Twisted Metal season 1, episode 5 recap: “CRZSRDS”

At the end of Twisted Metal season 1 episode 4, it seemed like John and Quiet were finally starting to make progress in their friendship and bond. That trend seemed to continue in the opening moments of this episode, as they exchanged banter with one another a few miles outside of Topeka.

But that friendship vibe took a turn when Quiet secretly drugged John so that she could continue her journey alone. It turns out that she didn’t want to involve John in her quest to kill Stone and felt it better to keep him out of it entirely.

Twisted Metal season 1, episode 5 recap: More Sweet Tooth action…

As John and Quiet split, back at the Hoover Dam Sweet Tooth arrived eager to share his entertaining show with everyone, which in this case ended up featuring him killing every guard in the place. Understandably, the only people left, the prisoners, who Sweet Tooth viewed as the audience for his show, were more than happy to applaud the killing of all the guards and gave Sweet Tooth his first standing ovation.

Among those who were saved by Sweet Tooth was Stu, the guard who had gotten caught freeing John and Quiet a few episodes back. He tells Sweet Tooth about all the other checkpoints with lots of guards to kill, which will give Sweet Tooth an opportunity to grow his fan base.

Stu joins Sweet Tooth as they head to the next location to put on another show.

Twisted Metal season 1, episode 5 recap: Quiet abandons John

Meanwhile back outside of Topeka, John wakes up and finds a note left by Quiet explaining her reasons for drugging him and tells him to go and complete his mission. John smiles at the note that is unexpectedly sweet coming from Quiet and heads off to Chicago.

Inside the walls of Topeka, Quiet manages to attack two guards and take control of a police vehicle. She begins to search for Stone, but as she does, the memory of her brother begins to question her choices.

Quiet is noticed by two police officers who stop to question her. She tries bluffing for a second, but then switches to a hit and run strategy where she tries to hit an officer with her car before escaping.

Stone is notified of the appearance of Quiet and decides it’s time to take care of her himself. Stone sends out a message over the radio, which Quiet is able to hear given that she has a radio in her stolen vehicle.

With her car surrounded, Stone tells her that she can try and run, and be hunted down by his men, or she can come meet him face to face. Quiet chooses the latter, and heads back into the city to confront Stone.

Seeing his car, she tries to attack him quickly, but it turns out the car is a trap. Stone attacks from the side in a decked out armored vehicle.

The two of them trade attacks with the weapons that have installed in each car, but Stone gets the better of Quiet, causing her to crash. He is just about to finish her off, when John shows up, shooting a rocket into Stone and saving Quiet.

But it might be too late. As John checks on Quiet, her injuries from the crash might be too great as the episode comes to a close.

Twisted Metal season 1, episode 5 recap: Just like they do in the video game.

You know what those last few minutes of this episode felt like? They felt like Twisted Metal.

For a brief couple of minutes, the show felt like the video game that it’s supposedly based on. There have been more than a few pieces talking about 2023 as the year of the good video game adaptation.

Sure, most of that talk revolves around The Last of Us getting universal critical acclaim and The Super Mario Bros. Movie making a billion dollars at the box office. But sometimes Twisted Metal is thrown into the conversation as further proof that the video game adaptation curse has been broken.

And none of this is to suggest that any of these movies and shows are anything bad, but it really opens up the question of what exactly an adaptation should be doing. The Last of Us was able to tell the story from the video game, but that video game was pretty cinematic to begin with, so the adaptation didn’t seem to have as far to go as others might.

The Mario movie drew a lot of praise for LOOKING how a Mario movie should look. But given that the visuals were some of the most consistent things for the Mario series from game to game, that makes sense.

So, what is it that a Twisted Metal adaptation should be trying to do? It can be hard to say.

Most of the Twisted Metal video games have a storyline, but that story always takes a backseat to the vehicle combat of the game. For the most part, as long as you remember to put Sweet Tooth in it, there’s a lot of different directions an adaptation can go.

This isn’t to say that the post-apocalyptic setting with John as the main character was the wrong choice. The setup works, and so far it’s managed to create a show that’s consistent with the irreverent tone put forth in the video games.

But the car action has taken a backseat so far in this show. We got a little bit in the beginning, but for a show that’s based on a driving series of video games, the characters have spent a lot of time walking around outside of the car.

Now, there’s still plenty of episodes left, and it’s pretty clear that the show is building up to something, and more than likely, the climax of the season is going to feature a lot of car action. But it’s nice to see that for a few minutes in this episode, we get to see something that really looks like Twisted Metal in live action.

What did you think of Twisted Metal season 1 episode 5? You can watch Twisted Metal season 1 on Peacock TV.