Time for another TV overview! This time, I’m going to be writing about a show that both goes in line with the most brutal time of the year, and also to celebrate its upcoming Doomstar Requiem special being released on the 27th. If the picture didn't already give it away to you for some strange reason, I'm of course talking about the metal-driven show of mass brutality known as Metalocalypse.
To get started, the general set-up for the show revolves around metal-band Dethklok. Nathan Explosion is the lead vocalist, Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth are the band’s lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist respectively, William Murderface is the bassist, and Pickles the Drummer is (obviously) self-explanatory. Their band is so monumentally popular that their record sales have major influence over the world’s economic status, and thousands upon thousands of people will follow treat them as idols and follow whatever kind of fad that they’ve began or endorsed. Often times this ends up costing these people their lives, as the entire band seems to carry an unforgiving cloud of chaos that comes into contact with anyone around them that either leaves them dead or horribly injured. This often happens in the form of their concerts, which become progressively more elaborate in their overall design and scope, which in turn leads to progressively more elaborate accidental fan slaughtering. And despite all of the people that are harmed or killed by their influence, that never ends up taking a toll on their social status in any way, thus being a further testament to how insanely (and dangerously) influential the band is in this show's twisted universe.
(From left to right: Skwisgaar Skwigelf, William Murderface, Nathan Explosion, Toki Wartooth, Pickles the Drummer)
The main reason why this keeps happening is solely because of the band’s constant quest to become “brutal”, anything else that doesn’t pertain to themselves never ends up concerning them for the most part. The only consistent form of a conscious that they have is in the form of their Manager and CFO, Charles Offdensen, who regularly tries to teach the band how to properly behave in different situations, much to no avail, though he still manages to keep a calm, level head at almost all times despite how the band treats him. For the most part, Offdensen is the main reason why the band is still in one piece, as he uses the band’s godly social status along with his own strategic wit and physical prowess to get them out of nearly any sticky situations that they end up getting entangled in.
During the time Dethklok partakes in all of these mundane and miscellanious activities and takes advantage of the privileges they’ve gained as a result of their stardom, a mysterious group known as The Tribunal keeps watch over their every move, and will often describe whatever it is that they’re doing along with the negative effects that it will have on the world as a result. While at first it seems as though their ultimate motive is to eliminate the band by any means necessary, it’s unknown exactly what kind of action they plan to take against them, since their leader, known simply as Mr. Salacia, seems to have his own hidden motives regarding the band that not even members of The Tribunal seem to know about. As the series goes on, the audience continues to get fed more and more pieces of info about this group, though nothing has been revealed in clear yet.
With the general exposition out of the way, I’m going to dive into the content of the show season-by-season, as I did with my Moral Orel overview, in order to show how the series has evolved and progressed as it continued. So without further ado, let’s begin.
Season 1:
Being the first season, the show obviously has to get you up to speed on exactly what it is that you’re watching. For this reason, the show sticks pretty closely to a general formula; an episode will usually start out with one of or all of the band members coming across some sort of social obstacle and trying to overcome it in the most brutal or metal way possible. Because of this, combined with their overall incompetence and inflated egos due to their overly sheltering fame, they’ll practically always screw up what they’re trying to achieve, usually causing several casualties in the process.
For the most, because the show mostly focuses on general band antics during the beginning, you don’t really get to know the individual band members very well, with the exceptions mostly being Murderface and Toki; the former gets some episodes that delve into his pathetic and narcissistic nature and Toki gets an episode that starts to shed light on how childish and naïve he is. This isn’t something I consider to be a negative trait, since at the moment the show is still trying to give the audience a general idea of what the show is like before focusing more on smaller individual traits, but it’s something to take note of. Along with that, we meet a few of some of the future mainstays throughout the recurring cast of the show, including their producer Dick Knubbler, their therapist Dr. Twinkletits (pronounced twink-LET-its instead of the obvious alternative) and the cocaine-addicted rock-and-roll clown known as Dr. Rockso, who is basically a disturbing combination of every lead of every popular 80s hair metal band to ever exist. And everyone except for Toki hates his guts. It’s a relationship that has yet to grow old for me even as the series continues.
This is Dr. Rockso, the rock 'n roll clown. He does cocaine. That's all you need to know.
The animation in this season is pretty crude, but it gets the job done. I’ll say right now that the show’s art style and overall animation benefits much more as the series continues, but I’ll get to that when the time comes. Despite that, the backgrounds and overall atmosphere of the show still manage to look very nice and only get better as the show moves on. And this early in the game for the show, most of the weight mood-wise is carried by Brendon Small's hilariously over-the-top metal ballads that are written for the band to perform, with tracks as absurd "Murmaider" (literally just the product of the band combining the words mermaid and murder) and "Fansong" (an entire song dedicated to calling out their fans for being terrible) serving as each episode's special signature during this season.
While the entire season maintains this consistency throughout it, the finale begins to shed light on some of the grander things to come in the future. Two of the members of The Tribunal, General Croizer and Cardinal Ravenwood, have grown weary of the fact that Salacia never chooses to make a move regarding the eradication of Dethklok, so they decide to take matters into their own hands in secret by staging an assassination on the band. After Salacia finds out that the two members betrayed him, he uses newly revealed/mysterious powers to brutally kill off Ravenwood to puke out his own insides and die, while sparing Croizer due to his services still being needed by him. After that they mysteriously disappear. These events ultimately set the stage for the next season.
Season 2:
This season picks up relatively around the time when the first season ended, with Dethklok being in hiding after they almost lost their lives. However, this doesn’t last too long as they eventually receive more “brutal” venue requests that they take up and everything essentially goes back to normal, including the Tribunal’s constant surveillance of the band. However, to replace Ravenwood after he was killed off, a mysterious man named Valter Orlaag is put in his place as the spiritual advisor, and throughout the season the audience gets hints towards him knowing and fully supporting whatever Salacia’s secret intentions may be.
Anyway, as for how this season is set up in general, we still get a lot of band-related and celebrity-related hijinks revolving Dethklok’s god-like status on earth, these episodes put more emphasis on the band members and their interactions with each other rather than solely on the band affecting the world around them with whatever comes into contact with them. Along with this, there’s a notable increase in the band’s interactions with Offdensen, which I’d say is one of the most amusing and welcoming changes since the individual naiveté and stupidity of each band member coinciding with Offdensen’s collected and parental position for the band results in a lot of great moments of dry humor. A lot more focus is placed upon Offdensen in this season in general, and slowly learning a little bit more about his skilled physical and mental capabilities along with his devotion to the band is both entertaining a welcoming for a foil character.
In case you were wondering, yes, Nathan Explosion does in fact become governor of Florida at one point. And yes, it's as amazing as it sounds.
The animation quality also starts to improve rather noticeably as this season progresses. Much of the animation in the first season had moments of awkward movements and jerky tweens, while in this season a lot of the animation is really smoothed out to the point where most of the tweens hardly stand out at all, and by the time of the Season 2 finale things start to look pretty damn great and the animation finally starts to mesh with the great looking gothic/metal backgrounds that the show’s artists produce. Even more noticeable is the transformation of the songs in this show as well. They slowly become less and less tongue-in-cheek and more of a legitimate product of the metal genre, and I can't help but appreciate the effort that Brendon Small puts into composing the score for the show in the way that he does.
Continuing on the overarching story side of things, this season introduces a new threat to the band in the form of The Revengeancers, which is essentially an anti-Dethklok movement formed by a large group of people who have been wronged by Dethklok in the past. They are led by an unnamed individual with a metal mask covering the top of his face referred to by others as the Masked Man, who had previously been contacted by Croizer in the Season 1 finale to assassinate the band, only to be stopped by Offdensen after he broke his arm in the heat of combat and pushed him into icy waters, presumed to be dead. However, in one of the first episodes of Season 2, he comes back, along with rescuing a previous mega-fan and computer genius known as Edgar Jomfru, to form this group and plan for their demise.
Along with this, it’s been a while since Dethklok has released a new album, and they keep putting it off until they reach a point where they have to cram the entire recording session into two small months, lest they end up missing their release date and sending the entire world into both an economic recession and societal disruption. An entire episode is even devoted to them being shut inside their fortress of a home known as Mordhaus chipping away at the new record; which is pretty amusing and shows just how ridiculous things get among them when pressed for time.
When the half-hour season finale finally comes around, both of these sub-plots come together, as Dethklok hosts a large celebration for their new release while the Revengeancers plan to take this opportunity to strike. While the band manages to escape the wreckage unscathed, Offdensen is not as lucky, as he eventually gets shot down during a high speed chase with the Masked Man, allowing for him to beat Offdensen to a bloody pulp within an inch of his life. The band manages to knock the Masked Man out before he could further torture him, but the damage had already been done at that point. It’s a pretty impactful way to end the season because, up until this point, Offdensen has managed to avoid major injury and death despite maintaining such close contact with the band. All in all I’d say that this is where things in the show really start to get good, since we now know a lot more of how the characters tick in addition to many of these explosive developments getting more spotlight. And Season 3 only gets better from there.
RIP in piece, Mordhaus
Season 3:
Before I go into detail about this season something worth noting about this season is that it’s the first and so far only season to be in half-hour format, opting to have ten larger episodes instead of twenty smaller ones. Along with that, the show is now in HD, which makes the gothic, brooding imagery pop even more than before, and it really does look fantastic. Quality in the animation department has improved as well, with a lot more varied and dynamic shots occurring throughout and less static movement for the characters. Everything in general just looks very good and it’s interesting to go back to earlier episodes after watching this season and seeing just how much has changed.
In general, an subtle overarching touch that I've come to notice from watching the show is how it grows and expands with each season. This not only has to do with being more familiar with the characters, but also with the whole look and feel of the show in general. Despite the fact that the show has always been about the most popular metal band and media icons in the world, along with their overblown presentation of themselves, the show still manages to make those moments even bigger with each season, with their concerts becoming even more bombastic and insane with their presentation. The performance that they put on in the Season 3 finale is a testament to this and I don't think they've managed to top it yet. Along with that, there are several more subtle changes that reflect this as well, like the Tribunal’s meeting room getting a bigger and even more dynamic upgrade than the season before. It really helps the show feel like it has evolved over time, which is something that I can’t help but find entertaining.
The Tribunal's growth throughout the course of each season
Anyway, after the explosive finale of the second season, Dethklok is basically left to have to go up shit creek without a paddle, with their former manager and CFO presumed to be dead and Mordhaus being vacated high up in the earth’s atmosphere in the midst of heavy reconstruction after the Revengeancers’ raid on the place. For the first time ever they’re left to take care of all business affairs themselves, and all of this is happening while they’re at the risk of being dropped by their record company and ultimately losing their careers. It’s probably one of the show’s best episodes just for how it much time it allows for the interactions within the band to breathe, and within the hectic moments that they end up experiencing in this episode it provides for some really entertaining moments. In the end Offdensen returns at the very last minute before the band would end up signing their careers away, though he chooses not to disclose anything about his whereabouts during the time he was gone weren't clarified. His return still felt very satisfying even though it was pretty obvious that he would come back in the first place.
Continuing the ongoing trend of more character-focused plots of Season 2, this season pretty much devotes an episode to every single member of the band, giving them their own song and everything. Hell, even Dr. Rockso due to his popularity among fans got his own episode dealing with his past. Much of this season’s format is very sitcommy in nature, but I have absolutely no problem with that as it actually helps make these previously bizarre and exaggerated metal band archetypes seem more human and relatable. The most notably entertaining character-centric episode of this season for me is “Rehabklok”, which features Pickles as he has to deal with his ever-growing drug addiction and doing so in the form of a giant rock ballad. It’s just as overexaggerated in tone if not moreso than the plots of past seasons, but definitely benefits from the larger focus.
Rock on, Pickles.
The interconnected story within the series involving The Tribunal is less focused on in this season, with them having probably the least screentime in any season yet and sometimes having episodes without them completely. However, I really didn’t see a need to have to shoehorn them into the plots of this season, as they very much just had to do with the band’s own personal issues rather than something they did that is made public to several people. The most we really get is small snippets in the season premiere and the season finale, where we find out that Salacia and Offdensen have some sort of strong parallel that is not made perfectly clear beyond the fact that he serves as a major potential threat to the organization. Either way, if anyone was left disappointed by this, the next season I'll be discussing will easily make up for that.
Season 4:
With Season 4, the show ended up changing the season format yet again. Not only did they go back to the quarter-hour long episodes, but it’s also the shortest series with only 12 episodes. Despite this though, it probably contains the most amount of continuity within its episodes out of any season so far, with basically every episode moving along the same sub-plot in some way while focusing on whatever else the band is doing. And due to it being shorter, the overall pacing of this season story-wise is really satisfying. The show has already broken in the characters enough in the past few seasons that they’re able to take them in any direction that they please at this point, and this season takes full advantage of that.
Is that to say that there aren't any comedy-centric episodes this season? Definitely not. Some notable episodes that left a great comedic impression on me include an episodes that revolve around the gang trying to remove any potential racist image, Murderface getting plastic surgery in order to make himself handsome, and, my personal favorite, when Nathan ends up dating an obsessive fan. The latter scenario eventually leads the band to go to Klokikon, a fan convention dedicated solely to them, and we're treated to amazing depictions of cosplayers, furries, and "homosketchuals fansfictions" as Skwisgaar would put it. It's just as hilariously absurd as it sounds.
The season opens up with narration provided by veteran filmmaker Werner Herzog, who continues these narrations throughout the course of most of the beginning of the episodes before his character gets revealed during the season finale. As for the band, it’s been a while in the show since they last released a new record, and the season seems to make a point that they’ll soon be revealing it to the public. During the mass record shipment, a massive storm ends up sinking all the ships containing the record, leaving the only remaining copy being the master located in Mordhaus. However, in the midst of all this, Nathan is experiencing strange dreams and anxiety attacks about it, and in a fit of drunken rage and at the protest of Pickles he ends up destroying the master record. This essentially sets the course for the rest of the events of the band in the series, as this sets the entire world in a massive economic recession and the band basically has to clean up after the mess they’ve created.
Among all of this, other developments take place. We find out more about the band’s past when Toki comes in contact with the band’s previous rhythm guitarist Magnus Hammersmith, who left the band due to relationship complications and planned to exact revenge in the future. It seemed as though he had ill intent towards Toki at first, though he came to his aid when needed and it seemed as though he harbored no more ill will toward Dethklok anymore. Also, the band’s previous producer Dick Knubbler ends up losing his job due to the band’s failure to meet the deadline, and is replaced with a new producer, Abigail Remeltindrinc, who seemed to get along okay with the band at first, but things eventually became complicated when she became the object of affection for the band when they’re placed in the isolated confines of the Dethsub where Abigail was the only contact with a female that they had. As you’d imagine, this makes things really awkward for many members of the band, and the actual “intimate” moment that Abigail eventually shares with one of the members is even more so.
Dethklok: The Wonder Years
All of the complications that I mentioned lead to several chaotic events taking place within the span of the final few episodes. Some of these events include a temporary break-up of the band, Salacia finally revealing himself and his powers in front of them, Offdensen revealing information about where he has been during his previous absence and what role the band plays in a shady prophecy, the death of an important band figure, and the return of the Revengeancers, who end up abducting two key members of the band during the cliffhanger finale. There really isn’t a dry moment during any of this, and I still can’t determine if the show will even go back to its more mundane, drier times or if this is truly the beginning of the end of the show, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see.
In Conclusion:
Overall, what do I say about the series as a whole as far as recommendations go? Well, I think it has a lot to do with how much you fall in line with the subject matter it covers. The show has a very obvious theme and approach to its comedy, storytelling and aesthetic style, and if you generally cannot stand death metal or morbid/macabre themes then obviously no amount of watching this show would probably be able to change your mind. Otherwise if you’re open to trying it then I recommend checking it out, because when it comes to its execution and overall subject matter, it's very unique and unlike any other music-themed shows out there.
As I mentioned at the very beginning of this article, there’s an upcoming hour-long rock opera special that’ll be airing in the next few days that picks up right after Season 4’s finale, and many seem to wonder whether or not it’ll be the end of the show since Brendon Small has gone on record saying that he’d like to do 4-5 seasons and a movie before ending it for good. Either way, I’d say the show has managed to have a good run, and it’s going to go down for me as one of Adult Swim’s finest.