"20 years ago, the world fell to shit. A big old apocalyptic dump! Some bug took out all the world's computers. Power grids: down. The Internet: gone! And not having easily accessible porn freaked people the fuck out! So cities put up walls to protect themselves and threw the criminals out into the chaos, so they could fight over what was left... which was not much. Mostly cars and guns. Now insiders stay inside and outsiders stay outside, but there are people who drive between. Badasses, legends, humble motherfuckers like me delivering precious cargo from one walled city to another. It's not an easy road, because all these assholes want what I've got! And that's where the cars and guns come in."
— John Doe
Twisted Metal is a 2023 action comedy series developed by Michael Jonathan Smith (Cobra Kai) and executive produced by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland, Deadpool) loosely based off the PlayStation video game series of the same name. It stars Anthony Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz, Richard Cabral, Thomas Haden Church, Samoa Joe, and Will Arnett. Mackie and Arnett also executive produce.
Mackie stars as John Doe, an amnesiac milkman in a heavily armed car who is offered a chance at a better life in his post-apocalyptic world by driving a package across the wasteland. Along the way, he picks up a passenger in the sardonic survivor Quiet (Beatriz) and the two must contend with a legion of enemies in their own deadly hotrods - including a lawman (Church) bent on imposing a cruel order on the wasteland and the notorious Sweet Tooth (played by Joe and voiced by Arnett), a child actor turned psychotic killer.
The series premiered on Peacock July 27, 2023. A second season is in development.
Previews: Teaser
, Trailer, Clip
Twisted Metal includes examples of the following:
- Adaptation Amalgamation:
- The version of Sweet Tooth presented here combines the mask, physical build, and asylum backstory of his Black incarnation with the showmanship and desire for fame from his portrayal in 4.
- The characters in the show are taken from every single Twisted Metal timeline outside of Small Brawl, such as Preacher and Bloody Mary from Black, Shepard from Head-On, and Amber Rose and Granny Dread from III.
- Adaptational Personality Change:
- Bloody Mary goes from a psychotic Yandere to John's amicable ex-girlfriend. While she eventually turns against him, it's out of selfishness rather than twisted love.
- In the games, Preacher is a religious fundamentalist. In the show, he's the hedonistic leader of a rowdy biker gang who uses drugs and practices BDSM. He was a former preacher but, after the apocalypse, lost his faith and believes humans are gods.
- Mr. Slam goes from an arrogant architect to a friendly bartender who entertains patrons by smashing watermelons with his giant penis, which is the source of his nickname. He's also the only milkman at the Pit who doesn't turn on John and Quiet when he finds out how valuable their package is.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Agent Stone was one of the more heroic characters in Twisted Metal: Black. Here, he's the head of a fascist police state.
- In the games, Shepard is basically the James Bond of the Twisted Metal universe. In the show, he's the sadistic lieutenant of the fascist Agent Stone as well as a pedophile.
- Carl and Jamie Roberts, the original two drivers of Outlaw, were some of the more sympathetic characters of the games. In the show they are Butt Monkeys and a Bumbling Henchmen Duo working for Stone.
- Adapted Out: Marcus Kane, as a separate individual. His name is given to Sweet Tooth who was originally Needles Kane. Sweet Tooth gained Needles as a nickname from the media after killing Buddy with a knitting needle, making Sweet Tooth's name Marcus "Needles" Kane. Meanwhile Marcus' car Roadkill is given to John Doe/Quiet.
- Advertising by Association: The trailer boasts that the show is by “the twisted minds” behind Deadpool and Zombieland.
- Affably Evil: Surprisingly Sweet Tooth of all characters is mostly this throughout the first season. When Jon Doe and Quiet got captured by him and forced to watch his performance, he lets them go after they give him honest feedback and later on in the season he befriends Stu after rescuing him from the Outlaws. He even calls Jon and Quiet a cute couple when he meets them again! He generally is shockingly friendly with most characters he meets but still betrays Jon and Quiet's party after they want to also kill Agent Stone and does what he does for selfish reasons.
- After the End: The main trailer confirms that the series is set two decades after the world “went to shit”, and society crumbled, with most cities now walled off and the criminal element locked out to fight over the scraps of the old world.
- All There in the Script: Quiet's brother is never given a name proper in the series, however the subtitles/closed captions gives him the name "Loud".
- Alternate History: The apocalypse occurred in 2002, with the blackouts and internet going down. The series proper is set in an alternate 2022.
- And Starring: The trailer gives the “and” credit to Thomas Haden Church while Will Arnett and Samoa Joe share the "with" credit.
- Apocalyptic Logistics: Played with. John only operates on the West Coast, barely crossing the Rocky Mountains. However, gasoline and ammunition for the cars seems nearly limitless. Communities feast on dog food but have no problem paying with gas or bullets. Then again, we never see what goes on in these walled off communities, whether a source for oil discovery/refinement or a method for creating new ammunition was discovered.
- Awesome, but Impractical: One "vulture" lampshades the impracticality of his post-apocalyptic armor, which is made from a bunch of tires. Still, he keeps wearing it for the aesthetic.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Agent Stone & Sweet Tooth serves as this for the show.
- Big Badass Rig: The Convoy is a whole Mobile City made up of them.
- Black Market Produce: Mundane foods are now rare and must be transported across bandit-infested wastelands by "milkmen." The valuable package that John and Quiet risked so much to bring to Raven is a pint of ice cream.
- Bondage Is Bad: Preacher's gang has several female dominatrixes.
- Breakout Character: In-Universe example. Sweet Tooth was originally a 1980's child star who was overshadowed by his dog sidekick, similar to Urkel. Sweet Tooth eventually snapped and killed the dog in front of a live studio audience.
- Brick Joke: In the first episode, John mentions toilet paper as something he yearns for. Several episodes later, in a flashback sequence he's shown using an extravagant amount of toilet paper in Raven's bathroom.
- Broad Strokes: The vehicular combat and characters like Sweet Tooth are carried over from the games, a post-apocalypse concept out of The Last of Us where America has been divided into walled city-states has been added just for the show.
- Bury Your Gays: Subverted. We see Amber get shot in the neck and her semi blown up. We later see her walk away from the wreck and reunite with Miranda.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Stu. He gets captured by cannibals, pushed to the side while Mike climbs the ranks in Stone's police force, gets disrespected and abandoned by John, and gets pressured into being Sweet Tooth's right-hand-man.
- Carl and Jamie Roberts. They're basically a Bumbling Henchmen Duo and the idiots surrounding Stone. They spent their last scene in season 1 in neck braces and eventually get killed.
- Agent Stone in flashbacks. He's a low-ranking beat cop who's often mistaken for a mall cop. He tries to help friends during the apocalypse, gets robbed by them, and they reveal they never even liked him. He's so enraged when looters disrespect them that he kills them along with some civilians.
- Cannibal Clan: "Butcher" gangs are one of the hazards outside the city walls.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: In the middle of a vehicular shootout in an abandoned mall, Doe takes a moment to read a map aloud and express surprise that the mall has a Foot Locker.
- Casting Gag: In the Mexican Spanish dub, Sweet Tooth's voice actor, Hector Estrada, had previously voiced another evil villain from an adaptation of a famous videogame.
- Central Theme: Abuse and mistreatment of service workers.
- The Milkmen are clearly important if not essential to the functioning of the walled-off societies, but are subject to more violence and mistreatment than almost anyone else. Raven puts John at enormous risk for ice cream.
- Orange County forces its workers into indentured servitude, complete with chopping off body parts for minor misbehavior.
- In episode six, it's revealed that the crew at the Astral Burger John and Quiet hide in form a cult around their franchise marketing materials, ultimately committing mass suicide and preserving their bodies in the walk-in.
- After moving into New San Francisco, John is humorously grateful to a pizza delivery guy since he assumes that his job is as hard as a Milkman's.
- Chekhov's Gun: In "CRZSRDS", John is seen unsuccessfully trying to throw a knife into a tire. In "SHNGRLA", John saves Quiet from Stone by throwing a hatchet into his face.
- Christianity is Catholic: Played with the Preacher. His outfit is a very clear mix and combination of a modern Roman Catholic Bishop and Puritan 18th century Preacher. He is called "The Preacher" a term used most commonly by evangelicals and Puritans. That said, he likely was a Catholic Priest before as he mentions before world ended, he was a "man of God" and "celibate", and only Roman Catholic Church pracitices celibacy.
- Comically Missing the Point: Raven claims that she can give Doe anything he wants if he completes his delivery mission. After asking what it is Doe wants, he immediately requests 2-ply toilet paper. Raven suggests a better idea, to which Doe amusingly assumes it's the 3-ply version.
- John's ignorance of the pre-apocalypse world often leads to him falling into this trope.
- Companion Cube: Sweet Tooth’s best friend in the world is a paper bag he calls Harold.
- Continuity Nod: In "DRVTHRU", John says that he's never ridden a bicycle. "SHNGRLA" shows him unsuccessfully trying to ride one.
- Courier: Milkmen like John Doe are basically this, driving supplies through bandit-riddled territory between the walled cities in heavily armed vehicles.
- Crapsaccharine World: The nicer walled cities are like this.
- New San Francisco is safe and wealthy but Raven has a brutal police force and a Big Brother-level spy network.
- Orange County still has wealthy citizens and functional businesses. It's also a place where people own slaves and wear their body parts as jewelry.
- Department of Major Vexation: Stone has repurposed the DMV into a prison and execution ground.
- Dog Food Diet: One city celebrates when John brings them huge bags of dog food. One shouts "Tonight we feast!"
- Doing In the Wizard: The games have witches, ghosts, demons, aliens, preachers that can curse people, and a Jackass Genie Big Bad but the show has no explicitly supernatural elements as of yet.
- Evil Laugh: Sweet Tooth gives a particularly Joker-like laugh as the teaser ends.
- Fingore: Quiet is missing her middle finger. She was tricked into becoming a slave and her boss mutilated her.
- From Nobody to Nightmare:
- Agent Stone started off as a beat cop who was so low-ranking and disrespected that he was mistaken for a mall cop. By the time of the series, he's basically a warlord running a fascist state.
- Granny Dread was originally a real estate agent before becoming the feared leader of the convoy.
- Gag Dub: John and Quiet perform one of Blankman in a movie theater because the sound is out.
- Gargle Blaster: The Jack and Coke that the Holy Men drink isn't really Jack and Coke (whiskey and cola), it's actually whiskey and cocaine.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When Quiet and her brother Loud are captured by Agent Stone, he forces a Sadistic Choice upon them: one of them can shoot themselves in the head, or his men can napalm them both. Loud takes the bullet to save his sister.
- Hidden Elf Village: The convoy, a constantly moving city of interconnected semi trucks. They tend not to get involved in other people's affairs though they offer refuge, supplies, and aid to the heroes. They are also formidable if they are attacked. Granny Dread didn't get that nickname for nothing.
- Human Resources: Amber has killed several people and uses them as fertilizer. However, they're all members of Preacher's Holy Men and once she finds out John and Quiet aren't members, she heals them.
- I Love the Dead: A creepy old man attempts to rape an unconscious John, thinking he's dead.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The names of each episode are designed like vanity license plates ("WLUDRV", "3RNCRCS", "NTHLAW1", etc.)
- In-Universe Soundtrack: Used multiple times. One example is John playing Cypress Hill's "(Rock) Superstar" when being chased by vultures in the first episode, another comes from him putting on CAKE's "The Distance" before the big car fight in the season one finale.
- Ironic Nursery Tune: Naturally, as the teaser ends, we hear a creepy version of “The Wheels on the Bus” from Sweet Tooth’s ice cream truck.
- Knight Templar: Agent Stone wants to bring law and order back to the fallen America. Problem is, he has a zero-policy tolerance on all sorts of crime and will violently kill anyone he deems a criminal.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: John reveals in the second episode that his first memory is of waking up in his car with a head injury, and his only link to his past besides that is a faded family picture.
- Made a Slave: Quiet and her brother were farm workers who took contracts as servants promising them beachfront property. They ended up serving cruel slave masters that mutilate their slaves.
- Manipulative Bastard: Raven uses a man from her colony and another woman’s baby to manipulate John into taking her job.
- Mundane Luxury: John is amazed by three-ply toilet paper and the Container Store.
- Mythology Gag:
- The titles of the episodes are done in the style of vanity license plates, like the vehicles had listed in the manuals for the first two games.
- It’s hard to see, but one of John Doe’s gloves has a spider design on it that resembles one of his Twisted Metal: Black counterpart’s tattoos.
- During the mall shootout in the first episode, a case of video games collapses and the case for the original Twisted Metal falls onto John’s windshield.
- The bar where Raven meets with John is named Kelly’s, a reference to the former’s best friend Kelly in Twisted Metal: Black.
- Harold the Wacky Lunch Sack returns, also from the original game.
- During the initial chase to escape Sweet Tooth, John kicks his car into high gear by inputting the "Infinite Health" cheat from Twisted Metal 2 (Though it is missing an input.)
- Before the apocalypse, Sweet Tooth was an inmate at Blackfield Asylum, just like in the Black continuity. The asylum is also located in Kane, Michigan, a likely reference to Sweet Tooth’s real name (Needles Kane), Which also can be briefly seen in a newspaper clipping.
- Sweet Tooth says a variant of his phrase “shut up and bleed” (used in Black and the 2012 game) to John.
- In a flashback, Agent Stone accidentally kills a child in a fit of rage and we are shown a teddy bear splashed with the child’s blood. Twisted Metal: Black’s Agent Stone also had this as part of his backstory, albeit in a slightly different context.
- Amber, a botanist and pharmacist who poisons enemies with plants, is the show's version of Flower Power. She is the ex-girlfriend of Miranda Watts and a friend of Granny Dread.
- When John and Quiet reach New Chicago, they ask Calypso for a pizza for the road. In the games, Calypso corrupts Axel's wish to give him a pizza.
- John and Quiet debate the existence of ghosts and aliens. Both appear as characters in the games.
- Several milkmen at a bar have nicknames based on game characters including Bloody Mary, Petunia, Pizza Boy, Pit Viper, and Mr. Slam.
- Bloody Mary says "Til death do they part" about John and Evelyn, a reference to her stolen Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress in Twisted Metal Black.
- Raven wears a pentagram necklace and sews together voodoo dolls, a reference to her Goth appearance in the games.
- John says that every car has weapons, armor, speed and handling. These are the stats of drivers in the Twisted Metal games though "weapons" are called "Special".
- When we see Calypso planning his tournament, with pictures of Mr. Grimm and Axel in the scene.
- The finale has Sweet Tooth’s left eye get badly damaged, similar to how the 2012 game’s counterpart’s right eye was stabbed.
- In a flashback, Sweet Tooth's stepfather mentions that Marcus could be sleeping in his father's taxi, referring to Charlie Kane and his taxicab Yellow Jacket.
- Quiet and Loud's car is the purple hearse Shadow.
- It's established that a nuclear power plant exploded in a place called "Watkyn's Harbor", leading to deadly electrical storms. "Watkyn's Harbor" was the name of a level in Twisted Metal (2012).
- Pædo Hunt: Shepard is caught masturbating to a lolicon manga right before Quiet kills him.
- Parental Neglect: Sweet Tooth was not only forced into an acting career by his mother and stepfather, the opening of the Seventh episode illustrates he very clearly had severe psychiatric problems that were outright ignored.
- Pet the Dog: While going through John’s car, Stu finds the faded family picture. Rather than take it or throw it out like all of his other belongings, he chooses to put it back.
- Averted and then some in episode Seven, where a young Sweet Tooth murders a Golden Retriever for upstaging him with knitting needles.
- Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation: John's only link to his past is a photo of him and his family, which was partially burned so that only his face is still in the photo.
- Practical Currency: Paper currency doesn't exist outside the walled cities. Milkmen are paid in things like food, gas, guns, ammo, and car parts.
- Product Placement: John receives Bosch brand windshield wipers as payment in one scene and praises their performance as he cleans a thief's blood off his windshield.
- The flashback in episode three includes a mix of living and extinct brands from circa 2002, including Waldenbooks, Claires, and the Motorola Razr.
- Professional Butt-Kisser:
- Stu basically becomes this when he is rescued by Sweet Tooth and becomes his right-hand man.
- Upon their first meeting with Sweet Tooth, John and Quiet are forced to watch an entire comedy set he has planned, only for Sweet Tooth to come close to killing them when the former starts acting like this. It's only when Quiet admits that the set sucked and Doe follows does Sweet Tooth relent and eventually lets the pair go, admitting that he genuinely appreciated the criticism.
- Red Herring: The run to Chicago for the package. The entire run was a test for John Doe, setup by Raven, to see if he could compete in Calypso's tournament. The package wasn't important- it was a pint of ice cream and it was the wrong flavor.
- Running Gag: John repeatedly uses "Jell-O" as a greeting after he's introduced to it in the first episode but misunderstands the word.
- Sequel Hook: Season 1 ends with Raven forcing John to join the racing tournament to win the prize from the host Calypso while Quiet is surrounded by the group of masked women and the leader of said group claims that she's John's long lost sister. Meanwhile in The Stinger, after he was seemingly shot and left for dead by Stu (who saves his friend Mike from Sweet Tooth), Sweet Tooth arrives at the beach to kill Mike and drags Stu off, leaving Stu's fate unknown.
- Shoot Your Mate: Sweet Tooth is betrayed by Mike and tells Stu to kill him. Stu shoots Sweet Tooth instead.
- Signs of Disrepair: As the teaser ends, we see that the famous sign for Las Vegas has been graffitied so it now reads “LOST VEGAS”.
- The Silent Bob: Quiet lives up to her name as it's not until halfway through Episode 2 she finally talks...to tell Sweet Tooth how much his one-man show sucked.John: Now you talk?!
- Sinister Minister: Preacher Jebidiah and his Holy Men really love drugs, BDSM, and killing innocent Milk Men.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: In episode 6, John Doe and Quiet argue with each other because John came back and saves her despite the fact that she doesn't want him to do so because she was trying to take revenge on Stone for killing her brother. After they argue, they begin to make out and proceed to have sex in the abandoned burger joint's ball pit.
- The Stinger: There's an after-credits scene in the season 1 finale where Stu and Mike are shown enjoying themselves and relaxing at the beach during nighttime, however, they are surprised when a presumed dead Sweet Tooth unexpectedly arrives. Sweet Tooth then kills Mike with a machete in front of Stu and forcefully drags a horrified Stu away.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The teaser sees Doe driving around the burning landscape and firing his hood-mounted guns… to the tune of Len’s “Steal My Sunshine”.
- Title Drop: Raven tells John that he will leave his opponents as "burning wrecks of Twisted Metal".
- Two Decades Behind: Justified in that the apocalypse happened in 2002, and seemingly destroyed everything with a computer processor.
- Vanity License Plate: John’s car is shown to have the license plate EV3L1N, which is also the car’s name.
- Viking Funeral: After Granny dies, they put her in a car, push it out the back of the truck, and blow it up.
- Weaponized Car: As per franchise traditions. Most people traveling between the city will have cars modified with weapons.
- Wham Line:
- In the pilot, Raven comes off as a nice woman offering John a job and doting on her husband and baby. That gets John to agree to do this run for her with Raven and her family bidding him farewell. As soon as John is out of sight, Raven's smile vanishes and she holds out her baby like it's a diseased animal.
Raven: Get it back to its mother. (to "husband") Your payment's in your apartment.- Sweet Tooth has John and Quiet watch his one-man show with John trying to talk of how good it was.
Quiet: It was a fucking snooze-fest.John: Now you talk?!
