Obliterated

I had no idea what to expect when I started watching Obliterated, the reviews were mostly positive and I thought the trailer looked pretty good so I thought I'd give it a chance. I'm so glad I did. This show had me laughing out loud at least a few times per episode. I had fun the entire time I was watching. Even though it makes fun of movies from the Sly/Arnold era, it also pays respect to them too. This show isn't going to win any awards but if you can just turn your brain off for little while I promise you that you'll have fun watching this. I actually binged all 8 episodes in a couple days. It's funny with plenty of action and twists to hold your interest every episode.

An American cross-services military team has been assembled to track down a loose nuke possibly in Las Vegas. Ava Winters (Shelley Hennig) is the intelligence leader. Chad (Nick Zano), Trunk (Terrence Terrell), and Angela Gomez (Paola Lázaro) are the muscle. Haggerty (C. Thomas Howell) is the unusual bomb tech. Maya Lerner (Kimi Rutledge) is the shy computer tech. Paul Yung (Eugene Kim) is the Air Force pilot and protective father.

It's a Netflix action thriller comedy series. It's rated a little lower than most and there is a reason. It's not a series to be taken seriously. It's outrageous and silly and there are so many d's. It's a ridiculous time and it is a bit uneven. This very much depends on the viewer's mindset.

Okay, maybe I have a few.

Obliterated is an 80 IQ hot mess of nonsensical nonstop fun and I really hate how much I enjoyed it.

There are disgusting prosthetic phalluses and oddly tight character arcs. Shoehorned diversity mixed in equal parts with political self awareness. For every genuinely depraved scene there's an equally wholesome and touching family moment. This series is everything that is wrong with bad action films, and everything that made the hangover a classic. It is so reductive that it manages to be original. This show has three plot holes for every topless woman. I've never, ever, in all my years seen something quite like this show.

7 out of 10, I hate it.

I had never heard of this show. I was scrolling through my Yahoo news feed and saw a review of the show. The title of the review was so condescending I just had to read it. The author obliterated the show (pun intended). She was extremely critical of all the sex and gratuitous nudity. She basically said the show was a waste of time.

Of course, this made me want to watch it. I have to say, it lacks direction, the writing is poor, and there is a ton of filler to bloat it to eight episodes. Having said that, I LOVED THIS SHOW for the exact reasons the critic stated. It dumb as hell, but its a fun ride. The actors have really good chemistry and I binged watched it.

An elite special forces crew thinks they have stopped a nuclear terrorist attack in Las Vegas, so to celebrate, they get hammered on a combination of drugs, alcohol, sex, and other basic debauchery (a camel is involved). They then learn the plot they stopped was a decoy, so they have 7 hours to stop the real bombing. Still obliterated (hence the title) they spend the next 7 hours whacked out of their minds while trying to find a briefcase nuke.

Ava is a hardened CIA operative running the team who recently lost her fiance on a mission. McKinight is the Team Lead and resident hunk with an ego problem. Trunk is the muscle who can't ever seem to get something to eat. Gomez is the sniper, a Michelle Rodriguez knock off who is a lesbian and hides her emotions. Paul is the married helicopter pilot with family issues. Maya is the tech nerd who is in love with McKnight, but is too shy to say it. Lastly, there is Haggerty, the explosives expert who spends most of the series in a drug induced stupor. There is another character named Lana, a ditzy blonde who the team rescued during the original mission and she tags along as she has intimate knowledge of one of the villains. These characters all seem pretty standard on these types of shows, but the actors imbue them with just enough personality to make them stand out. Unfortunately, the villains are pretty one-dimensional which is really the biggest failing of the show.

There are a ton of gunfights, fist fights, sex, graphic nudity, humor and some pretty extreme torture scenes. In fairness, all the actors wind up nude at some point so there is definitely no inequality there.

Sadly, I think this is one of those one season events. The premise of the show could not be repeated and I don't think there is enough originality to the show for it to sustain a second season. Still, it was a fun watch and the show knew exactly what it was and didn't try to be anything else.

Outrageous, gratuitous nudity, violence and chaos. And I love it for that. Reminds me a lot of Blue Mountain State and the American Pie movies where things aren't supposed to make sense or provide deeper meaning, they're just fun for fun's sake. Honestly this show was a breath of pure entertainment fresh air. I loved the characters cartwheeling and crashing through each scene, and enjoyed turning off my brain and just letting it all wash over me. Choosing to do it as a series instead of a movie was a brilliant idea, crammed into a movie it would have felt washed out and done a million times before. Letting it all roll out over 8 episodes lets the show and characters really establish themselves. I hope more series like this get made!