Obliterated Season 1 Review: When Heroes Go Wild in Vegas

Obliterated comes from the creative minds behind Cobra Kai, the hit Netflix sequel series to The Karate Kid. Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald struck nostalgic gold by bringing Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso back to reignite their high school rivalry. Now the trio aims to fuse action and comedy again, this time with a raunchy, bomb-defusing mission in Sin City.

We open on a covert U.S. special forces squad undercover at a wild Vegas hotel bash. Turns out these elite agents just busted a Russian arms dealer’s plan to nuke the Strip. We’ve got Navy SEALS, CIA operatives, an Air Force pilot—the whole shebang led by the straight-laced, seen-it-all Agent Ava Winters. Her number one headache? The cocky alpha male of the team, Chad McKnight. Sparks fly as missions go AWOL and clothes start shedding.

After some questionable decisions at an MDMA-fueled victory rager, the crew gets sobering news: that bomb was a decoy. The real nuke is still out there on a countdown clock. But our heroes are in no shape to save the day—we’re talking mushroom trips, blowout benders. Can this obliterated squad pull themselves together to stop doomsday?

With its inebriated twist on bombs and bullets, Obliterated aims to fuse The Hangover with True Lies. Raunchy humor crashes into graphic action as the team fights terrorists while fighting their own impaired judgment. We’re left to wonder: will Sin City go up in smoke thanks to the special forces or the special substances? Buckle up for a bumpy, R-rated adrenaline rush.

One Mission, Two Bombs, Zero Sobriety

We’re thrust into the debauched world of Obliterated’s band of special forces agents who moonlight as party animals. Leading the crew is the no-nonsense Ava Winters (Shelley Hennig), a senior CIA operative who keeps the team in check. Her job gets tougher with the arrival of Chad “Just Call Me McKnight” McKnight (Nick Zano), a headstrong Navy SEAL who loves busting bad guys just as much as he loves busting moves on the dancefloor.

The two hotheads butt heads plenty, but they set aside their tension when duty calls. Intelligence reveals an imminent attack: a Russian arms smuggler plans to sell a suitcase nuke to a terrorist cell plotting to vaporize Vegas. This can’t stand!

McKnight and Winters assemble their squad for an off-the-books sting operation at a raging hotel rave. We’ve got McKnight’s best bud Trunk (Terrence Terrell), a fellow SEAL who can bench press baddies and whip up a mean post-mission snack. There’s hacker extraordinaire Maya (Kimi Rutledge), who spends more timing ogling McKnight’s abs than analyzing data. Marine sharpshooter Angela (Paola Lázaro) always hits her mark, but not always the bullseye when flirting. And bomb nerd Haggerty (C. Thomas Howell) lives for explosives, down to the Nitroglycerin nightcap.

This motley, intoxicated crew somehow pulls off the mission: the arms sale goes kaboom. The squad pops bottles and…other things that shouldn’t be popped. We’re talking a code red Vegas throwdown fueled by every club drug under the sun.

McKnight and Winters explore their physical chemistry—justClandestine Service procedure, of course. In the blur of mudslides and impromptu tattoos, Haggerty trips into an existential crisis after his “special” guacamole kicks in. Trunk accidentally comes out to McKnight—not ideal mid-kegstand. But hey, it’s Vegas.

Just when bedtime seems nigh, duty calls once more: that suitcase nuke? Fake. Intel indicates the real deal is still out there and the clock is ticking. With no time to sober up, this blitzed team must track down this bomb and stop doomsday in its tracks.

So begins a harrowing race against time, with mistakes and explosions at every turn. McKnight channels the spirit of John McClane, Winters questions her career choices, Haggerty remains convinced he’s become his own bomb. Hookups happen, trucks crash, helicopters never seemed so terrifying. And still, somehow, Vegas keeps the neon glowing.

Comedy on Drugs: Analyzing Obliterated’s Intoxicated Laughs

Obliterated banks its appeal on slamming the gas between comedy and action, infusing each nitro-fueled car chase and bullet-dodging shootout with a steady dose of intoxicated laughs. The premise seems built to deliver summer movie thrills with some stoner flick goofs on the side. But does the humor hit its target or shoot wide?

There’s certainly no shortage of attempts at landing jokes. Obliterated leans heavily on juvenile gags and gross-out humor to sell the spiraling state of its wasted forces for good. We get plenty of slow-mo vomit montages coupled with violent bursts of gastrointestinal distress. One scene finds Angela struggling through sniper duty while battling a sudden case of mudbutt. High art? Not so much. But lowbrow laughs land more often than not.

What really taps the comedic potential is exploring how inebriation impacts each team member’s sense of duty and identity. Buttoned-up professionals devolve into hot messes who can barely apprehend suspects without pausing to pee or grab McDonald’s. The contrast between their elite skills and suddenly pathetic state elicits solid laughs. Does seeing McKnight clutch a teddy bear while crying to Celine Dion hit every funny bone? Perhaps not. But his macho image crumbling amid a bad trip certainly brings the funny.

While Obliterated occasionally crosses into outright juvenile or mean-spirited areas, the creator’s clear reverence for bombastic ‘80s and ‘90s action flicks gives purpose to even the crassest jokes. It feels less like shock value than affectionately skewering beloved brute heroes like John Rambo or John McClane. McKnight’s overdone bravado takes plenty of dings for going too far into dudebro territory.

What prevents the intoxicated absurdity from becoming monotonous is giving each character comic dimensions beyond mere drunken disaster. Haggerty’s unhinged love of explosives yields chaos. Angela’s icy sniper skills make her social awkwardness amusing. And Trunk’s emergence from the closet to McKnight mid-mission opens story potential as their interplay evolves.

By embracing hard-R ridiculousness but grounding it in the genre classics it apes, Obliterated largely achieves a solid —if not sustainable—fusion of action and intoxicated lunacy. The benders and brawls make for a gleefully unserious revision of the American hero mythos. But with so much narrative real estate devoted to games of intoxicant one-upmanship, laughter risks turning into exhaustion well before the big finale. Luckily, Obliterated understands even demolition experts need the occasional sober character beat.

Adrenaline Obliteration: Assessing the Action

Any good action-comedy lives and dies by its thrilling set pieces. Between all the intoxicated antics, does Obliterated deliver the necessary explosions, fisticuffs, and high-octane chases to quicken pulses? Or does the comedy trip up the thrills?

Obliterated certainly offers no shortage of graphic violence, with limbs blown apart and baddies bullet-riddled in gory detail. The show earns its TV-MA rating through gruesome kills and uncensored brutality fit for an R-rated film franchise. McKnight unleashes raw rage when taking out foes, while Angela’s sniper shots elicit plenty of crimson splatters. These are heroes (?) who get the job done by any means necessary.

Yet that disregard for clean action holds back some sequences from reaching greatness. Shaky camwork and disjointed editing undermine the visceral impact. Overly chaotic framing turns potentially room-rocking smackdowns into incoherent eyesores. Set pieces feel more smashed together than seamlessly assembled. Budgetary constraints also limit scale and scope, with middling CGI and small-scale practical effects.

Still, Obliterated largely succeeds when focused on practical stunt work over digital wizardry. Car chases tear through Vegas streets and wreckage erupts in explosive fury. Angela clinging to a helicopter’s landing skids while picking off pursuers offers genuine vertigo. And while McKnight wiping out a squad of thugs won’t win acclaim for fight choreography, it satisfies with bone-crunching force.

By embracing hardcore violence and leaning into the debauchery of its wasted world-savers, Obliterated builds laugh-out-loud suspense even when its action lacks finesse. The prospect of seeing these stumbling heroes pull off peak human feats despite their impaired state keeps excitement high. It may not redefine the genre, but Obliterated understands well-executed carnage goes a long way.

Raising a Toast: Obliterated’s Winning Cast

Any show lives or dies by the appeal of its characters. So does Obliterated assemble a team worth cheering on as they battle terrorists and their own impaired judgment? Between laughs, letdowns, and long nights in Vegas, we get to know quite the band of intoxicated misfits.

Anchoring the chaos are leads Shelley Hennig and Nick Zano as Agent Winters and Navy SEAL McKnight. They clash plenty as the uptight leader and cocksure muscle, trading verbal barbs between longing glances. Both leads boom charisma, making a farcical plot feel grounded in their character friction. Zano shines brighter as the preening adrenaline junkie, downing drinks and dropping baddies with devil-may-care bravado. His journey to reluctant maturity gives Obliterated dramatic heft. Hennig’s performance grows increasingly unhinged and hilarious as Winters questions her life choices while her city and career crumble.

The supporting cast pops too, making the most of often thin character writing with sheer magnetism. As team prankster Trunk, Terrence Terrell takes a stock role as “the big, boisterous guy” and infuses heart and unexpected depth after revealing his sexuality. Paola Lázaro generates laughs by subverting the icy sniper archetype with expert comic timing, perfectly spoofing steely badasses. And Eugene Kim mines humor from playing the team’s straight man amid chaos, dishing out deadpan disappointments.

Where the cast dynamics falter is an overreliance on outdated stereotypes for quick laughs rather than fully realized personalities. Immature tech girl, lethal lady killer, cocky Black muscle — we’ve seen it before. Wasted opportunities to make statement characters feel glaring when progressive themes arise only to be abandoned. But compelling performers punch past thin writing, keeping even flawed roles alive.

By finale time, we feel we know these drunken derelicts of duty, bound by camaraderie deeper than a depraved trip to Vegas. More characterization development would be welcome in a second round. But the actors behind Obliterated ensure we’ll gladly raise another round with the team. Na zdoróvye!

Obliterating Expectations: Examining Deeper Meaning

Past its fixation on f-bombs and fentanyl, does Obliterated use its bomb squad of inebriated misfits to detonate larger truths? The showrunners promise their series aims not just for laughs, but to satirize the blind jingoism of ‘80s and ‘90s action icons who shot first and forgot to ask questions. Does the final product really say anything meaningful?

There are certainly attempts at holding up an intoxicated funhouse mirror to hero culture. Making its all-American alpha squad so reliant on drugs and drink to uphold their skills skewers the forced trope of flawless, uber-masculine special forces. And McKnight embodies irony as he spouts propaganda platitudes only to slowly realize military glory can’t fill his inner voids. But too often, lowbrow laughs drown out incisive message-making.

Gender representation provides especially mixed messaging. On one hand, highlighting Winters, Angela, and Maya as members instrumental to the team’s success breaks boys’ club norms. Yet Obliterated still overly sexualizes its female characters for titillation, undercutting empowerment. And the gay team member Trunk still occupies a relatively safe “jester” role rather than being taken seriously.

So while the building blocks are there for potent social commentary, too much remains surface-level satire without enough depth. Perhaps that’s to be expected from a proudly profane action-comedy more interested in its next set piece than saying something daring. But in an era when blockbusters like Top Gun: Maverick engage earnestly with complex questions, Obliterated’s creators may find richer thematic paydirt in a sequel season. Even demolition experts understand every good implosion starts from within.

Filler Up: Assessing Pacing and Format

Obliterated hooks us with a killer concept: an elite squad must save Las Vegas while struggling with some serious post-rager impairments. But does the show make efficient use of its runtime to deliver maximum laughs and thrills? Or does filler bloat the bomb defusal plot to a breaking point?

With 8 hour-long episodes, Obliterated certainly takes its time ushering our inebriated heroes towards doomsday. Tangents and antics stretch the real-time format thin, straining believability. The series struggles balancing episodic mission-of-the-week plots designed for accessible laughs against longer narrative arcs needing payoff.

This scattered focus slows momentum, with action feeling parsed out between extended comic set pieces of varying necessity. Did we really need multi-episode drug trips or a simulated MMA fight? The hangover gimmick risks overstaying its welcome when restraint could sharpen comic timing and suspense.

Yet slightly tighter 45-minute episodes could provide populate room for character moments between the carnage. Fewer digressions would keep provocative themes from drowning in non-sequiturs. And a more unified balance between serialized storytelling and one-off laughs would amplify engagement.

Obliterated deserves praise for attempting simultaneous action and satire over a full season. But a tad more discipline editing its indulgent impulses would help this engaging series maximize its potential. Cut back the filler and let the fireworks shine brighter.

Last Call on Obliterated: Final Verdict

So with the dust settled over a nuked Vegas strip, missiles launched, and vodka bottles emptied, what’s the final ruling on Obliterated? Does this graphic, intoxicated action-comedy earn a triumphant toast? Or should it sleep off its messy hangover before returning for another mission?

There’s no denying Obliterated brings seriously funny high jinks by marinating True Lies in cocaine and Jägerbombs. Consistently amusing performances led by winning charm machines Zano and Hennig ground the ridiculousness just enough. Comic set pieces like McKnight’s mushroom-aided identity crisis or Angela’s trigger-happy diarrhea disaster elicit guilty laughs. And while the messy action lacks polish, bloody throwdowns satisfy our inner 13-year-olds.

Yet meandering pacing, thinly sketched characters, and an overall lack of thematic boldness leave Obliterated feeling like a fun party guest overstaying their welcome. Jokes centered on outdated stereotypes and gender dynamics also land with a thud. There’s enough solid framework here to warrant future visits with this disaster-prone crew. But maturation is still needed all around.

So for now, consider Obliterated worth a shot…or three. It earns enough goodwill thanks to a game cast and willingness to risk crude humor. Fans of Zano’s comedic chops or Cobra Kai’s nostalgic fusion of action and laughs should down a couple episodes to see if the buzz hits. But anyone seeking truly incisive satire or lasting thrills may wish to sip this cocktail slowly. Obliterated brings necessary shots of silly to counter today’s dour blockbusters. Yet a touch more emotional honesty and thematic bravery could make this a modern classic.

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