Fallout
Season 1
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime
*Warning! Spoiler Alert!*
YET ANOTHER VIDEO GAME Series adaptation. That alone should have inspired me to start Fallout early, yes, early! If we’ve learned anything from Silent Hill, Castlevania, and The Last of Us, it’s that the video game foundation brings the layered world-building, plot twists, and crazy-cool monsters to screen in all their bingeworthy glory (did I hear Netflix is working on Far Cry? Because YES).
I have zero familiarity with Fallout. I’m not much for the heavily-armored dude running around punching through walls and saving the day. Luckily in Fallout, that is just one faction of this masterful depiction of nuclear apocalyptic aftermath. We’ve got the mysterious 200-year-old Ghoul who pokes fun at said “Knights of the Brotherhood,” we’ve got a Knight who’s not really supposed to be a Knight, and we’ve Lucy whose cavalier “Okie-Dokey!” and resourcefulness in the face of so much gone wrong is instantly endearing.
The world you know is a lie. Lucy (Ella Purnell) grew up in an underground Vault, believing the surface world to be an uninhabitable wasteland destroyed by nuclear warfare. She and the other Vault residents train in the belief that one day they will return to bring order and civilization to the earth. After raiders masquerading as Vault neighbors leave their home in ruins and abscond with Lucy’s father, she balks her elders’ orders and sets off to rescue him.
Pretty standard plot of dystopian narratives, but Fallout sets itself apart with its use of perfect 50s soundtracks and replication of Cold War-era propaganda to create epic climate payoffs. It even opens with the Ghoul as a normal man back before society blew itself to smithereens, enjoying a normal birthday party with his daughter, the eerie tv broadcasts in the background and casual comments that the Ghoul has been involved with some sort of nuclear apocalyptic shelter preparation the only signs that things are about to go horribly wrong. Flash-forward to when Lucy meets the Ghoul as a skinless, mutated skeleton of a man without an eyelash to bat as he callously mows down his enemies, and you’re guessing it’s been a rough 200 years.
Walton Goggins has made an instant fan-favorite in the Ghoul. It takes a lot for an audience to root for someone willing to kill a dog. I was extremely excited to see him in this, given Goggins’ insanely good ability to create a core, driving chemistry with his costars (Remember that simmering rivalry in Justified with Timothy Olyphant!), and Fallout is no exception as he goes from mocking Lucy’s naivety (in between trying to sell her organs) to becoming a sort of dark mentor, recognizing in her the resilient, survival instinct it takes to persevere, even when your entire world is shattered.
Rounding out the trio is dutiful Maximus (Aaron Moten). He brings his own kind of naivety from being indoctrinated in the so-called chivalry of the Brotherhood, who scour the wasteland for enemies of the new world order. While the least engaging of the story arcs, Maximus brings the grounding of being just a kid who wants a bit of respect. No super-powered fighting skills without his Knight armor, no brilliant math skills or the like, but we see that despite his longing to follow a moral compass, he, too, ultimately is willing to cross lines to survive. Lucy and Maximus bring out the best in one another, a reminder of the good times when it was possible to trust strangers, while the grim vendettas of the shadowy organizations that rule their world make them wonder if such a reality is ever possible again.
This is just the core three—there’s a plethora of rich, complex side characters who enrich the world-building, and the question of who is responsible for the apocalypse actually has an immensely satisfying twist that makes me positively salivate for Season 2. This show got Emmy-nominated for a reason—it says a lot when there’s all these streaming shows at your fingertips, and you’d rather watch Fallout all over again. Amazon Prime knocked it out of the park.
*Disclaimer: The above is depicted as fiction not fact.
