Twisted Metal is back for its second season on Peacock, and there are some changes in store. As the story progresses, viewers will meet new drivers, new gangs out in the wasteland, and of course, get some new twists on familiar characters. That includes Raven, the character who kicked off this entire story, who appears in Season 2 in a very different form.
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So, what’s the deal with Raven in Twisted Metal Season 2, and why isn’t Neve Campbell front and center anymore? Let’s take a closer look.
The Raven twist in Twisted Metal Season 2, explained
A split featuring Patty Guggenheim and Neve Campbell as Raven in Twisted Metal Season 2 and 1, respectively.
Season 2 opens with a flashback, taking us to 1998 in California, where a teenage Raven and her best friend, Kelly, show up at a local house party and play a prank on one of their nastier classmates. During the prank, though, Kelly slips off the house’s roof, hits her head, and ends up in the swimming pool. It’s a tragic accident that scars Raven forever, and as we jump back to the present, we see how it affects the larger Twisted Metal story.
The season premiere reveals that the version of Raven played by Neve Campbell is actually a Raven surrogate, one of a series of lookalikes who serve as stand-ins for governing New San Francisco, with each part of the city essentially getting their own flavor of “Raven.” The real Raven, the one we saw as a teenager, is played by Patty Guggenheim of She-Hulk fame, and in a montage during the premiere, it’s revealed that she’s governing from the shadows, all while watching John (Anthony Mackie) very closely as he trains for the upcoming Twisted Metal tournament. Along the way, she explains that the version of Raven we previously knew is basically out of the picture, having gotten “too big for her blouse” as the power of New San Francisco went to her head.
By the end of the episode, we also get even more insight into Raven’s motivations for forcing John into the tournament. Her best friend and love of her teenage life, Kelly, didn’t die in that pool back in 1998. She slipped into a coma, and despite everything in the world falling apart, Raven managed to keep her friend alive through it all. Years later, Kelly is still in that coma, in a bed in Raven’s compound, and Raven hopes that Calypso’s (Anthony Carrigan) upcoming tournament will be the thing that gets her out of that bed.
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By the end of the episode, Calypso has demonstrated his extraordinary power to turn on all the dead technology in the world at the same time to announce the tournament, and promises that the winner of the event will have their one heart’s desire granted, no matter the cost or the consequences. By forcing John to compete, Raven hopes to win the tournament and ask Calypso to wake Kelly from her coma.
Of course, by the end of the episode, John has both escaped and run into Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz) again, so who knows what’ll happen next. Keep watching Twisted Metal on Peacock to find out!