The long-awaited television adaptation of the Fallout video game franchise has left the vault and arrived on Prime Video. Developed by the acclaimed team of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy (Westworld), the series ventures into the irradiated wasteland of post-apocalyptic America. While not a carbon copy of the sprawling world found in the video games, Fallout offers a visually impressive and narratively engaging experience for both devoted fans and curious newcomers.
The Fallout series takes place 200 years after a nuclear war devastated the planet, forcing people into underground vaults or to fend for themselves on the surface. The show follows three different characters as they survive their radiation soaked surroundings: vault dweller Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), Brotherhood of Steel member Maximus (Aaron Moten), and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins). We'll also add the best boy of the Wastelands, CX404.
The eight episode arc begins with a flashback to a picture perfect pre-nuclear bomb 50's-esque society at an upper crust kid's birthday party where fallen film star Cooper Howard works as a for-hire cowboy. Cake is served as the bomb drops. Flashforward 200 years to an underground future in Vault 33. Upstanding vault dweller Lucy is pleased as punch to trade her blue and yellow jumpsuit for a wedding dress to marry a stranger for the betterment of her community. Unbeknownst to her the soon-to-be beau is actually a surface dweller who has infiltrated the vaults. Her father, Overseer Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan), is kidnapped and taken to the surface by the group, including their leader Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury).
Much of the season follows Lucy as she discovers what the surface world is truly like - a rough awakening for the vault dweller who lived in the idyllic society that always does the right thing. Throughout her journey she discovers that all she has known is not actually the truth and that there are two sides to every story - in this instance, three.
Maximus, orphaned when a bomb dropped on his New California town, wants nothing more than to be a power armor donning Knight in the Brotherhood of Steel. An easy task if he wasn't the underdog of the group. Sick of cleaning the crap out of stacked tires (aka the Brotherhood's latrines) he has an opportunity to become a squire. Luckily for him, his Knight is mauled in a bear-mination (bear abomination) attack and Maximus suits up to take his place, breaking all codes of the Brotherhood. This won't be the last time Maximus will make a less than honorable choice.
Then there's The Ghoul, who walks the Wasteland as an outlaw. A complicated character who treads the line of good and evil, he follows his non-nose looking for clues on his personal centuries long quest, which we find out in the final episode is, to find his family. The Ghoul is actually the horse-riding Cooper Howard who has been searching for his wife Barb (Frances Turner) and little girl Janey (Tegan Meredith). The mystery of how they became separated remains for a second season.
The ensemble cast is one of the great strengths of the series. Purnell easily finds the balance of Lucy's supposed naivety with the blunt observations she makes about the world around her. There is a spark to Lucy that you can't help but root for and this wouldn't be possible without Purnell's expert portrayal. Viewers will gravitate toward Lucy as they learn the secrets of the world along with the character.
Goggins steps confidently into the trench coat-wearing, skinless role of The Ghoul with Clint Eastwood grit. We know early on that Cooper Howard is The Ghoul, but the pace of the show holds the secret of how he became this version of himself close to the vest which is a benefit to the series. The weakest of the three is Maximus. However, this isn't due to Aaron Moten's performance. In fact, he does a good job of creating a character the viewer wants to root for but also wants to fail at the same time. Watching this self-centered character battle with his own self-serving actions is painful.
These character arcs are peppered with Western style shootouts, beheadings, and organ-harvesting robots (Snip Snip played by What We Do in the Shadows' Matt Berry). This ruthless world that The Ghoul wanders through is filled with animal abominations that lurk, ready to chow down on passersby. There are humans who eat other humans known as Fiends. There are also loved ones who have been corrupted by greed. Evil comes in all forms in Fallout. Even though there is true evil here, the series is chalkful of quirky shenanigans. This is where we see the rest of the cast shine.
Standout side characters include Vault 33 residents: council members Woody Thomas (Zach Cherry) and Reg McPhee (Rodrigo Luzzi), Lucy's nervous nelly incestuous cousin Chet (Dave Register), and Davey (Leer Leary) who can't keep his inner thoughts to himself. While Norm (Moises Arias), Lucy's brother, discovers that Vault 33 isn't what he always thought it to be, this group of neighbors are too busy with their little dramas to truly know what is happening. They are a bright spot in a literal sunless world. Guest starring as Overseer Benjamin in Vault 4 is Chris Parnell who even though he only has one eye can see that her name on the page is Goosy! All of Vault 4 is a wild ride and sees a great swap of Lucy and Maximus' characters. Parnell is the cherry on top of these scenes. It's these characters and their wacky comedic moments that let us know this series isn't afraid not to take itself too seriously. In a world of capitalistic nuclear warfare, this is needed.
Even though we would have loved to have seen more of Lucy's life in the vault before the attack and not seen so much of the same steps repeated on the surface by different characters (mainly in episodes 3 and 4), Fallout does an amazing job of breathing life into this universe and is well worth the watch. From the Pip-Boy tech to the futuristic weapons the design in the series feels true to its spirit. The set design truly shines in the vaults and the VFX looks slick.
The Ghoul's morbid look is consistently rendered never knocking us out of his reality from his practical makeup to his trench. The costume designers had a lot of work to do here having to execute many genres within the one universe. The bright colors of Lucy's unitarian jumpsuit have her sticking out like a sore thumb in the Wasteland making it easy for her to be othered, but also be an individual where she once was a cog in a machine.
At the end of the season there are just as many answers to the mysteries as there are more new ones left unanswered. We are left wondering where is The Ghoul's family, what city did Lucy's father fly off to, will Maximus be loyal to Lucy, and who will take care of CX404?! We are now impatiently waiting for an announcement of a second season from Prime Video. Fallout is brutal, truly entertaining and toes the line between goofy future nostalgia and heartbreaking character journeys. A Bite Of gives it an enthusiastic Pip-Boy thumbs up!
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆
All 8 episodes of Fallout season one are now streaming on Prime Video on April 10th. Be sure to tune in to our in-depth conversation and review A Bite Of: Fallout!
