Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t watched the sixth episode of Twisted Metal Season 2 with a Peacock subscription, so be warned!
Though Twisted Metal has certainly featured some gnarly deaths so far in its action-packed second season, I haven’t exactly been emotionally jarred seeing Sweet Tooth turn one-off characters into posthumous ventriloquist dummies, or by seeing Axel’s weirdo creator vanquished. But Episode 206, “MKAW1SH," did indeed throw me for a loop by taking out a lead that I was certain would survive the season: Tiana Okoye’s Dollface.
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Maybe it won’t end up being the most depressing death on the 2025 TV schedule, but nobody can say Dollface went down like anything but a hardcore badass. Having led the Dolls to becoming a formidable female force in post-America, Dollface successfully went through all the blood, sweat and tears to make it to the qualifying round of Calypso’s tournament, only to lose a lot more blood after being shot, stabbed and blown up via airstrike. Hard. Effing. Core.
Alongside her co-stars Patty Guggenheim and Saylor Bell Curda, TIana Okoye talked to CinemaBlend about Season 2. Noting that it is perhaps too soon to call Dollface a marty (considering what John wishes for in the end), I asked her to speak to the character representing something more important than what someone might expect from a video game adaptation. In her words:
Oh, wow, thank you. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, she is really, really important. I think, in a world like this one, where everyone is on their own and has lived on their own for so long. I think it is important to find like-minded people, and people to call family, people to protect you, and people to fight for you. I think that's her role in the revolution, in the apocalypse, is to create a space that is safe, to hand over the weapons and the tools, to fight for yourself, and fight for other people. And I love that about her, and I connect with her on that.
For all that Twisted Metal is an extremely heightened and fairly pessimistic take on society's downfall — not that I know what an optimistic apocalypse looks like — Dollface was arguably as inspirational and motivational as any other character. Which isn't to say every single one of her methods and ethical decisions was perfect, or that she would legitimately be a good leader in peacetime, but as a beacon of unwavering strength, she's all beastmode.
So while Dollface may not always have non-deadly solutions to solve her problems, a lot of what she gets done BEFORE bloodshed can certainly be seen as aspirational. To that end, Okoye talked about the character's leadership quality, saying:
I think it's so important to have incredible organizers and people who have a strong mission of protecting and providing and fighting for really good things. So I think that that's her, and I vibe with her real hard.
I can only imagine that future episodes will take more major characters out of the picture, but it was rough to lose Dollface this early. Of course, with the opening and ending tying into John voicing his wishes to Calypso, I understand why his biological sister would be the one who needed to die first, for plot purposes. Will that wish come true at some point?
Well, John would need to win the tournament, naturally. Also, Calypso would need to be an honest person and not a weirdo trickster, so the jury's still out on all of it.
Twisted Metal Season 2 drops new episodes Thursdays on Peacock.
