I was going to make some half-assed reference to war never changing, but you know it does: the quote is just cool. Fallout (the show) represents a change from Fallout (the games), after all – the forms of media their stories are presented in are inherently different. Does the transition from choice-driven, open ended role-playing game to bingeable television program actually work, though? Let’s find out.

As an appetizer, I’d like to touch on my previous experience with the Fallout franchise. I’ve played 3 and 4 all the way through, and spent a while playing New Vegas during high school but, for some reason, never finished it. I’m currently rectifying this, and have crafted a character who’s awful at everything except blackjack. Now, at level 10, he’s banned from gambling at every casino on the strip, but he’s also worth more money than the worst kind of televangelist. Fun! I’m sure there’s a story out there somewhere, too – I’ll find it once I figure out what to spend all this money on. Oh, and I also used to play Fallout Shelter while I took long shits, but I didn’t find it anything to write home about. I’ve had better dumps (while playing Polytopia, for example).

Anyways. I have a pretty decent grounding in the franchise, but I wouldn’t say that I’m a “dedicated fan”. (Man, that phrase sounds ominous, doesn’t it?) This means that I didn’t know people were mad about possible timeline-related shenanigans until I saw they were online. I didn’t even know what year the show is supposed to be set! I still don’t, even though it definitely told me multiple times! The thing is, I didn’t really care about the timeline – I cared more about the characters, the adventure, the feel of Fallout. And the show nails those like a Roman soldier three days before Easter.

So, yeah, I liked it. I liked it a lot. Fallout isn’t perfect, but it’s damn good, both as a story of its own and as a reflection of the games.

The show’s tone really nails the established vibes of the series – the dark humor, the ridiculous gore, the postnuclear, retrofuturistic costumes and environments. I can’t speak to what it’s like to approach the show without prior knowledge, but for me, settling into the show’s introduction to Vault 33 felt like slinging on an old, minimally-crusty snuggie during a cold evening.

The story’s trio of main characters are uniformly excellent: Lucy (Ella Purnell) is naïve but learns quickly, Maximus (Aaron Clifton Moten) is cowardly in a way that’s more relatable than annoying, and the Ghoul is basically an irradiated, slightly-friendlier Angel Eyes.[1]` The Ghoul is also played by Walton Goggins, who I adore. Even when Goggins is out of his turkey-skin makeup, he’s captivating – I honestly didn’t expect his pre-apocalypse flashbacks to be interesting, but his performance (along with some fun references and genuine plot developments) kept me paying attention during corporate-espionage scenes that I normally would have snoozed through.

It wouldn’t be Fallout without a Tsar Bomba-sized amount of oddball humor. Some of the show’s best comedy arrives in a truckload of bulky armor: the Brotherhood of Steel’s voice modulators are used to great comic effect on multiple occasions, and the Brotherhood characters with the most screentime – Maximus and Thaddeus – play off each other phenomenally well. (I really dug Thaddeus. I would have a beer with the guy, you know? He seems like a solid dude, apart from that time he put a dog in a box. It was a big box, and he made sure there were airholes, but, yeah, it’s hard to defend that.)

I thought the show stumbled into some of the same puzzle-box storytelling pitfalls that Westworld did, where a mystery is both so detailed and so (initially) open-ended that almost no solution could be satisfying…especially when the show doesn’t follow all the way through on explaining it. Jonathan Nolan is a great showrunner…but he won’t be a phenomenal one until I see him stick a landing like Tonya Harding.[2]

Unless I’m mistaken, which has absolutely never happened before, I noticed a couple of plot-hole-adjacent (at the very least immersion-breaking) events – the Raiders imitating everyone in Vault 32, for example. Honestly, a lot of the happenings surrounding the kidnap-happy Moldaver (weird name) seemed a little…well, not contrived, exactly, but convenient. It’s like when you eat Mexican food and then your toilet seat happens to go missing.

Really, those are the only bad things I have to say about Fallout. It’s funny and well-acted, and sports some of the best sets and costumes this side of the Vatican. Even if you’re not a fan of the franchise already, it’s well worth a watch (Fallout, I mean. Not the Catholic church.)

I’m happy to hear that Amazon renewed the series for a second season – maybe this time, they’ll release the episodes weekly instead of all at once (not that I’m necessarily rooting for that, but it would definitely help the show’s visibility on a longer-term basis. Water-cooler shit, you know?)

Rating:

9/10 (+.5/-1.5)

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[1] The titular “Bad” from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

[2] What? She was good at skating.