Sci Fi TV Review: Fallout Season 2

Fallout can be a fun and engaging show, though it does get quite violent at times, and you may need a scorecard to keep up with all the storylines.

What Is It?

This post-apocalyptic drama is set in a retro-futuristic world devastated by nuclear war, where sheltered Vault Dwellers, ruthless wasteland survivors, and authoritarian factions collide over power and survival. The series follows multiple intersecting paths—including an idealistic Vault resident forced into the outside world, a centuries-old ghoul haunted by the past, and a conflicted soldier within the Brotherhood of Steel—while uncovering the dark truths behind Vault-Tec, the vault experiments, and who really shaped the end of the old world.

Streaming: Prime Video

Starring: Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, Moisés Arias, Xelia Mendes-Jones, Walton Goggins

Created By: Graham Wagner, Geneva Robertson-Dworet

Johnny Jay’s Thoughts:

(Minor Spoilers Ahead)  Fallout is another of Amazon’s big-budget productions based on an existing property (the video game series of the same name), and it seems like they have scored a winner with this one, at least as far as viewership is concerned. It is not as bloated a production as The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and it does not take itself as seriously as The Wheel of Time. And as it heads into its second season, the story seems to be progressing along quite nicely, even if you may need a scorecard to keep up.

The main storyline follows Lucy MacLean, who comes from Vault 33, one of the massive shelters designed to survive the nuclear apocalypse that has ravaged the Earth. She starts out as an idealistic Vault Dweller who believes in the system that was set up to preserve humanity. When her father is kidnapped during a brutal raid, Lucy leaves the vault for the first time and ventures into the wasteland to rescue him. But her journey steadily strips away her naïveté as she encounters the violence, moral ambiguity, and corruption of the post-apocalyptic world.

Intertwined with this are quite a number of other storylines, including those focusing on other survivors of the vault raid as they try to pick up the pieces. In addition, we meet a ghoul—a mutated radiation survivor with a long life—who was a celebrity prior to the war and who learned of a conspiracy by the Vault-Tec corporation to bring about the apocalypse. We are also introduced to Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, one of several groups trying to impose order on the new world. All of these characters have their own particular motivations and desires, or are trying to overcome certain failings that drive them, and their stories come together at various points during the show.

The second season picks up the story where the first left off, beginning with a flashback to before the war and then returning to Lucy and the ghoul as they try to track down her father. Seeing as over a year and a half had passed since the first season streamed, I found my head spinning right away because the “Previously On” segment did not successfully refresh all of the prior storylines. And there are a lot of them, some of which I did not touch on above. I soldiered on, and slowly things started to come together, though I admit there are still characters I just could not remember. Too much time between seasons, with too many other sci-fi and fantasy shows airing and streaming; it’s hard to keep up with them all.

One thing I do like about Fallout is its retro-future aesthetic. The Cold War never ended in this version of Earth, and the United States advanced technologically while maintaining a very 1950s look. It pulls heavily from the game, and while the story goes in a different direction, my understanding is that the show follows the source material very closely in spirit and in its worldbuilding, which helps give it depth as well as room to grow.

The character of Lucy is one the audience can identify with and root for in this upside-down world, and Ella Purnell does a good job of taking her from wide-eyed adventurer to a slightly more jaded version of herself who still believes in the good side of humanity. Walton Goggins chews up the scenery as the ghoul, and while he can be rather caustic at times, he also develops real pathos through his storyline, and the audience does come to sympathize with him. Aaron Moten also does a good job portraying the conflicted Brother Maximus, a person thrown into situations beyond his control while constantly learning that the order he belongs to is far less noble than he once believed. And pretty much all of the cast are up to their roles, with even some of the minor characters managing to shine amid the many faces this series throws at us.

Ultimately, this show can be fun and engaging at the same time, though be warned that it gets quite violent at points, and don’t get too attached to any one character. I admit that it was tough to get through the first four episodes of Season 2 because I was playing catch-up. Going back and reading episode recaps has helped me get up to speed, however, and I feel better prepared for the second half of the season at this point. If you haven’t started the current season yet, I recommend searching YouTube for a good summary of the first year (this one is pretty comprehensive), and you may want to keep a scorecard handy as well. The show can be challenging to keep up with, but it has been worth it so far.

What’s Next?

Fallout has already been renewed for a third season, so we are guaranteed to get more from this one, and I expect it will run about five seasons, similar to other genre streaming successes like Stranger Things and The Boys. Viewership may appear to be down from the first season, but that is in part due to the fact that it was originally released using the binge model (all episodes dropped at once), while the second season is rolling out one episode per week. So don’t worry too much about the numbers, this show is doing okay. I expect it to stick around for a decent run and likely produce a spin-off or two along the way.

Are you watching Fallout, and do you think it counts as a good sci fi series? Chime in with your thoughts in the comments section below.

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