TV Review: ‘Twisted Metal’ Season 1, Episode 4

First and foremost, Twisted Metal is all about cars and being on the road. Of course, not everything can take place in a car. A lot of the dialogue and even some of the action involves being on foot and fighting hand-to-hand. But so far, the show has done an admirable job trying to put vehicles at the forefront of its characters and its stories. This episode did that particularly well as it essentially created a mobile village involving big rig tractor trailers. It also wisely did this within the context of its dystopian world that was both informative and entertaining.

While on the road to Topeka, John Joe (Anthony Mackie) and Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz) are swallowed up by a tractor trailer; a part of a mobile village called the Convoy. They want John to retrieve some medicine from a pharmacist. But when they arrived, the pharmacist believes John and Quiet to be enemies and almost poisoned them. Eventually, they manage to convince her otherwise and get the needed medicine. On the way back to the Convoy, the two of them hide out and actually bond a little. Ultimately, the medicine is used to euthanize the Convoy’s matriarch, who the citizens then give a viking funeral on the road.

The Convoy is very reminiscent of the sci-fi story Snowpiercer. That story is about the world freezing over and a train carrying the last remnants of humanity, which never stops as it completes a global loop. That train formed its own society with a social structure. The Convoy has a similar society that’s always moving and never lets anything go to waste. Although this is a completely original aspect of the show separate from the video game, it still embodies the idea of the game involving cars and vehicles. It’s this creative storytelling that does new things while also taking the spirit of the franchise into account that makes the show a lot of fun.

Twisted Metal is now streaming on Peacock.