Bonding. It’s the quintessential moment of any road trip that hopefully sees driver and passenger find common ground and hopefully spawns a friendship as unshakable as something that’s really tough to shake. Well, bonding is obviously the name of the game when it comes to the third installment of Twisted Metal’s second season as we dedicate nearly an entire runtime to a couple of relationships in need of beefing up before the missiles fly and the tyres screech – but wait! Before you roll you eyes abd complain that a show based upon a video game is once again leaving killer cars out of its killer car plot, we find that the show may have dropped one of it’s most balanced episodes to date that not only manages to get some good, solid character work in there, it also embraces the Twisted Metal crazy by introducing two of the most insane characters on the video game roster. Oh, you thought Sweet Tooth was the most bizarre being the show had to offer? Bitch, you best buckle up.
As the small caravan of John, Quiet, Krista, Ashley, Jeremy and a currently undiscovered Mayhem who’s stowed away in the trunk of Roadkill, continue on their way to Diesel City to procure weapons to use in the upcoming tournament, Quiet discovers that John has been avoiding his long lost sister. Using a ploy to get him out of her car and into Krista’s, the estranged siblings struggle to find common ground at first, but soon warm to one another when John confesses that he actually doesn’t want to remember his amnesia muddled past due to how painful it will be. Deciding that an impromptu trip down memory lane is what the doctor ordered, Krista takes a detour to an abandoned Drive-In that they used to visit as kids while Quiet discovers the little hideaway lurking in her car while she kicks back to “Everywhere” by Michelle Branch.
While Ashley and Jeremy split off on their own to scout (read: fuck), some much needed bonding takes place. After getting past the initial hostilities into the snarky banter phase, both pairs start to finally relax around each other. John and Krista start to reminisce despite John’s insistence that his former life as Lionel is dead, while Quiet teaches the motormouthed Mayhem to drive – however, nice moments in the world of Twisted Metal don’t seem to last particularly long and soon new new players crash the party.
While Quiet and Mayhem have to contend with Mr. Grimm, a motorcycle riding lunatic who is convinced he can consume souls; John and Krista come face to face with the bizarre formula of Axel, a huge, muscular man who actually locks into a frame with massive tyres to actually become his imposing vehicle. Somehow, life in the world of Twisted Metal just got even crazier…
A more sensible reviewer would have the decorum to tackle the rather deft character work that T3STDRV manages to pull off. They would also take the time to praise the actors involved for all being able to keep that balance of anarchic humour and genuine heart rock steady at all times despite having to throw in colourful insults alongside more genuine moments of bonding. Finally, they would leave any rabid fan boying for the end in order to give their review weight and insight before losing their damn minds. Well, I guess I’m a shitty reviewer then, because this episode gave this Twisted Metal fan shit he’d never thought he’d ever see!
Yes, Sweet Tooth is the leering, masked face of this franchise, and after seeing what Samoa Joe and Will Arnett managed to do with him, that should never, ever change – but back when they first announced that Twisted Metal was getting a live action show, anyone familiar with the video game undeniably all asked the same question: how the fuck were they going to do Axel? For those in the dark, located within a game rammed full of crazy character designs, Axel was the absolute pinnacle of insane as he’s essentially a jacked as fuck black dude riding around with his arms locked into two gargantuan tyres and never did I actually believe that we’d get a game accurate version of the character wheel his way on screen. And yet, there’s Michael James Shaw, rolling into view attached to two bloody great monster truck tyres and his Frankenstein-esque origin story is brief but makes perfect sense in the world of the show. Obviously, the show leans into the weirdness with Axel consuming oil like it’s Gatorade and a running gag about the scientist responsible being horrified as accusations of racism, but the fact the show treats him as an actual character rather than a monster means that when he returns, it’ll be nicely substantial.
While Axel being utterly perfect is the lead story here, we shouldn’t forget that another classic game character in the form of Mr. Grimm gets to strut his stuff after his introduction last episode and while he’s noticably less impressive as a human/vehicle hybrid, the episode still give him a gothic ambience all of his own. But while the sight of him killing a couple of necrophiliacs, sucking their souls out of their dead bodies and digging up his father’s motorcycle and riding it right out of the grave, the show seems to be doing something rather interesting with the character. While it seems that Grimm is introducing a supernatural aspect to the show with all the soul sucking and the implied revelation that the personalities of his victims live on within him, it’s also suggested that his supernatural abilities only exist in Grimm’s head as from Quiet and Mayhem’s point of view he’s merely just making slurping noises.
Of course, we get a brief taster of an Axel vs. Mr. Grimm, but we speed away with the gang (minus a murdered Jeremy and Ashley), the show obviously has no intention of giving up the good shit just yet – but then that’s not entirely true. You see, even though Grimm and Axel are now a thing and will be lining up soon enough when the tournament kicks off, the episode’s character stuff proves to be so endearing, it also could quite comfortably be called “the good shit” also. In only a handful of episodes, we’ve not only reestablished John and Quiets relationship, but we’ve fully established two new main characters that feel like they completely belong only after a trip to a drive-in and a half-assed driving lesson.
The momentum of Twisted Metal is legitimately fucking crazy right now and it seems that Peacock’s decision to release the season in bitesize clumps of 2 or three episodes seems to be hitting that sweet spot between waiting weeking and binging like a maniac. But the fact that the show is delving so hard into its video game lore is now revealing it to actually be truly something special than just a wacky show with cool needle drops and candy pink explosions.
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