Fallout is an eight episode show based upon the game series of the same name. The show has a stunning opening where it captures the horror and gravity of the situation where the whole world is bombarded by nuclear bombs. Due to the radiation, this forced the survivors to head underground and live in “Vaults”. Each vault has a small population and Lucy is about to get married to a member of another vault to help increase the population and not be inbred too much.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite go according to plan and Lucy is forced to go above ground. Hundreds of years had passed since the nuclear bombs, and not all humans died above. In fact, plenty survived but it is now a wasteland with no rules. Lucy, having had the luxury of shelter underground all her life, must go find her father in this cruel land, without any clue on how society works now.
The show follows other perspectives as well, including Maximus, who is part of this Brotherhood. Having trained there with the hopes of becoming a Knight, he succeeds in being promoted to Squire. However, Knights are not as virtuous as he had expected. These Knights also wear the iconic and instantly familiar armor of Fallout (well, at least the helmet). Even though it looks ridiculous and clunky, it is still kind of cool.
The show skips over the many years from the day the bombs fell to the day Lucy goes out, so many things are still shrouded in mystery. However, as cruel and harsh as the Wasteland is, there is still a society, and to be honest, some sort of order. Sure, mutated beasts roam the place so you’re never safe, and people are much more selfish, as they must to survive, but it is surprising that there are still many essential services, food and materials to keep some advanced technology running.
The show could have gone for a setting where everyone is unlikeable. Luckily, it doesn’t take things too negatively and the various characters that it follows, including what seems to be the antagonists, are never truly 100% unlikeable. Each of them has traits that are good, and traits that are bad. Their backgrounds are slowly revealed over the course of the season, which can be annoying if you’re the type that likes to know everything as fast as possible.
Midway through the season, the show manages to introduce a very good hook in its main mystery. While Lucy’s journey above was full of distractions, life continues underground in the vault. You’d feel that both their paths will eventually converge, as they are both honing into the same mystery. It’s an interesting piece, where whoever Lucy left back in the vault starts to question what they were brought up to believe.
The pacing of the season is decent, as it keeps enough things shrouded in mystery, but also reveals enough tantalizing details to keep you going. The final episode opens up with the big revelations of the purpose of the vaults, and what initially caused the war. It was a tiny bit anticlimactic as the uncovering wasn’t as world-shattering as it could have be. It wasn’t helped with Lucy’s plight and how easily she managed to get towards the end, considering the effort and obstacles she had to overcome up until now.
Overall, Fallout is a surprisingly decent show based off a video game. It had a strong opening and then the pacing slows somewhat being picking up again from the middle of the season. There is a lot of mystique and intrigue in the lore, that it slows unveils to you. While the big revelation isn’t mindblowing, the build up was still worth it and it ends with the promise of more.
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