The second season of Peacock’s “Twisted Metal” is faster and funnier | TV / Streaming

“Twisted Metal” The show finally becomes twisted this season, and the result is one of the most surprising quality jumps of a first in the second season for a very long time.

While never reaching the critical speeds of successes like “Fallout” or “The Last of Us”, the “Metal Twisted” of Peacock has become a surprisingly enormous success for streaming it, giving production the kind of confidence that can often stimulate creative freedom. The result is a second year outing which is much better than the first in each department, paying the attention of a clumsy road comedy with chaos based on vehicles that fans of the game have been waiting from the start. The second season of 12 episodes presents more action, personality, character development and effective humor from the start. He gets lost a little in the last episodes with too many sons of the intrigue to unravel, but the cliffhanger who promises another outing is more like a promise than a threat this time.

The first clumsy season ended with John Doe (Anthony Mackie) finally in the new San Francisco, only to learn the classic lesson to pay attention to what you want. It turns out that he is only allowed to live there if he runs for Raven (Patty Guggenheim, replacing the One Campbell season of the One season in a way that is intelligently explained) in the next twisted metal tournament. She puts John Doe in his childhood house, where he reads Babysitters club The books and the plans of an escape are back in the more exciting world outside and his love, calm (Stephanie Beatriz), who is now going up with a group led by Dollface (Tiana Okoye), who happens to be the sister that John was able to remember Amnesia.

Dividing John and Quiet for the first episodes of season two intelligently allows Mackie and Beatriz to carve these characters in a way that does not only relate to the way they interact with each other. Beatriz is particularly strong in his scenes with Dollface and his servants, who quickly include a new face called Mayhem (the MVP Saylor Bell Curda season). Meanwhile, Sweet Tooth (physically portrayed by Joe Seanoa and expressed by Will Arnett) and Stu (expressed by Mike Mitchell) wander in the countryside, causing chaos, essentially waiting for the tournament to start. Along the way, we finally obtain the involvement of some favorites from the game fans, notably Axel (Michael James Shaw), Mr. Grimm (Richard de Klerk) and the man in charge of the twisted metal tournament, Calypso (a wonderful Anthony Carrigan). And, more importantly, we watch them fight “Fury Road” -Style in episodes that focus on what the game was in the first place.

The second season of “Twisted Metal” is looking into the humorous nature of all its distribution instead of simply leaving Sweet Tooth to make most of the bad jokes. While the first season often seemed afraid of becoming bizarre, writers kiss their madness this time, mixing playful humor in carnage. Thinking about it after a dozen episodes, there is not exactly a richness of details of character or narrative twists and turns, but everyone simply seems to have fun this year, and it can be contagious. If the first season seemed to be an obligation to overcome a wave of video game adaptations, the second feels like an honest effort to satisfy both game fans and those who have never played them. The result is a season that finds its tone in a way that the first has never done.

It is useful to have a casting that seems to be on the same wavelength concerning the direction of bloody humor of “twisted metal”. Carrigan looks into its viscous side, sketching a Calypso who will prefer it if no one wins its tournament at all, as long as the public is entertained. We can see his “Barry” Noho Hank taking a trajectory similar to a socio -poopathic opportunist. Mackie’s comic timing seems tighter; Beatriz’s emotional rhythms are more anchored with character; Mitchell is more than Sweet Tooth’s companion. The commitment of the new Venu Curda becomes the MVP of the median section of the season, using chaos to give the show a young energy shine that she seriously needed in the first dull outing. More importantly, leaving characters like Dollface, Mayhem, Stu, Axel and Grimm get arcs allows Mackie & Beatriz not to have so much lifting of heavy alone, transforming the show in addition to a set, which it should have been in the first round.

I have long suggested that comedies need a season to find their foot. Look at the first seasons of “Parks and Recreation” and even “30 rock” for shows that are not near the comic peaks they would reach in recent years. I think it is a product of writers who need to experiment because they find the comic timing of their characters, playing with the forces of their whole when they explore them together. It is perhaps because of all the explosions and murders that I did not apply this theory to “Metal Twisted”, a comedy that I feared before reviewing. Life is full of surprises.

The first three episodes are now on Peacock, with a new episode every week.