The Pitch: It’s not hard to imagine the elevator pitch for Netflix’s new action-comedy show Obliterated: What if The Hangover had stakes beyond a missing bachelor? Dutifully, and with raunchy relish, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald, the minds behind Cobra Kai — another Netflix show that valorizes the oo-rah fuck-yeah media of the ’80s — fulfill that brief in exhaustive detail.
Enter the US government’s most elite special forces team, who, in the opening minutes of the series, successfully shoot, hack, and quip their way through a nail-biting bid to defuse a five-kiloton nuclear device set to blow up Las Vegas. Naturally, these type-A soldier types play as hard as they work, so they decide to celebrate by open up the discretionary slush fund for a drug-and-sex-fueled bacchanal in the middle of the Strip.
But right as their various highs and hormones are about to crest, they get a message from Command: The nuke they disarmed was a fake, and the real one’s about to go off in about seven hours. Now they’re back on the clock, with enough coke, booze, and psilocybin in them to zonk out an entire zoo. Can they sober up enough to save the day? Or will what happen in Vegas destabilize the Western world?
The MDMA-Team: It’s fitting that Consequence recently opined on the increasingly blurred lines between film and television, and what happens when stories fit for the efficient runtime of a movie get unnecessarily stretched out for hours of binge-watching. Obliterated is the dipshit version of this, a neat, schlocky idea with a charming cast that could easily make for a fun, diverting two-hour romp — only to get stretched out to eight challenging hours.
The opening hour is a blast, efficiently setting up the team, its wants/needs/vices, and the various journeys they’ll have to take before the evening is out. At the top is Agent Ava Winters (Shelley Hennig), the high-strung team leader who clashes with blustering, bro-ey tactical lead Chad McKnight (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow‘s Nick Zano, rocking a decidedly 2010s-Brad-Pitt-era mop of stringy dirty-blonde hair), crawling through classic action-movie sexual tension fueled by the booze and drugs coursing through their system.
Flanking McKnight is his two soldier BFFs, Trunk (Terrence Terrell), fighting an increasingly empty stomach as each new fight drags him from the snacks he needs to thrive, and crack sniper Gomez (Paola Lázaro), whose hookup with a bride-to-be at her bachelorette party complicates their mission in unexpected ways.
Obliterated (Netflix)