In the upcoming second season of Peacock’s Twisted Metal, the mysterious Calypso invitations all of the killers, vigilantes and joyriders of the Divided States of America to take part in a demolition derby event with the promise of constructing the winner’s best want come true.
“Everybody’s a villain this season as a result of we’re in a event,” Twisted Metal star Anthony Mackie instructed IGN earlier this week.
We spoke with Mackie, his co-star Stephanie Beatriz and showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith for our newest digital cowl story, which reveals unique first-look images from Season 2 in addition to new plot particulars and forged members.
We also can completely announce that Twisted Metal: Season 2 premieres on Peacock on July 31, 2025.
Scroll by the gallery under for 11 unique images from Twisted Metal: Season 2.
Dollface: John Doe’s Vigilante Sister Unmasked
“John, on the finish of Season 1, will get his want in a manner. He needs group, he needs household, and he will get this realization on the finish of Season 1 that he is really from New San Francisco,” Smith defined. Mackie added, “That’s the wonderful thing about the brand new season, he is just about on high of the world. He’s gotten every part he might ask for and he is realizing what is the reality of the New San Francisco life now.”
John’s literal and emotional journey in Season 2 is intertwined with that of Dollface (performed by Tiana Okoye). It was revealed on the finish final season that the amnesiac John has a sister, who’s first seen carrying a doll face masks and within the firm of a gaggle of feminine vigilantes generally known as the Dolls. Season 2 reveals that her identify is Krista and he or she’s the chief of the Dolls, who struggle, Robin Hood-style, for the survival of the Outsiders towards the Insiders.
“What’s nice is that Krista has type of been on the surface and he or she’s had a unique expertise than John,” mentioned Smith. “Krista has seen the inequality between the Insiders and Outsiders, and he or she would not prefer it. She has determined to struggle towards it and actually needs to discover a steadiness between the Insiders and Outsiders.”
Mackie mentioned John assembly Krista “legitimizes who he’s as a personality and an individual. Even simply in actual life, we all the time discover ourselves so remoted and alone at instances, not having a household connection, not having a house base, being a nomad nearly. And then as soon as he finds his sister, he has that grounding once more. He has that function once more. So it sort of takes him again to that childhood that he misplaced, that he could not recollect, or solutions all these questions for him that he is all the time had.”
Although they’re siblings and have some similarities, Smith identified the important thing variations between John and Krista. “We like that she’s simply as loopy as John is. She’s simply as violent in some methods and we like seeing just a little little bit of the issues that make them the identical, but in addition she’s rather more prepared to get into the battle. John has spent his total life avoiding battle in some methods. He simply must drive, he must get from level A to level B. But Krista has spent her life stepping into the battle, seeing that generally you may’t keep out of the battle and is more than pleased to get in the midst of it.”
As it seems, one in every of Krista’s key lieutenants is none aside from John’s former girlfriend Quiet, who joined the Dolls on the finish of the primary season. “Quiet’s nothing if not a survivor, and to outlive on the planet, it’s important to make alliances, allegiances. You have to just be sure you’re secure, and that is what she does,” mentioned Beatriz. “The viewers goes to determine who and the way Dollface is linked to John and the way the coincidental/not coincidental connection that she has to Quiet permits these discoveries to occur.”
Beatriz doubled down on that crypticness: “In this world, it is like, how a lot are you able to belief what anyone says from one episode to the following? I feel that is a theme that you’re going to see all through the season. Trust is an enormous factor on this world as a result of it isn’t nearly trusting anyone or what anyone says to you, proper? It’s like actually trusting anyone is really placing your life of their fingers typically on this world. … Just as a result of anyone says one thing is true would not essentially make it so.”
And everybody’s belief will probably be put to the literal take a look at this season once they take part in Calypso’s Twisted Metal Tournament. “If we’re all on this event collectively, no one is my good friend besides my teammate,” mentioned Beatriz.
Calypso and the Twisted Metal Tournament
Calypso is one in every of solely three characters to have appeared in each Twisted Metal recreation, so there was loads of materials for showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith and actor Anthony Carrigan, who’s a fan of the sport, to attract from in shaping the TV present’s incarnation of him.
“My tackle Calypso is he is just a little little bit of every part from the video games. He’s all the time three steps forward. He’s acquired nice grand plans for the event,” Smith defined. “He’s a showman. He actually loves displaying off. I feel this can be a model of Calypso the place he is a performer. He’s acquired just a little little bit of P.T. Barnum in him the place he likes to have these twists. But I feel there’s undoubtedly that component of he doesn’t like being proven up and he doesn’t like different individuals being the focus, which is nice.
“I feel what’s additionally nice about the way in which Anthony portrays him is that there is this infantile glee with it too,” Smith added. “He’s sort of being the viewers surrogate in some methods the place he is simply having fun with this as a result of he is bringing these drivers in and letting them enter the event. But he is the one who’s watching it. He’s the one who’s attending to see the event play out and having fun with the twists and turns of it. And I feel he enjoys it simply as a lot as he enjoys developing with what the rounds are.”
For an Outsider like Quiet, Calypso initially represents “the promise of what’s attainable,” as Beatriz put it: “In Season 1, Quiet is dazzled by it. She’s actually excited by the theatricality of Calypso and the promise of what’s attainable, like Calypso’s actual, and he is actual and he is magic, and he makes shit occur. Suddenly, there’s an elevator in the midst of a subject and now we’re in a bizarre hallway. She’s simply completely dazzled by it.”
Quiet needs to win Calypso’s event so Calypso will grant her want to make life higher for the Outsiders within the Divided States of America, however her emotions concerning the host will evolve over the season. (The event itself will play out over the latter half of the 12-episode season.)
“I feel Quiet begins to go searching and actually dig deeper and dig down into what’s really occurring round her, specifically Calypso and who he’s and what he represents and the way his machinations are structuring the world and the way they’re affecting individuals in it,” mentioned Beatriz. “Real lives are affected by what he is beginning to do in Season 2. I feel her opinions about Calypso begin to shift and alter. I feel it is actually laborious for her as a result of she needs to imagine in one thing greater than her.
“For a short time, it appears prefer it is perhaps Calypso, however I do not suppose she begins the season in the identical place that she ends it when it comes to how she feels about him. He’s this creator of this superb event that is primarily going to offer everyone the promise of their best want coming true, however how does that occur on this world and what does it take to make that occur? For gamers of the sport, they already know, simply since you need one thing so badly does not imply you are going to get it in the way in which that you simply imagined it could occur.”
Sweet Tooth’s Twisted Wish
The ice cream truck-driving, masked maniac might have terrorized Las Vegas in Season 1, however Sweet Tooth discovers in Season 2 that he’s acquired competitors for being the baddest of the dangerous.
“He’s realizing that there is different individuals on the market, there’s different killers, and he is an enormous fish in a fair greater pond. And he is sort of coming to grips with that,” in line with Smith.
“His large want is that he needs legacy. He needs to be the largest killer. He needs to be essentially the most well-known killer in The Divided States of America, and he’ll do no matter he can to get that. And this time he is acquired Stu by his facet, which is nice. And it has been so enjoyable watching the 2 of them sort of turn out to be this comedy duo.
“Will Arnett and Samoa Joe proceed what they did final season. And I feel you are going to see extra violence from them, extra comedy from them. I feel followers are going to like to see (Sweet Tooth) play up towards new villains. We sort of have our personal little MCU moments, seeing them work together with enemies we have met from Season 1, new enemies that we meet,” mentioned Smith.
“I feel it is going to be actually enjoyable to see him unleash his violence on the event.”
Mr. Grimm
Mr. Grimm is one in every of solely three characters – the others being Calypso and Needles Kane – who’s appeared in each Twisted Metal recreation. In the video games, Grimm has been each human (a person with Grim Reaper-like cranium face paint) and supernatural (an precise “dwelling” skeleton). Given that he steals souls, is the present’s Mr. Grimm, performed by Richard de Klerk, really supernatural or only a mere mortal?
“I feel we wish to let the followers watch and resolve for themselves,” mentioned Smith. “I actually needed to make Grimm a particular character. I needed to actually lean into a personality who’s a Grim Reaper, however we wish to do our personal model of that.
“We did this in Season 1 actually efficiently. And we do it much more the place no dangerous man is only a dangerous man. They all have inside lives and inside needs and a cause for them to exist. And I feel we do this even higher this season and I’m actually excited so that you can meet all of them and perceive what makes them tick.”
Axel
Half-man, half-machine, Axel is one other beloved Twisted Metal baddie making the leap to live-action in Season 2. While the actor taking part in the function has not but been revealed, Axel will certainly seem in War Wheel type on the present, which was achieved utilizing largely sensible results.
Smith mentioned followers have been champing on the bit for Axel to affix the present however his inclusion posed big technical challenges. “How do you do a personality that’s actually an enormous muscular man caught between two gigantic wheels? You have a look at the design and also you say, ‘How?’ And then after you ask why. And I feel it was a problem. Absolutely.”
When Axel strikes at excessive speeds it’s a visible impact however Smith mentioned he needed the reveal of Axel to be the sequence’ “show-stopper second.” He known as manufacturing designer Carey Meyer “a genius” for attaining his imaginative and prescient for a sensible Axel. This model of the character is the 1.0 model of Axel, in line with Smith, so the design displays the look of one thing that’s nonetheless being tinkered with by whoever created Axel in that world.
The precise rig for Axel required tires to be molded since there aren’t any current wheels that had been large enough. The total equipment was custom-built, weighed over a ton and required its personal trailer to maneuver it round as a result of it’s that vast.
Raven: Meet the New Boss, (Not the) Same because the Old Boss
While Neve Campbell performed Raven in Twisted Metal’s first season, Season 2 reveals that she was not THE Raven. No, the actual Raven seems this season and is performed by Patty Guggenheim, who viewers will bear in mind because the scene-stealing Madisynn on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Campbell’s Raven was however one in every of a number of “Ravens” working for Guggenheim’s actual boss Raven, who Smith described because the “Howard Hughes goth Raven.”
“We all the time favored this concept of desirous to develop upon the Raven mythos. And we all the time favored the puppeteering sort of concept that we launched in Season 1, particularly in direction of the tip,” Smith defined. “The extra we talked about it, the extra we had this concept of, ‘Well, what if there have been a number of Ravens?’ New San Francisco is such an enormous metropolis that we had been interested in this concept of there being multiples of them. How might she be in so many locations directly?”
Smith mentioned this new route gave him and the writers the chance to drag extra from the video games “and to dive extra into the Kelly backstory [Raven’s doomed girlfriend in Twisted Metal: Black] and provides the followers these Easter eggs that I knew that they had been on the lookout for.”
Twisted Metal Mayhem
Smith defined that with John spending a part of his storyline this season along with his sister Dollface, Quiet additionally required a brand new character to share scenes with. So they created the character of Mayhem, performed by Saylor Bell Curda.
“We talked lots about Quiet and what Quiet’s arc was going to be. And I actually favored this concept that Quiet within the absence of her sibling [has] the chance to be a job mannequin and what would that be like. And all of the comedy that we might get from introducing a brand new character that may very well be a foil to Quiet.
“But additionally we favored the concept of there being somebody who had been on the surface and what would somebody from a youthful technology be like on this world? So we actually went down that path and that is the place Mayhem sort of got here from. And I actually simply favored the concept of this younger artist who has been on the surface since start. … What is that technology like? And as you study deeper into the season, we sort of get into that. We name her an apo child, like an apocalypse child.”
While she might have been born an apo child, Mayhem has since grown into fairly the ache within the ass in her adolescence, in line with Beatriz. “With any teenager, listening is a problem for them. I feel they’ve this actually attention-grabbing large sister/little sister relationship. Quiet turns into her cool aunt, anyone that she will belief, that she’s not in competitors with … however that she will lean on, depend on in a manner. That will get harmful as a result of alliances on this world can change actually shortly. What you want on this world is to have the ability to make actually troublesome choices on the subject of survival, and you are going to see that play out on this season with Quiet and Mayhem.
“Not to place too high-quality a degree on it, however she’s just a little piece of shit,” added Beatriz. “She’s a talker. She lies by her tooth. She’s a teen on this world, so she’s grown up contained in the world of Twisted Metal. She would not actually bear in mind something earlier than. She’s actually discovered the best way to survive on this world, however I additionally suppose Quiet sees that she has a variety of potential, that means that she’s good, she learns shortly, and as soon as she is ready to hear, then Quiet can actually take her beneath her wing and educate her fairly a bit.”
Twisted Metal: Season 2 debuts on Peacock on July thirty first. In the meantime, learn our Twisted Metal: Season 1 overview and uncover particulars on Sony’s canceled Twisted Metal recreation.
