Twisted Metal is pure escapism; utterly bonkers yet completely brilliant. It’s a series that combines farcical situations with heartfelt moments of relatable emotion. Yes, you may not have participated in a deathly ‘demolition derby’, but we’ve all experienced, say, a yearning to belong, grief, or the vulnerability of falling in love. Twisted Metal’s ability to dance between sincerity and absurdity hugely impressed me in its first season, and season two is shaping up to be even stronger.
“Twisted Metal remains the most underrated video game adaptation out there,” I said in my recent review of season two. “The Last of Us and Fallout have both received their flowers and with its second season, it’s about time Twisted Metal did too. I’ve only had the opportunity to view the first two episodes of season two, but the absurdist surrealism that made the first season so memorable has well and truly returned; in fact, I’d argue it’s been turned up tenfold and that’s all for the better.”
Ahead of the launch of season two, I had the opportunity to sit down with star Stephanie Beatriz, the Quiet to Anthony Mackie’s John Doe. The character spent much of season one vying to exact revenge on Agent Stone following the murder of her brother. With Stone successfully out of the way though, I was keen to ask Stephanie where viewers will find Quiet on an emotional level as this second season gets underway, the dust settling following the character’s quest for justice.
“Tracking from season one, there was a moment where Quiet turned her passion for revenge into healing that part of herself,” Stephanie told me. “And then started really looking at the rest of the world. The tunnel vision of revenge kind of went away, and it was like, ‘What is this world that I'm living in? And who has and who doesn't? How can I affect that or effect change in that? Because if we're literally all just trying to survive, then what is the point of all this?’ Right?”
Advert
“Quiet has decided the point is to make it better, somehow - to make it better, not just for herself, but for other people as well. It's a bit like Robin Hood, rob from the rich and give to the poor. And who are the rich and who are the poor in this world? And how can Quiet get in there and try to bring change?”
Will she be embarking on this journey alone? That’s very unlikely. John and Quiet may have gone their separate ways at the end of season one, but the duo still retain deep feelings for one another - and, of course, anyone who’s watched season two’s trailer will be aware that it won’t be long before they reunite. As for describing the development of their relationship this season, Stephanie had one word: “horny”.
“Let me say this, they are incredibly horny those two. They’ve been apart for a while,” Stephanie confessed.
Advert
“It’s a pretty horny season overall; I think I’m allowed to use that word. I don’t know. Sony might be like ‘Please don’t use horny in any further interviews,’ but that’s how I would describe it. That’s how I described it on set. There’s a lot of sexual energy over the entire season - and not just within our characters [John and Quiet], with others as well.”
That does mean that Stephanie had plenty of time to build upon her wonderful rapport with Anthony. The duo’s chemistry shone through in season one. It became incredibly easy to invest within John and Quiet’s blossoming relationship. The duo ribbed one another constantly, as all good couples should do if you ask me, but so too did they share a deep understanding of one another’s internal lives.
“It's great. You know, like any relationship, I think you start finding your shortcuts, and you really know how to continue to play with each other,” Stephanie explained of reuniting with her co-star. “I think that the main thing for season two is [Anthony and I] just continued what we'd built in season one, which is a lot of playfulness.”
“It's really fun to play with Anthony, and it's really fun to antagonise him and be antagonised by his character. And yet he's such a charming actor, and the character of John Doe is incredibly charming. That's how he survived this long. And so just giving over to that charm is really fun.”
Advert
I felt very proud of Quiet within that first season for having the bravery to open up to John. Falling in love can be incredibly scary and vulnerable - and let’s be honest, Quiet hasn’t exactly had many stable relationships. Her life became a tragic string of mistreatments until a chance encounter with John set her upon a new path. I was curious to learn at which point Stephanie felt Quiet acquired that bravery to open up to someone new.
“In season one in the Astral Burger, that moment where she's really struggling and trying to do something by herself, and he just hugs her,” she replied. “He doesn't say anything, and he doesn't really try to make her be anything or do anything. He just hugs her. And I think that's the moment where she really realises that she can trust him.”
“Whether or not that always stays and maintains isn't certain. You know, every relationship has its ups and downs - and ‘You’re an idiot. Oh, I love you’ [moments]. But I think that was the moment for her.”
Advert
You’ll likely know though that John and Quiet didn’t exactly part at the end of season one in an uneventful manner. While John was admitted into New San Francisco as a citizen, Quiet was not, prompting Quiet to shoot John so that he was forced to stay instead of following her back into the wasteland. Viewers quickly discovered, however, that John was not admitted as a New San Francisco citizen at all; he became Raven’s prisoner, forced into training for Calypso’s upcoming race.
Eventually, Quiet is going to discover that her actions and sacrifice in forcing John to stay were all for nothing. As for how that’ll play out in season two, Stephanie kept tight-lipped.
“That's tricky, because if I give too much away, I'm going to give away a bunch of plot points for the rest of the season,” she began. “But I think in this world, you've got to react quickly. I mean, it's kind of like driving right? If suddenly there's an obstacle in your way, you’ve got to just make changes and be okay with what has changed; you have to sort of just go with it. And I think a lot of season two is, ‘Alright, let's just go with it.’”
The largest obstacle this season is assumedly going to be Calypso, the new big bad behind the ‘demolition derby’ both Quiet and John are drawn into. Calypso is an arrival that Twisted Metal video game fans will be welcoming with open arms, and he’s so brilliantly brought to life by Anthony Carrigan of Gotham, Barry, and Superman fame.
Advert
“We are so lucky to have Anthony Carrigan playing Calypso,” Stephanie began. “If you're familiar with the games, Calypso is a huge character and really kind of a puppet master. He’s the reason the demolition derby of season two begins because he’s promised everyone who enters the tournament that their greatest wish can come true if they win. And Quiet wants that wish; she wants that wish real bad. Everybody does, right?”
“It's really going to be fascinating to see how Quiet's perception of Calypso changes over the course of the season. And Anthony Carrigan is just a really brilliant actor. He's so funny, dangerous on screen, sexy in a weird, kind of cool way as Calypso. I'm excited for audiences to see where his character goes, because I think that will be surprising for people.”
I then began to explain that I imagined the nature of the race wouldn’t leave much room for alliances.
“Go ahead and imagine that,” Stephanie playfully interjected.
“Oh, I’d love to be completely wrong,” I replied. “What can you say?”
“You know, I think that the tournament operates under Calypso’s rules, and those rules change all the time, so I don't think you can feel like you know what's gonna happen until you watch the show,” Stephanie teased.
“I mean, even I, as I was reading the scripts for season two, was constantly like, ‘What the f**k?’ I was really shocked at the turns that the writing took, which is, I think, a testament to Michael Jonathan Smith, our showrunner, and the writing staff. Season two is particularly wild.”
One thing that is certain is that season two will feature way more of Dollface, played by Tiana Okoye, introduced at the very end of season one. Revealed to be John’s sister, it’s clear that the arrival of Dollface is going to disturb John and Quiet’s ‘us against the world’ dynamic. They do say three’s a crowd, but you can’t deny the importance of John and Dollface's familial connection.
“A lot of season one was watching Quiet learn how to trust John,” Stephanie began. “In season two, there’s a dynamic where John is now the one that is questioning who he can trust and how deeply he can trust people. He lost his family when he was very young and now suddenly he’s got a sister. What does that mean for him, and how does he react to that? Is it good? Is it bad? Are they allies? Do they become enemies? We’ll have to wait and see.”
My curiosity is piqued. And I should add that it’s perhaps borderline criminal that I’ve discussed Twisted Metal for this long without mentioning the definitive fan-favourite. Yes, my friends, Sweet Tooth is back in action, also participating in Calypso’s demolition derby. Fair to say, Sweet Tooth is someone you might describe as larger-than-life, and I was eager to ask Stephanie what it was like sharing scenes with such an absurdly entertaining character.
“It is so wonderful and weird,” she said. “The actor who plays Sweet Tooth, [Samoa] Joe, he's just this, like, huge dude, right? His presence as a human being is just other worldly. He's built and looks like an athlete, and yet he's got the sweetest disposition.”
“There was a scene where we were running. All of us were sort of standing in this line, and then it was ‘Three, two, one, go’. All of us took off running, and Joe was just kind of standing there in that horrifying mask. I turned around and basically punched myself in the face with Joe’s arm just because he was holding his hand up and, you know, he’s solid as a rock.”
“And yet,” Stephanie continued, “the way that he's written and the way that Joe plays him is as this kind of maniacal, silly, dastardly, almost whimsical sociopath. Between Joe's physicality and Will [Arnett]'s voice, I think he's just a really bizarre, interesting character. And I think particularly for season two, when we're kind of all in this battle royale, it's really interesting to see why Sweet Tooth is the way he is. We get more of that this season. We're pulling at the threads of the character and looking at what is going on in that absolutely bizarre clown's mind.”
While Twisted Metal’s world is so absurdly surreal to us as the viewer, it’s the norm for the characters who reside within it. To end our discussion, I asked Stephanie if it was challenging to work within a space where that’s the case.
“You know, you really nailed it because it is those words that you used,” she began. “Absurd and surreal are absolutely what our show is doing; that is built into the tone of the show. And I don't think anybody's put it that way, but I'm probably gonna steal those words from you. You really nailed it.”
“I'm just thinking about a couple scenes in the tournament where stuff happens and you just, as a viewer, think, ‘Okay, this is happening. I'm along for the ride.’ It takes these weird turns, and you just go with it. Weird boxes show up and they open, and you've got to put on what's inside - and suddenly, fireworks are going off.”
“There's a particular scene where, and I really want to be careful not to give anything away, there's almost like a weird [scene] - not a dream sequence, because that's going to turn viewers off - [where] you kind of go into Sweet Tooth’s mind for a minute, and it is the most gloriously absurd and surreal moment. When I read it on the page, I was losing it because it's so funny and bizarre and weird. And I'll tease this: if you were a girl growing up in the 90s [or] 2000s, there’s a real gift to those viewers about midway through the season - and with that I’m probably already in trouble.”
I fit that criteria. Argh, I need to find out more - immediately.
I can do just that though as Twisted Metal Season 2's opening three episodes are now available on Paramount Plus in the UK, with two new episodes dropping every Friday.
Topics: PlayStation, TV And Film, Interview