Twisted Metal Season 2 Review

This is simply a spoiler-free reappraisal for each 12 episodes of Twisted Metal play 2, the archetypal 3 of which are present streaming connected Peacock. New episodes debut each Thursday done August 2025.

Season 1 of Peacock's Twisted Metal resembled its PlayStation root worldly much successful tone than content: It was a madcap(pier) Mad Max, delivering a loony Zombieland-style look astatine a post-apocalyptic wasteland teeming with vehicular carnage. But successful play 2, the show's namesake tourney takes halfway signifier and the results are silly and satisfying – a much focused story, a deeper exploration of character, and immoderate genuinely awesome demolition derby warfare. Just arsenic successful the archetypal season, not each gag lands. I don't person an existent occurrence complaint percent breakdown for you, but there'll beryllium a twelve fizzles connected the comic beforehand earlier a gut-buster floors you. When it comes to bits and gags, Twisted Metal is for definite playing the numbers game.

Showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith takes the irreverent sass of play 1 and crafts much of a sitcom mounting successful play 2, with an established ensemble taking america done the communicative arsenic they each vie for a spot successful Twisted Metal. The characters are fixed country and committee (at an abandoned precocious school) portion jumping done proverbial flaming hoops until the fortunate fewer scope the last level. In immoderate ways, this operation makes play 2 consciousness a spot tamer. It's inactive a premix of dude-bro antics and surreal Community-type laughs, but there's truthful overmuch unit and demolition successful the elimination rounds starring up to Twisted Metal that it works, successful a way, to deflate the large battle.

With 12 episodes present (compared to 10 successful play 2), longer does not necessarily adjacent amended here, and portion infusing the communicative with a much focused extremity – a multi-stage driving tourney wherever the victor gets 1 privation granted – determination are decidedly moments wrong this play that consciousness buried nether nonsense and distraction. At the aforesaid clip though, play 2 gives america a colorful, sprawling ensemble, assembling the main players from play 1 and adding Raven (Patty Guggenheim, replacing first-season impermanent prima Neve Campbell), Mr. Grimm (Richard de Klerk), Vermin (Lisa Gilroy), Axel (Michael James Shaw), and Dollface (Tiana Okoye).

Those invested profoundly successful the decades of lore volition admit these names, though arsenic idiosyncratic who's ne'er played Twisted Metal – and truly lone knows the franchise from seeing the grinning, flaming clown caput of Sweet Tooth plastered each implicit the games' covers and advertizing – I tin accidental the uninitiated volition beryllium conscionable fine. It's an insane satellite that already acceptable up capable genre-warping wiggle country to marque mode for conscionable astir each benignant of brainsick quality you tin deliberation of – including the infusion of some cyborgs and soul-stealing sorcerers.

Even the Twisted Metal contention itself has immoderate supernatural chicanery due to the fact that the grand-prize wish-fulfillment is literal. Crazed, cackling tourney maestro Calypso (Anthony Carrigan) means to bash precisely what helium says, and that's supply the champion with their heart's desire. It's conscionable an other furniture of bonkers successful an already ridiculous world. Also, it leads to a precise comic recurring spot wherever we're forced to question if Mr. Grimm's powers are adjacent existent oregon if helium conscionable makes a batch of goofy faces and gestures.

It's truly inactive the halfway Season 1 characters who radiance here: John Doe (Anthony Mackie), Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz), Sweet Tooth (played onscreen by Samoa Joe and voiced by Will Arnett), and Stu (Mike Mitchell). Mackie and Beatriz stay awesomely comic and likable arsenic John and Quiet, present moving arsenic a squad and dealing with a myriad of family-adjacent concerns. In the midst of the violence, chaos, and people warfare waged by the walled cities against the outsiders, John indispensable contend with his amnesia getting successful the mode of a heartfelt sibling reunion portion Quiet stumbles upon a caller conniving transportation who gives disconnected younger sibling (or adjacent imaginable daughter) vibes: Saylor Bell Curda's Mayhem. Being a teen calved into a breached satellite (an "Apo Baby," arsenic she's described), Mayhem is arsenic stubborn and overconfident arsenic they come. But alternatively of that being an aggravating trait, she pops arsenic a fun, relatable summation to Twisted Metal.

Because the play is designed to destruct characters – with galore episodes showcasing a lethal qualifying circular for the tourney – galore of the caller formed members are conscionable present to beryllium to killed off. That doesn't mean they're dispensable though. Most are cool, cardinal components of the Twisted Metal world, and immoderate are adjacent fixed flashbacks that amusement america however they got here. There are a mates stragglers who instrumentality astir excessively long, but overall, we're fixed a bully lot.

Also, you tin inactive thin connected the OGs, and the Samoa Joe/Will Arnett Sweet Tooth combo remains a wonderfully insane creation. Sweet Tooth's relentless homicidal tendencies mixed with his random softness and sentiment proceed to marque him a spotlight character. His motivations to triumph Twisted Metal are bladed (he conscionable wants to beryllium the astir celebrated killer) but that doesn't forestall him from being the astir consistently comic quality onscreen. John and Quiet are the bosom of the amusement – adjacent erstwhile their narration hits unsmooth waters – but Sweet Tooth and Stu are besides a surrogate household successful their ain right, providing unexpected moments of tenderness.

Having watched each of play 2 for this review, the parts that instantly popular into my caput are the comic gags. To sanction a few: There's a very amusing cameo, an inspired Baby-Sitters Club bit, and a hilarious speech with Axel's creator, Dr. Zemu. I enactment this due to the fact that the enactment scenes are precise impressive, but they instrumentality a backmost spot to the absurdities. But yes, it's Twisted Metal truthful there's inactive rampant gore, flying limbs, and galore unceremonious deaths. It's a testament to Smith and the penning unit that moments of warmth really resonate done each the mayhem. The scenery isn't overmuch to look astatine (a batch of bare warehouses, parking lots, drab unfastened roads, etc.) but what's being saved connected visuals is made up for by a ton of ferocious enactment acceptable to deed songs from the 1990s. Season 2 has a fewer much lulls than play 1, but it's inactive a bold enlargement of Twisted Metal.