Following the tire treadmarks of his older cousin Dom Toretto, teenager Tony Toretto (Tyler Posey) and his thrill-seeking crew — tech prodigy Frostee Benson (Luke Youngblood), talented artist and natural spy Echo (Charlet Chung), and the kind powerhouse Cisco Renaldo (Jorge Diaz) — are recruited by a government agency. Their assignment? To infiltrate SH1FT3R, a high-octane elite league of racers led by Shashi Dhar (Manish Dayal) that may be fronting an evil global conspiracy. Joined by the unsuspecting SH1FT3R racer Layla Gray (Camille Ramsey), the team won't stop 'til the bad guys get more than a taste of burnt rubber.
It premiered on December 26, 2019. The first teaser can be seen here
, and the first trailer can be seen here. The second season, titled Rio after its setting in Rio de Janeiro, premiered on October 9, 2020. The third season, Sahara, premiered on December 26. The fourth season, Mexico, premiered on April 16 the next year, while its fifth season, South Pacific, premiered on August 13. Homecoming, the final season, premiered on December 17.
A racing video game, Fast & Furious: Spy Racers – Rise of SH1FT3R was released on November 5th 2021 on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles but versions for the PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S and Stadia were delayed until January 2022. A DLC pack with bonus tracks, vehicles, and characters called "Arctic Challenge" was released on April 22, 2022.
The fast and furious tropes!:
- And the Adventure Continues: The final episode has Tony thinking about retirement and moving on from his life, but reconsidering when they all skydrop to capture Dann's remaining super soldier to celebrate Ms. Nowhere's wedding.
- Arc Villain: Each season has one:
- Season 1: Shashi Dhar
- S2: Rio: Rafaela Moreno
- S3: Sahara: Cleve Kelso
- S4: Mexico: Moray.
- S5: South Pacific: Sudarikov.
- S6: Homecoming: Dann.
- Ascended Extra: SH1FT3R members Scadan, Pizza Rave, Woofer, and Bone Crusher go from minor enemies to playable characters in the video game Rise of SH1FT3R. The first two are even the main rivals of the South Pacific and Los Angeles missions, respectively. Mitch is also a playable character despite barely being in the series.
- Back for the Finale: Homecoming brings back several allies and enemies from the series. "Goodbye to Hollywood" in particular brings back Dom Toretto, who only appeared twice in season 1.
- Big Brother Instinct: Cousin, but Dom naturally extends his concern for family to Tony as well. In the first episode, he tells Ms. Nowhere, a spymaster who leads a secret government agency, that if anything happens to his family on her watch, she'll have much bigger problems than SHIFT3R. And, as demonstrated later, she treats his threat with complete seriousness.
- Big Damn Kiss: The end of "Don't Go Chasing Lavafalls" has one between Ms. Nowhere and Palindrome after an entire season of sexual tension.
- Bottle Episode: "The Siege" has the gang and Uncle Tuco trapped in the flipped-up hauler as they are surrounded by the Mexican police. This episode is very light on action and the only other scenes take place when Roscoe summons Julius and Gary to the rescue.
- Butt-Monkey: Gary, who usually accompanies Ms. Nowhere, often bears the brunt of her sarcastic comments, and on one occasion was pressed into service as an electricity generator by pedaling a bike for the purpose - all so Ms. Nowhere could use a microwave.
- Julius also receives some, but not as often, such as when he's used as a practice dummy by Echo.
- Call-Back: When the crew arrives at Rio de Janeiro, they recreate the plane car drop scene from Furious 7. Tony and Cisco even talk about Dom doing the same stunt and surviving.
- During the finale of season 5, 4 cars controlled by the Torreto Virus pin Tony's car in place using grappling hooks from all sides, a tactic employed by the Torreto Family against Dom in The Fate of the Furious, with several shots being very similar to the film.
- Chekhov's Gun: Rio introduces several types of bubble gum that have different purposes after being chewed, such as explosives or super strong adhesive. They are never brought up again for the rest of the season, but are finally used multiple times in South Pacific.
- Clear My Name: The plot of Mexico involves Tony's crew and Ms. Nowhere being framed of committing a crime, so they escape custody and go to Mexico City to clear their name.
- Cool Car: A franchise staple even with the debranding going on; Tony's is that of the familiar Dodge Charger, Layla's is a heavily modified Porsche and a generic Nissan GT-R pops up in several crowd scenes. The series also has the likes of Echo's custom-built Hyperfin, Cisco's baja buggy and the cars that unlock the Skeleton Key.
- Dance Party Ending: Season 2 ends with one when Frostee, Ms. Nowhere, and Gary manipulate a brainwashed and murderous mob into dancing to music instead, just as Rafaela is defeated and her plan is ruined.
- Deadly Environment Prison: The Cooler, a prison located inside a massive iceberg in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. It houses highly dangerous prisoners like Rafaela Moreno and Matsuo Mori.
- Fake Town: Sudarikov's island has a fake city that he uses to test his superweapon cars powered by the Toretto Virus.
- Driving Stick: Downplayed here compared to the films. While there are several instances through the course of the series; Tony and Layla are the only ones seen regularly working the gear shifts of their vehicles, with Layla's being the only one that is explicitly a manual. The shifting itself is mostly shown more realistically compared to the films as well.
- False Camera Effects: The show uses a lot of these, from handheld camera shakes, to lens flares to get it the same feel as the movies its based on. There's even some moments of Camera Abuse at times.
- Foreshadowing: In "ROAM Around the World", the game's rival character hops around other vehicles to avoid capture by the players. This is how Sudarikov's Toretto Virus functions, being able to infect any piece of technology just by being close to it.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The "science camp" brochure that Ms. Nowhere uses to convince Frostee's mothers to go has full, readable text. Most of it is incredibly vague and generic descriptions about the camp "activities".
- Pausing when the back of Palindrome's jacket is shown reveals it has the phrases "Live On, O Dog" and its semordnilap, "Go Do No Evil",
- Gondor Calls for Aid: During the season 3 finale, Cisco manages to recruit the Bedouin, Sandocal and his gang, and all the civilians they have helped throughout the season to invade Cleve Kelso's hideout and save the rest of the gang.
- Happens again during Homecoming, where the crew recruit several of their allies and former enemies to help take down Dann.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Layla draws the line at kidnapping Frostee and defects from SH1FT3R to aid Tony & co.; she hesitates to join the team initially but is working for Ms. Nowhere in season 2 and beyond.
- Sandocal ends up working with Rafaela and Matsuo solely to get revenge on Layla, but after he realizes how dangerous they are, he betrays them and starts making amends with Layla. He returns in the season finale to help the crew alongside his gang.
- While Shashi initially avoids upholding his end of the deal in South Pacific, he does help save Tony and Layla's life multiple times, genuinely considers Tony to be his friend, and even thanks him for "saving him from himself" after the events of season 1.
- Rollie, Nacho, General Dudley, and Rusty are on friendly terms with the heroes as of Homecoming.
- Island Base: Sudarikov's secret base is located in a South Pacific island. It includes a Faraday cage that blocks all external communications, a large fake city, and an underwater car factory that doubles as a massive submarine.
- Lighter and Softer: The show de-emphasizes the heavy violence, sexual content, foul language, and other explicit material that the films contain in order to be more approachable to kids. For example, Tony will say, "Lugnuts!" when something irritating happens.
- New Season, New Title: Starting with Season 2, each season is named after the country the team's missions are set in.
- The Prophecy: Moray's entire scheme in Mexico is to unite three ancient artifacts and use them with technology to trigger a volcano to destroy most of Mexico City, fulfilling an apocalyptic prophecy he was ridiculed for believing.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: After Frostee is captured by SH1FT3R, Ms. Nowhere pulls her assets from the crew (including their modified cars until they can be un-modified) and forces them into retirement both due to the mission failing and for their own safety. The crew instead strikes a deal with Shashi to steal the last key from Nowhere's government base in exchange for Frostee's freedom, leading to an entire episode focusing on them pulling off a heist on the military base.
- Self-Deprecation: The second half of Homecoming features the Crew participating in the filming of the latest entry of the Limousine film series, a reference to the show's parent franchise. All while taking a knock at how over the top the film series itself has become over time. Layla, who served as the lead stunt driver for the film, even
walks out in disgust at the premiere. - Spin Off Spring: Tony Toretto, younger cousin of Dom.
- Team Pet: Donut, the monkey Frostee and Cisco find in Rio becomes one of these in the second episode of Season 2. As Donut is still a wild animal, he proves to be more often than not a hindrance to them, Frostee especially, and ultimately is left behind on Brazil instead of returning with the team to LA.
- Mexico introduces Roscoe the dog, who takes a quick liking to Ms. Nowhere and vice versa.
- Teen Superspy: The major protagonists of the series.
- Time Skip: Three months pass between "Meltdown" and "Hollywood Beginning" since everyone was fired by the agency.
- Vague Age: Tony, Cisco, and Echo are all 17 and Frostee is 13, but other younger characters like Layla, Shashi, Rafaela, and Matsuo have vague ages.
- Villain Team-Up: In Sahara, Cleve Kelso breaks Matsuo Mori out of The Cooler to help him with his evil plan. Rafaela Moreno also escapes with him, impressing him enough to offer a team-up.
- Wedding Finale: The final episode "Goodbye to Hollywood, Part 2" ends with Ms. Nowhere and Palindrome's wedding, with everyone hunting down Dann's remaining henchman to celebrate.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: Shashi's whereabouts after his survival in South Pacific are never revealed.
- Rafaela's mother, who is hyped as a dangerous criminal mastermind and serves as a motivation for Rafaela's plan in Rio, never appears.
- Echo tries to tell Tony something important in case they don't survive in "The Wildcat", but he interrupts her and it is never revealed.
- Wimp Fight: When Tony's crew takes on SH1FT3R in hand-to-hand combat, tech experts Frostee and Jun look like they are about to face each other. Then they pull out their phones and play a game against each other.
