John and his reluctant companion/captor must use all their wits to survive an encounter with Sweet Tooth, the deranged self-appointed lord of Las Vegas. Agent Stone and his band find a couple of new recruits.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that both shows are based on video games, Twisted Metal could almost be considered a made for TV comedy parody of The Last Of Us. Sure, it’s a different apocalypse and a wildly different tone, and yet, I can’t help but keep drawing comparisons.

It’s that videogame connection, of course, which explains the similarity. If there are only seven basic plots in all of literature, there are fewer still for videogames, which tend, mostly, to involve a protagonist proceeding from a number of point As to point Bs (levels), facing various mid-level threats before the final Antagonist (Boss) in service to an overarching quest for something, be it revenge, redemption or simple personal gain.

Of course, Twisted Metal is interested more in playing for laughs and visceral thrills, and so it dumps us straight into the apocalypse, uninterested in examining too closely how we got here or what the motivations or goals of John may be beyond day-to-day survival. His journey involves no lofty ideals, but a simple fetch quest which, if pulled of successfully, will apparently grant him the life of his dreams, including 3 ply toilet paper.

This is possibly where the tone of this episode jars. Sweet Tooth is a villain who, elsewhere, might be the subject of more examination. Clearly a damaged and broken man even before the world ended, he’s now a delusional, violent psychopath as likely to hug you as rip your throat out and not unlikely to do both. Will Arnett’s voice and Samoa Joe’s physicality combine to give us a character who feels like he belongs in a different show. Brooding, menacing, liable to explode into violence or song at any moment.

This carries over into the confused nature of his interactions with both John and Quiet. Starting out determined to murder them both, he then ends up putting on a show for them and demanding their honest critique. Throw in that elsewhere, Agent Stone and his men are tangling with actual cannibals and forcing a couple of new recruits to make some very questionable choices and it all just feels a little dissonant, like there’s the seeds of a more serious show hidden amongst the determination to make everything possible a joke. Maybe it will be allowed to get more complex as time goes on, but for now it’s still fun, just starting to feel like the joke might wear thin over time.

Verdict: When it works, it really works, but it’s liable to give viewers whiplash as it catapults between gross humour and serious bits from one moment to the next. Still fun for now, but let’s see… 7/10

Greg D. Smith