With 8 amazing episodes, what will season 2 bring?
The era of the video game adaptation is upon us. The last few years have seen the success of The Witcher, Arcane, Gran Turismo, The Last of Us, and now Fallout, with a Borderlands film on the horizon too. It seems games have replaced superhero comics as the go-to source material for studios in search of a hit. Future adaptations should take notes from Amazon’s Fallout, which strikes a great balance between feeling true to the games while also being accessible to viewers who have never played them.
The show boasts humor both goofy and dark, alongside entertaining action set pieces and well-drawn characters. It’s not perfect – some elements get repetitive, a few jokes flop, and the wasteland environment feels a little generic – but overall it’s entertaining and impressively economical with its world-building. Fallout clearly resonated with audiences: it drew 65 million viewers in its first 16 days, second-only on Amazon to Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Fortunately, the rich source material means there are several seasons’ worth of stories still to be told. Here are all eight episodes of the first season, ranked.
Fallout
- Release Date
- April 11, 2024
- Creator(s)
- Graham Wagner , Geneva Robertson-Dworet
- Cast
- Moises Arias , Johnny Pemberton , Walton Goggins , Kyle MacLachlan
- Seasons
- 1
This article contains spoilers for the episodes discussed.
8 “The Head”
Season 1, Episode 3
“Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullsh*t every goddamn time.” In episode 3, Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) takes Lucy (Ella Purnell) as a captive, notably using her as bait for the gulper. Meanwhile, Maximus (Aaron Moten) and newly-assigned squire Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton, most well-known as the goofball Bo from Superstore) get hold of Wilzig’s (Michael Emerson) head. It’s essentially a transitional episode, moving the characters into position for future plot developments.
As a result, it doesn’t shine quite so brightly as the others (although the axolotl-inspired gulper is a highlight). The settings are also at their least impressive in this one. The desert backdrops, in particular, are kind of boring, looking like a rehash of The Road Warrior. Nevertheless, the episode features some solid Easter eggs for the gamers. For example, Howard’s quip about the Golden Rule of the desert being you always get sidetracked is a reference to the games’ notoriously convoluted side quests.
7 “The Past”
Season 1, Episode 5
“Everyone wants to save the world…they just disagree on how.” After discovering that it’s really Maximus in the power armor, Thaddeus steals the fusion and Wilzig’s head. Lucy and Maximus cross paths and unite to find the stolen cranium, winding up in the ruins of Shady Sands and stumbling into Vault 4.
Once again, this was mostly a setting-up episode with few payoffs. On the plus side, we learn a little more about Lucy and Maximus, and tension starts to build around Maximus’s deception as he still claims to be the Knight. Additionally, the scene where Maximus is set upon by rad roaches deserves props for being suitably gross and unsettling. What really brings down the episode, though, is the absence of Howard, who by this point has established himself as the show’s most compelling and watchable character. He’s complex, brutal but not wholly evil, formidable in combat, and always ready with a quip: an instant favorite.
6 “The Target”
Season 1, Episode 2
“It’s a knight’s duty to better this fallen world.” Episode 2 was fast-paced and action-packed, beginning with a flashback of Wilzig and lovable mutt CX404, who later meet Lucy. Then, Knight Titus (Michael Rapaport) is attacked by an impressively realized mutant bear, after which Maximus lets him die and claims his armor. To top it off, we’re treated to Western-style shootouts courtesy of Howard.
All told, it makes for an enjoyable hour of TV with a refreshingly light tone. The fight scenes are well-executed and there’s a ton of humor, like the thirsty man in the desert thanking Lucy for not shooting him and Wilzig wondering aloud why his company’s banana-flavored cyanide capsules weren’t more popular. Purnell also shows off her knack for dry humor with her cheery, naive responses to much of the Wasteland’s brutality. Funniest of all is Rapaport in his guest appearance as a hapless and mean-spirited Knight.
5 “The End”
Season 1, Episode 1
“The Outside World Can Never Hurt You.” First episodes tend to be a little confusing and stale compared to the rest as they usually have to introduce so many characters and plot lines. This one, however, does a solid job of introducing the viewer to the Fallout universe while also serving up a decently-paced story. It starts with Cooper Howard during the first nuclear attack, before showing the fundamentals of life in Vault 32 and, finally, zipping over to Maximus and the other Brotherhood of Steel. It’s clear that, eventually, these three characters’ paths will intersect.
The action is pretty lukewarm here, but the main actors are at least charismatic and likable. They’re a key part of the show’s success. Even the supporting characters tend to be quirky and memorable, adding value to their scenes. Stellar production design holds the rest of it together, with the world of the show coming across as stylized without being overly cartoony.
4 “The Trap”
Season 1, Episode 6
“Flame Mother, we remember, bring back the past as we remember.” In “The Trap”, Lucy witnesses Vault 4’s rituals and the worship of Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) as “The Flame Mother”. Investigating, she comes across horrific experiments like something out of Alien: Resurrection. Through flashbacks, we also see a pre-armaggedon Howard becoming suspicious of Vault-Tec. Shockingly, it’s implied that the company itself dropped the first bombs.
Other than a few scenes that feel unnecessary, this is a terrific episode, chock-full of humor and satire. Highlights include Maximus’s bizarre misunderstanding of sex and Chris Parnell‘s cameo as Vault 4’s one-eyed overseer. The best scenes belong to Howard, especially the glimpse into his former life. He’s the only main character who remembers the world before the nukes fell, making him especially intriguing. He has a perspective the others don’t. He’s the most like the viewer in that he truly understands the twisted nature of the wasteland compared to society before. It’s a heavy weight to carry.
3 “The Radio”
Season 1, Episode 7
“This is about all the horsesh*t I can take.” Lucy and Maximus leave Vault 4, dreaming of a life together in Vault 33. Lucy also proves that she’s far more decent and good-hearted than the rest of the characters by insisting that Maximus returns Vault 4’s fusion core. Soon after, they track down Thaddeus, now a Ghoul, and take back Wilzig’s head. In addition, flashbacks reveal that Vault-Tec suppressed Moldaver’s cold fusion research, which could have reduced the likelihood of war over resources.
This sounds somber, but “The Radio” is one of the series’s funniest episodes. Fred Armisen is delightfully ridiculous in his cameo, aided by well-timed shots of his booby traps and all the intruders they have felled. Thaddeus also has several hilarious lines, including his surprise at not being dead following an arrow to the neck. Then, there’s Maximus unnecessarily wrecking the residents of Vault 4, even though they’ve already agreed to let them go. He awkwardly looks at a man who’s just knocked unconscious and says sheepishly, “Maybe someone check on him?”
2 “The Ghouls”
Season 1, Episode 4
“I’m you, sweetie, you just give it a little time.” In “The Ghouls”, Lucy’s brother Norm (Moisés Arias) sneaks into Vault 32, where he finds horrific scenes of corpses and bloodshed. These scenes are impressively creepy and would not look out of place in a big-budget horror movie. At the same time, Howard trades Lucy to organ harvesters in exchange for replacement chemicals. She fights back, causing chaos by releasing the captive Ghouls.
The episode then ends surprisingly poignantly, with Howard watching one of his old Westerns on the harvesters’ TV. The scene throws into stark relief how radically he has changed. As with “The Radio”, this is pretty heavy, but the episode balances out the drama with comedy. There’s the hilariously understated robot Snip-Snip, voiced by the wonderful Matt Berry. And, of course, there’s the sex scene between Bert (Diego Borborema) and Steph (Annabel O’Hagan). As she repeats his name, Bert earnestly responds, “Yes, I am Bert.”
1 “The Beginning”
Season 1, Episode 8
“All hail, Knight Maximus!” The show concludes strongly, wrapping up several plot lines while also leaving a lot for future seasons to resolve. It also drops a lot of *ahem* bombs, like the truth of the nuclear war and Hank’s (Kyle MacLachlan) dark, Ghoulish past. By the end, Maximus is knighted and Howard offers to help Lucy search for her family in the east, a journey she reluctantly accepts despite her loyalty to Maximus.
The character development and action sequences are top-notch in this one, building on everything that came before. Most of all, the mayhem is satisfying, and the revelations are worthy of the hours of teasing. Howard also has a few great moments and reveals that there’s more humanity left in him than it first appeared. He’s also given one of the entire franchise’s central lines – “War never changes” – referring to Vault-Tec’s sinister past as well as the conflicts to come. In other words, the finale leaves a terrific foundation for Season 2 to expand on.
Watch on Amazon
This article was originally published on collider.com