I FINALLY WATCHED 'FALLOUT'!

'Fallout' (2024)

When I first heard that Amazon Prime was making a show based on the “Fallout” video game series, I’ll admit that I was immediately hesitant. After all, “Fallout 3” and “Fallout 4” are two of my favorite games and they are massive open world games with a ton of lore. While it was a TV show as opposed to a film with a more limited runtime to tell the story, I still doubted whether or not a series could do any better. Then, I learned that Prime was dropping the entire series at once instead of making it a weekly event. I feel that when a streamer that normally releases weekly drops everything, it’s showing that they don’t have much faith that the final product would work out. Well, even if my speculation turned out to be true, Prime wouldn’t have had anything to worry about. “Fallout” is a fantastic show that everyone should (and apparently is) watching. It is also set in the game’s canon, set 15 years after the events of “Fallout: New Vegas”. The show primarily follows three characters. First, there is the vault dweller named Lucy. She doesn’t know anything beyond Vault 33, the vault where she was born and raised. After Raiders assault her vault and kidnap her dad, she decides to set out to the Wasteland in an attempt to rescue him. Then, there is Maximus, a young man who wants to become a Knight in the Brotherhood of Steel. He is eventually assigned to a mission where he must assist his Knight in recovering an important object. Finally, there is The Ghoul, a mutated bounty hunter that has been alive for over 200 years and was once a man living before the war that destroyed the world began. He is a calculating figure and, at first, you don’t know where his allegiances lie due to being a cold blooded bounty hunter.

Walton Goggins plays The Ghoul in 'Fallout'!

Ella Purnell and Aaron Moten are great as Lucy and Maximus, respectively. They are both naive to the world around them due to their surroundings. Lucy knows nothing except for the “morals” of the vault. The moral that one day her people will return and repopulate the surface. Maximus, on the other hand, knows very little about the world outside the Brotherhood, so both characters have plenty to learn about what is really going on in the Wasteland. The one man who definitely knows about the real world is Walton Goggins as Cooper Howard, a.k.a. The Ghoul. He has lived for over 200 years and may know even more about the world before the war than he lets on. We actually learn about his pre-war past through flashbacks that also help set up how this crazy Wasteland was created to begin with. To say that Goggins steals the show would be an understatement. He’s the Han Solo and Captain Jack Sparrow of this world. He’s more of a supporting character when compared to Lucy and Maximus, but when he’s there, he’s the one you’re paying attention to. That’s not to say that Purnell and Moten are lesser actors as they give fantastic performances. It’s just a testament to how good Goggins is in the role and I can’t wait to see him reprise the role in the second season. As far as the tone of the show, it captures the same feel and aesthetic as the games. In fact, as I was watching, I was wishing I could play as some of these characters. I also immediately redownloaded “Fallout 4” because the show had me wanting to revisit the Wasteland myself. The effects are top notch, the action is solid throughout, and the show manages to capture the slightly over-the-top violence and beauty of the Wasteland. However, it also doesn’t skimp out on the drama as well and you really do find yourself caring, hating, and loving to hate the various characters you meet along the way. The show is eight episodes long, but most of them hit the hour mark with only a couple being around 45 minutes. Producer Jonathan Nolan and his team certainly pack in quite a lot this season. It does end with the promise of a second season and the good news is that it has already been renewed by Amazon. This is one of those rare shows where I really didn’t have anything bad to say about it when I finished the season. There wasn’t any one moment where I wasn’t entertained. There has been a resurgence of video game adaptations lately, both in film and on television. As it stands right now, I might have to say that “Fallout” has been the best adaptation yet!