Twisted Metal is based upon the PlayStation game, which was an arena vehicle combat game. The show stars Anthony Mackie as John Doe in a ten-episode first season. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a bug has infected all the computer systems in the world and brought it down to its knees. As a result, some of the population have isolated themselves in their walled cities, while on the outside, it is overrun by marauders in their vehicles and guns in a lawless society. John Doe is a milkman, a delivery man that collects and delivers packages between the cities. It is a dangerous job given the marauders, since they know that milkmen carry valuable packages, so John is often targeted.
John loves his car and all the vehicles we see are modified with weaponry or other aggressive customizations. There’s inbuilt guns and rocket launchers as well as traps that can be laid that can stop pursuing vehicles. The setting, combined with the vehicular weaponry can give off Mad Max vibes. The show tries to merge the setting with a more lighthearted performance of John, and it does not work very well. John’s character is supposed to be funny, cool, and slick. However, it often comes off as trying too hard and cringey. Then there are the questions that aren’t answered such as how in this isolated world are all the necessities still able to be produced? John talks and negotiates around gas, food, and medicine, but if the world was really crippled that much, then these would have run out long ago with no new production.
For a post-apocalyptic world where it is apparently very hard to keep law and order, it sure is easy for certain characters to have such a well-oiled society that mirrors what it was like before the “fall”. They even place important on mundane things like paperwork. There are some ridiculous things like the characters having high quality steak, or even simple taken for granted things like buildings that had fallen into disrepair still having access to electricity.
The season’s plot revolves around John accepting a tough request to collect and deliver a package that requires him to cross a huge portion of the country. It’s a portion that he isn’t familiar with and is well known to be extremely dangerous and risky. He’ll meet plenty of new characters and is reluctantly joined by others. The show tries its hardest to rationalize why some characters travel together even though in this world, no one trusts anyone. John’s partner for most of the season, Quiet, has an interesting background that shows how evil and corrupted the population has become. These bits make you feel that the rest of the show could have followed a similar vein in that it didn’t have to be too serious but also not too loose with its realism either.
There is a lot of stylized violence such as brains being splattered and the usual injuries from gunshots. One thing that is hard to portray is how the vehicles, particularly John’s vehicle, can survive so well while taking on hits from those heavy weapons. In a game, it is easier to overlook, but in a TV show, it requires you to suspect disbelief. The show constantly flipflops between cheesiness and seriousness. It cannot decide on which side it wants to go for. It tries to tell a serious story but then fills it up with cliches and over-the-top exaggerated reactions. This results in an inconsistent tone and quite a bit of mood whiplash. It changes from serious to wacky at a moment’s notice with events that are completely unexpected. At times it plays into the despair that one would feel in a post-apocalyptic world, while at other times, the characters have fun in the sense that one would in a normal world.
If you’re in it for the action, then the season will disappoint you. For a Twisted Metal show, there is limited vehicular combat, despite the focus on them in the source material. Despite how vehicles are so important in this world, we barely see a lot of them since John constantly gets out of his car to do random stuff. However, at least our thirst for them will be satisfied at least once and it was a lot of fun watching that battle play out. Unfortunately, it had an anticlimactic way to end the battle with the villain.
Perhaps most surprising is how the season manages to improve as it goes along. It is still silly and corny, but it gets more confident. This is to the point where the last few episodes were some of the best in the season. It’s still not going to win any awards, but it can be fun. It was a long detour, but it resolves in a satisfying way, despite all the hints otherwise. Most interestingly, it heavily teases future developments. These teases were much more promising than what we got so this season felt like an elongated intro before the real stuff.
Overall, Twisted Metal is an uneven show. The beginning was promising but then it leaned too hard on the cheesy and corny humor. It crossed the line to becoming cringeworthy. Some characters instantly felt iconic (aka Sweet Tooth), while others were so so (John and Quiet). There were moments of highs and moments of lows but on average, the quality did improve as the season went along. It improved enough that when it teased what could be coming in the next season, you are genuinely curious and interested to see that.
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