popping the clutch, slamming in a high gear and compressing that accelerator pedal down as far as it can go, Twisted Metal roars past the halfway mark in its ten episode run.
Up until now, each episode has been dedicated to having the mismatched duo of John Doe and Quiet meeting and belatedly bonding after a string of psycho-of-the-week episodes introduced us to some of the more dangerous citizens of the divided states of America
Episode 2 gave us mountainous fan favourite, Sweet Tooth while episode 3 gave us more screen time with fascist lawman Agent Stone and the motley pair of Mike and Stu, whose decision to join Stone’s army gave us an insight into what the brutal bastard in blue is planning.
However, with CRZRDS, the latest episode, the writers have decided it’s now time to start merging these plotlines as these disparate characters now start to intermingle and interfere with each other’s plans in appropriately chaotic ways. Buckle up buckos, this collision isn’t going to be pretty…
After their short stint with the Convoy, we rejoin John and Quiet after they’ve hunted down one of the roaming scavengers known as the Vultures in order to get some belongings back. However, after raising the guy’s CD collection and having a discussion about the finer points of 1997 pop moppets, Hansen, Quiet reluctantly drugs John and goes her own way as she forges ahead alone nto Topeka. What’s in Topeka, you ask – just the main headquarters of Agent Stone, that’s all and the ex-bandit simply didn’t want to put John at risk as she finally sets out to get revenge for the death of her brother.
Speaking of Quiet’s brother, Loud, he’s now taken full-time residence in her head as a figment of her imagination as she tries to process everything that’s happened over the past 5 days and even he states that this is too dangerous – and he doesn’t even exist!
Elsewhere, we also catch up with murderous party juggernaut, Sweet Tooth, who has taken his slaughter-based act on the road and cheerfully carves and slashes his way through Stone’s checkpoint at the Hoover Dam and among the prisoners that the killer clown inadvertently frees is Stu, who was awaiting execution thanks to him setting John and Quiet free from Stone’s clutches a couple of episodes ago. After complimenting Sweet Tooth on a particularly smooth decapitation, Stu finds the maniac to be surprisingly affable and the clown even forges something of a bromance with the as the other freed criminals flock to Sweet Toothbas some sort of leader. Ah, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about…
However, while a groggy John has to fend off the amorous advances of of a horny, old crazy with a penchant for molesting the dead, Quiet finally gets her showdown with Stone. Can she manage to persevere against such difficult odds, even with an extra voice in her head?
CRZSRDS finds Twisted Metal in something of a transitional phase as it switches from dedicating a single episode chiefly to one particular character or group as our leads simply attempt to pass through to bringing in more characters to share more screen time. As a result, the show finds itself losing a bit of the momentum its gained as it now has to fully keep track of multiple threads instead of just teasing them alongside of an A-plot. So, instead of John and Quiet meeting Sweet Tooth, or John and Quiet having a run-in with Stone, the addition of three main storylines mean that the once relentless pace of the last trio of episodes is now kind off stopping and starting like a learner driver struggling to get the knack of a stick shift.
Of the three storylines, obviously the Sweet Tooth one is most fun as he swaggers into Hoover Dam and starts cutting Stone’s goons into cutlets with his stupidly huge machete, but aside from getting to spend more time with the Samoa Joe/Will Arnett collective, it also oddly gives Stu’s character a new lease of life as he finds new purpose as a perpetually terrified sidekick. He proves to be a nicely nervous counter-balance to Sweet Tooth’s murderous irreverence and (beautifully staged decapitation aside) I can’t wait to see where this goes.
Taking silver in the Twisted Metal Plot Olympics is the one that sees Quiet finally infiltrate Topeka and call out Stone. Not only does the latter benefit hugely from some slight details that continues to mark him out as a world class douche (A word-of-thr-day calendar? The monster), but Stephanie Beatriz’s Quiet gets a massivexshift in character when we find out that the memory of her late brother, Loud, is figuratively alive and well as a full blown hallucination. Not only does this give us some much welcome insight into the character’s mental state, but it give Beatriz plenty of opportunity to bounce off of Ricard Cabral, despite the fact he shot himself in the head back in the pilot. On top of all this, Quiet finally gets her shot at Stone in a moment that sees the show fully embrace the aesthetic of the original game as the two combatants roar around a themed battleground (in this case, a fairground) firing ordinance at each other like it’s going out of business. The fact that Quiet doesn’t prevail means there’s certainly a rematch on the cards somewhere down the road, but John’s last minute save brings us to the final thread of the episode and sadly its Anthony Mackie who draws the short straw.
His entire participation for this episode sees him failing and being able to throw bladed weapons, getting drugged by Quiet, nearly getting jerked off (at least) by a lubed up, geriatric pervert who wears a gas mask as a jock strap and leaping in to make a last second save with the missile he bartered for last episode. While this particular episode isn’t his to lead, it’s still amusing that the show is perfectly willing to sideline a star like Mackie by having him rendered unconscious, nearly raped and even him catch a face full of crotch for his troubles.
Still, even though the show suffers a little from this shift in focus, it isn’t nothing a slight nudge to the steering wheel can’t fix as more aspects of this anarchic world start smashing into one another.
Still gory, still silly, but Twisted Metal is about to get a whole lot bigger. Act accordingly.
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