As we now enter the second half of Twisted Metal’s second season, it’s fair to say that the show has gotten fully up to speed. Despite the fact the huge action sequence two episodes ago was merely deemed a “qualifying round” (I dunno, looked pretty serious to me), this episode now sees the tournament start proper as the numbers of racers soon starts to drop alarmingly. This is territory is essentially where every fan of the series – or video game – has hoping that the show would go, but there was issue that was bothering me.
Surely every single round just couldn’t involve all the players roaring around wildly shooting at anything that moves otherwise things will soon get A) experience, and B) repetitive; so I guess this truly is Twisted Metal’s time to shine as it now has to screw around with the basic concept that everyone’s been dying to see without changing it up so much it feels like some sort of cop-out. Calypso, it’s over to you.
As we head into the second round of the Twisted Metal tournament, John isn’t really feeling himself. You see, he’s finding himself at odds with the rash decision he made in the spur of the moment where, despite announcing that his wish is the same as Quiet’s (eg. all of the world’s wall come down to give the world an equal chance), he quickly changed it when her back was turned and instead wished that his recently killed sister would get resurrected if he wins. The thing is, lying doesn’t actually come that easily to John, especially not to Quiet, and so as Calypso brings together the surviving racers to announce the rules of the next round, the guy is visibly jittery.
Well, his nerves aren’t about to get any better as the next stage of Twisted Metal will involve everyone tearing round a maze that they can’t leave until they find a ticket that will allow them to exit, of course, the catch is that even though there is twelve vehicles left, there’s only eight tickets available. However, because they previously finished last, Quiet and John are awarded a one minute head start and a scanner that let’s them know where all the tickets are, much to the anger of the rest of the contestants. However, once the race starts, John is still so worked up over his lie, his driving promptly turns to shit as his sense of direction and reaction time all but collapse due to his guilt.
Meanwhile, while the usual lunacy reigns that sees Mr. Grimm pull off a novel way of cheating and the Holy Men (but not their creepy baby) get taken out of the running permanently, the floundering Mayhem finally manages to notch up her first kill when she goes head to head with the egotistical Chuckie Sloop and comes out alive. However, while her exaggerating ass has required a bit of extra help before, she finds that after stealing Floop’s car, it’s in built AI proves to be a valuable ally. But once the smoke has cleared and Roadkill has squeezed into qualifying for another round, John feels like he finally has to come clean.
No doubt, there’s going to be some people who think that the fact that the new rounds involve rules that require drivers to actually have to get out of their car completely goes against what Twisted Metal is supposed to be, however, I’ll quite happily argue that while the original video game had you mostly focus on the cars, a TV show rightly needs to zero in on the people sitting behind the wheel. As a result, we tend to get the both of both worlds as we still have the sight of all the cars hurtling round the competition zone firing their machine guns in every direction, but we also have the divers getting up close and personal when needs be. This is best displayed when numerous drivers close in to a single ticket only to find that it’s been placed in the centre of an ice rink. Cue a bunch of slapstick as everyone struggles to stay upright that comes complete with some bizarre gags such as the infant Preacher pulling heat on John (“That baby’s got a gun!” may be my favourite line of dialogue this season) and Mile gliding across the ice on his belly like a penguin. In fact, this whole getting out of the cars thing certainly helps Mayhem the most as she finds herself, thanks to a string of murderous events, in possession of not only Chuckie’s car, but also it’s incredibly helpful, Knight Rider-style on-board computer system, Quayto who is voiced by none other than Liam McPoyle from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia himself, Jimmie Simpson. Elsewhere, we find the hatred between Sweet Tooth and Mr. Grimm go up a sizable notch when the soul sucking biker sneaks his way through the finishing line by driving his bike into the back of Sweet Tooth’s ice cream van and hitching a ride into the save zone.
Needless to say the clown is pissed, but it heralds possibly the most fun aspect of the show now that the tournament is fully underway: the banter between racers.
While Twisted Metal has always benefited from a smart-ass sense of humour, the fact that now all the sarcastic comments and cruel one liners are coming from a limited group of people stuck together on a life or death situation means that it’s vastly more spiteful.
Be it Mayhem indulging in her usual past time of lying and describing herself as a “murder slut” to cover her actual lack of homicide, or the sight of a ripped, metal-fisted Axel debating whether it’s smart to dicuss wishes in case it falls under birthday wish rules, the dialogue crackles whether it’s basic insults or colourful threats (“Coroner gonna list your cause of death as everything, feel me?”).
But the best moments of all are the less showy spots of humour such as Calypso happily suggesting that he’d be more than happy to care for little baby Preacher after his lactating dads are killed in an explosion that fails to take out the stubbonly unkillable infant. But the best moments sees a conversation unfold between Mayhem and Quiet as the former wants to discuss her complex feelings concerning finally killing someone for real. However, the way the dialogue is worded makes it sound like it’s two girl pals gossiping about losing their virginity and all the feelings that go with it which makes for a genuinely sweet, coming-of-age moment even though they’re both openly chatting about murder.
A confidently strong episode that manages to offer up both roaring cars and a bunch of character moments, we end on something of a dramatic note as John finally caves and confesses his extra wish to Quiet. But if this is the way the the remainder of the season goes, I’m going to be infinitely cool with that, especially considering that the cast list will now drop sharply with every subsequent episode. With less life characters, logic dictates that the banter will progressively heat up faster that the barrel of an over fired mini gun and I for one can’t wait.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 