Fallout premiere: A bloated but promising start to the nuclear apocalypse
Jonathan Nolan helms the first episode of Prime Video's violent drama
TV Reviews Fallout
[Editor’s note: The A.V. Club will recap each episode of Fallout throughout the month. The recap of episode two will publish tomorrow, April 11.]
There’s a great 40 minutes of TV to be found in the opening episode of Amazon’s new Fallout show. Unfortunately, this is a 60-minute premiere.
We open, as we must, on “The End” (title card included)—the defining moment of both this TV show, and the nearly 30 years of post-apocalyptic video games that it pulls its core ideas, its soundtrack, its iconography, and, when it’s firing on all cylinders, its subversive, satirical tone directly from. Our window on the nuclear devastation about to sweep the California coast happens to be a birthday party, with a real-life cowboy and everything—one who, for now, goes by the name of Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins, grabbing a few fresh lungfuls of air before spending the rest of this show absolutely buried in prosthetics). From the way the dead-eyed dads lurking on the edges of the festivities mad-dog him and gossip, we can tell Cooper’s a man out of step with the shiny, Formica-heavy world around him; from the way he interacts with his daughter Janey (and the fact that Goggins can turn paternal warmth on with the same ease with which he comfortably slips into a thick cowboy accent), we can tell he’s a pretty good dad.
None of which can do much in the face of nuclear annihilation, of course, as Fallout doesn’t waste a ton of time waiting for the bombs to fall and the screaming to start. As people around him panic, yell, and run for the bunkers that adjoin their lightly retro-futuristic homes, Cooper bundles his little girl up on his horse, hits the road, and gives us Fallout’s first great image: a slow panning shot of the Los Angeles skyline that shows another bomb fall…and another…and another, nuclear fire turning the sky into a panorama of mushroom clouds. No half measures on doomsday.
After our title card, we abruptly jump 216 years forward and several hundred yards down. Our focus, as the next title card helpfully tells us, is the show’s central lead: “Lucy,” played by Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell (whose gift for straight-faced chipperness is, alongside Goggins’ boundless charisma, one of the show’s greatest weapons in this initial outing). Lucy is a model citizen and a fine contributing member of society—the society in question being Vault 33, one of several underground communities that have been weathering the apocalypse with a mixture of genuine optimism (embodied by Lucy’s dad, Hank, played by an in-his-element Kyle MacLachlan) and blithe, oblivious idiocy (embodied by pretty much everybody else).
Lucy has a problem, though: Despite her numerous SPECIAL skills, she hasn’t been able to attract a long-term romantic partner that she isn’t pretty closely related to—and, as Purnell deadpans in one of the show’s first laugh-out-loud lines, “Messing around with your cousin” might be “all well and good for kids. But it’s not a sustainable long-term sexual practice, y’know?” It’s in these sequences, as Lucy and her fellow lucky idiots welcome a crew from the next vault over in a food-for-husband trade, that Fallout works best as black comedy, its humor rooted not in having its characters make fun of each other, or themselves, but in presenting their absurd worldviews so straightly that it can’t help but get a laugh.
Unfortunately for Lucy, her dad, and literally every other human being they know, though, they don’t pick up on the fairly obvious signs that all might not be well with the visitors from Vault 32. Sure, they say the right things—and Lucy’s new husband Monty is easy enough on the eyes that it elicits a note of jealousy from her already-married best friend. But they’re also covered in tattoos and scars, they eat the wedding feast prepared for them like wild animals, and they keep sending shifty glances at each other over dessert. (Also, they’re led by Sarita Choudhury, and you don’t cast her in a part like this unless serious shit is going down.) Serious shit goes down, then, very shortly after Lucy and her new hubby consummate their marriage in an enthusiastic bid to “repopulate America,” as sudden screaming, shouting, and a well-deployed Geiger counter reveal that the “neighbors” (including Monty) are actually murderous, psychotic raiders—and that Fallout the TV series is just as willing to get as enthusiastically, creatively gory as Fallout the games.
Directed by series producer Jonathan Nolan, this horror-movie-esque sequence deliberately recreates the devastation from the show’s opening moments in miniature, a burning film projector standing in for the blazing skies as a thin veneer of civilization abruptly collapses into gory violence. The parallels between the two stories extend even deeper, though: the blue-yellow hues of Goggins’ cowboy costume reappearing as the iconic color scheme of the Vault Dwellers’ suits; the way Lucy unknowingly recreates the thumbs-up gesture Cooper taught his little girl; the fiercely protective relationship between a father and a daughter, which comes into sharp relief as Lucy’s dad reveals he’s not quite the affable doofus he initially presents as. (MacLachlan sums up a bit of that Dale Cooper steel as he calmly drowns one of Lucy’s attackers before sacrificing himself to Choudhury’s mysterious agenda.) Nolan, and writers Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, rhyme the two segments so well, in fact, drawing such pointed parallels between the big ending of the world and the much more personal one Lucy ends up suffering, that it ends up being to the detriment of the rest of the episode.
Which means it’s time to address the single most baffling element of Fallout’s premiere outing: the decision to shove what are essentially two other mini-episodes, complete with separate title cards, under its bulging skin. It’s not that there’s anything explicitly wrong with “Maximus,” centered on religious/military fascist types the Brotherhood Of Steel, or “The Ghoul,” which reveals that Cooper Howard has survived two long centuries of apocalypse so that he might mete out snarky justice to a bunch of Coen brothers movie rejects. But both are so tonally distinct from “The End” and “Lucy” that it throws a wrench into their building elegance—especially “Maximus,” the first half of which directly interrupts Lucy’s story for something far grimmer and with none of the previous humor. (Notably, the mostly outdoor sequence appears before the big moment when Lucy first steps out of the Vault to find her kidnapped dad, completely undercutting the awe of the moment by showing the Wasteland well in advance of what should have been a big reveal.)
As to the content, “Maximus” is the meatier of the two, largely thanks to an intriguing performance by Aaron Moten as the title character, a low-ranking and unpopular outcast amongst the Brotherhood’s recruits. Subjected to hazing, endless disappointment, and constant abuse, Maximus eventually finds himself dragged in front of one of the Brotherhood’s elders to answer for allegations that he brutally booby-trapped the boot of his best friend/rival Dane (Xelia Mendes-Jones) as retaliation for them being chosen for promotion over him. (In the sequence’s best touch, we never get a straight answer on the matter—although Moten plays the moment with so much flop-sweat nervousness that we’re inclined to believe in his guilt.) One quick ritualized branding later and he finds himself promoted in her place, alongside a silent, metal-armored Knight who’s part of an effort to hunt down a rogue member of something called the Enclave. (There’s more on that in stray observations, for all you fans of the games.)
That particular plot hook is also the driving force motivating the crew of yokels who end up digging up the Ghoul, unaware that any man so nasty that he’s usually kept six feet underground for safety might not be the best of partners for one last bounty hunt. Goggins, now equipped with both Freddy Kreuger’s facial features and his taste for wisecracking comeuppance, quickly dispatches the trio of dummies, before venturing off into the wastes to collect the bounty for himself. And, again, there’s nothing wrong with this sequence, just as there’s nothing all that wrong with “Maximus” (although the latter is shot with such deliberate drabness that the eye does just kind of slide directly off of it). But Fallout’s premiere frequently feels like it’s so excited to tell you three stories that it can’t give proper shrift to even one, and the way the other narratives keep barging in to pull focus from Lucy’s introduction ends up serving as a needless distraction from the episode’s best material. If these three chapters felt of a piece, or like they were meant to comment on each other—or even, honestly, like they came from the same TV show, period—the interpolation could have made for something special. As is, Fallout opens with one really strong episode with a couple of weaker ones jury-rigged to its frame. It’s not the end of the world or anything—but a bummer, nevertheless.
Stray observations
- Welcome to our recaps of Fallout! Because Prime Video released the whole season in a single batch, we’ll be following our standard binge model procedure by rolling out one recap of the eight-episode first season at a time. Then I will drop dead from exhaustion. Looking forward to it!
- In terms of critical perspective, I’ll note here that I’m mostly interested in asking how Fallout works as a TV series on its own merits rather than as an adaptation of the games. That being said, as someone who’s spent hundreds of hours in the virtual wastes, I’ll be sure to note when something feels relevant to bring up. (Also, while I’m working from screeners, I’m writing each review before watching the next episode, so you can consider each of these individual entries spoiler-free for anything that comes after.)
- Speaking of the games, here’s a bit of background for newcomers to the franchise: The original Fallout (subtitled A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game) was published by Interplay in 1997, telling a relatively straightforward story about a Vault Dweller wandering the Wasteland, trying to find a new water source for his people. After a few sequels and spin-offs (one fantastic, one so-so, and one abominable), the series went moribund for several years, until Bethesda Softworks (a.k.a., “the Skyrim people”) revived it with 2008's massively successful Fallout 3. So far, the TV series isn’t taking direct inspiration from any of the games, although 3 is the most obvious reference point—with the relationship between Lucy and Hank mapping pretty easily to the child-father relationship from that game.
- Between this and Severance, Zach Cherry has the market cornered on “guy extremely acclimated to his oddball, insular society,” huh?
- Yes, that’s Matt Berry as the voice of the Mr. Handy robot in the introduction; here’s to getting more of him as the series progresses.
- Marking down every reference to Fallout canon in this episode is probably an exercise in futility, but some of the easy ones include the Grognak The Barbarian cartoon the kids are watching before the bombs fall, the ubiquitous Pip-Boys on all the Vault Dwellers’ arms, and a few glimpses of recurring products like Sugar Bombs and, of course, Nuka-Cola. (Oh, and the idiots who wake up the Ghoul are using the Junk Jet gun from Fallout 4 to fire a plastic baby doll’s leg through some poor sap’s chest.)
- I’m halfway certain “Maximus” is in here just to get some shots of the series’ famed Power Armor and Vertibirds into the first episode. The Armor looks genuinely cool—convincingly clunky and intimidating. The series aesthetics are pretty great overall, really.
- Choudhury’s raider leader is credited as “Lee Moldaver,” a name she shares in the real world with a moderately prominent California community activist who died in 2021. Whether that’s a joke, a reference, or just a very weird coincidence, given the California setting of the series, remains to be seen.
- Okay, game nerds: I guess it was inevitable that the Fallout show would dip into the Enclave stuff, but it’s still depressing to see the franchise’s dullest villain crop up quite so soon. (Yes, the Enclave makes sense as a representative of the new world being choked by the grasping tendrils of the past; no, it’s not especially interesting.)
- On the plus side, that renegade Enclave scientist is absolutely traveling with Dogmeat, per the Brotherhood images, so good puppy times should be here soon.
- The closing credits are suitably creepy, set to Sheldon Allman’s novelty song “Crawl Out Through The Fallout,” which appeared in the soundtrack of Fallout 4.
99 Comments
I never got into the games (tried Fallout 3 once years ago and thought the design was completely inaccessible…I mean, it is a Bethesda game) – but between Jonah Nolan (I love me some Person of Interest) and the cast (Walter Goggins! Kyle MacLachlan! Ella Purnell!) I might actually check this one out.Also, I know Purnell is known for a lot these days cause she’s crazy talented, but I’m largely a fan because of Jinx. A standout performance on a show of standout performances.
I’m not the biggest Bethesda fan out there, but I’m baffled about your complaint that Fallout 3 was “inaccessible”. How so? If anything, the problem with Bethesda games is that they are too accessible, with ridiculous amounts of hand-holding that make knowing what to do and where to go trivial because you just follow the arrow of the active quest, rather than be challenging.
Fallout 3 was the third Bethesda game I tried (after Oblivion and Morrowind) in which I spent way too much effort trying to ease my way into the world and have it go absolutely nowhere.Fallout 3 was especially notable, because I found myself trapped in a cycle where I was low on health, losing health anytime I tried to venture out to find something to restore my health (and going up against monsters for which I had no good weapons to fight with), and no option for regular restoration of health until I could level up to buy that first settlement or whatever, and had no way of leveling up because any attempt at a quest or fighting monsters just meant losing even more of health. Most such attempts ended in me dying.It was a terrible, catch-22 cycle. And given the introductory of the different Elder Scrolls games, then yes, I stand by my statement that Bethesda games are inaccessible. (I finally found some success in Skyrim thanks to fast-travel, because I wasn’t locked into one area, and there was more freedom to fight helpful items early on.) It is oftentimes way too easy to wander off in the wrong direction and run into a fight you’re not prepared for, especially when you’re only a few hours (or even less) into the respective game.
Oblivion, Morrowind, and Fallout 3 all feature fast travel.
*shrug* Just reporting the games as I experienced them. It was years ago so I don’t remember the details. But whatever it was, they weren’t introduced early enough in the game for me to encounter it.Oh yes, I do remember now in Morrowind – you have to pay someone right? And you can only fast travel between two specific locations? At least early on? And it takes forever to make money.At least Skyrim made it free.
I’d save your time trying to point out the flaws in their statement since their long post made it sound like they never actually played Fallout 3 at all.
To be fair, the stuff you dont like is a feature not a bug. Your supposed to get the feeling you can go anywhere and make your own story. If you die or are messed up unlike other games it doesnt hand hold you unless you want to…its like saying elden ring or dark souls is bad cause you dont know what to do…its kinda the point to poke around and find out. If you dont like it its more that it’s just not your style or you gotta change the paradigm you have for how certain games play. Feels akin to a complaint that the romance film i watched didnt have a cool action scene.
You should know, that in all the games you mentioned, sometimes it is best to run from a fight, specifically when it seems you are too under leveled and cannot win.Just a thought.
But in Fallout 3 my problem was that fighting was my only option for leveling up. And I couldn’t heal until I had leveled up, and I couldn’t fight without losing more health.
Not that it helps you now, but I’m pretty sure you can heal in Fallout 3 just by drinking from a water source. You get irradiated but that’s not as big a deal.
Or sleeping in a bed
I’ll give you that; Fallout 3 doesn’t nearly have as many non-combat-related XP-gain options as Fallout 1 or 2. You might enjoy Fallout: New Vegas more, though. That has a nicely laid out starter town that gives you a much better start into the wider world than Fallout 3’s (arguably flavourful) tutorials in the Vault. Plus it has a decent amount of non-combat XP to get you going and you get an NPC to help you out (well technically you help her) with your first violent outings. It’s an actually interesting roleplay experience to boot, as opposed to Fallout 3 just kinda being a cool vibe with cool locations to explore.But I will also say, IIRC the enemies you meet at the start of Fallout 3 are, like, big flies and cockroaches and maybe a raider with a tire iron. Can’t imagine not handling those with a 10mm pistol, a baseball bat and some stimpacks. Maybe some healing from water sources and/or food.
Big-time skill issue, if you are having difficulty with Bethesda games you might just be bad at video games in general
I’m assuming that they mean the classic Bethesda problem of bugs. Which I never found too many of when I played way back when, but there’s definitely a reason that whenever a new Bethesda game comes out, like, the second thing people do (after playing it) is release a ton of mods to fix shit that probably should’ve been fixed before release.
(Then release mods to do dumb shit like turn your character into Mario)
Jinx was next-level. So far, I’m not seeing that same caliber, here It feels almost stupid to point out that Goggins out-acts everybody in this episode nearly instantly, but, well, here I am, doing it. His comedy work for me has been hit & miss over the years, but the man knows how to turn on the gravitas boots, and he knows how to be both a badass and an asshole. Hey, they even stuck him in a bad hole, just to get the triple.
I have yet to see a series or movie with Walton Goggins where he didn’t completely steal every scene he was in
That’s weird, accessibility is like, the hallmark of Bethesda games. Often to their detriment. The Interplay Fallout games and New Vegas are the best in the series in any case
Being honest here. Got to the end of the first paragraph about the episode, and will be back after I’ve watched it myself.Sounded like a solid opening to pretty much any Fallout game you could want. I appreciate the willingness to stick with the game’s general vibe, and honestly I’m even kind of amused at the thought of only about 1/3 of it being “inessential” compared to the, what, 2/3 or more content of recent outings that are just straight side content?I’m down. Opinions later when they’re more informed.
2 episodes in and already 3 Justified actors pop up. Loving it so far.
Came here to express my own stoke about seeing Walton and Mykelti reunited on-screen. Haven’t watched E2 yet (and therefore haven’t seen the third Justified alum, I gather), but I’m 100% here for it.
Never got past season 1 of Justified so I only recognized Goggins.I was surprisingly excited to see the L&O SVU’s old tech guy from, idk b/c of syndication, maybe 10 years back as the asshole dad of the birthday boy in the prologue.
Why does this review read more like a summary? Never saw the show but now i don’t need to. I’m told the entire plot including twist and turns. Do you need to explain that for a review. I feel like they could have reviewed it without that or had a spoiler review. And what’s up with most reviews calling out a series for being bloated…like they complain if there is not a hook, so series tend to try really hard to get your attention since like 30% of people drop shows no matter how good after episode 1…so makes sense the first episode will throw alot at you. I’d hope it wasnt just a simple episode with little exposition (though i guess that works in Samuria jack.
LOOKS great and lots of stuff here ,but way too much all at once .going to take a couple of episodes for it to come clearly together .Very movie quality effects.
I know what you mean about swinging onto Maximus when Lucy’s story was so great. BTW I’m pretty sure Xelia Mendes-Jones character is a them/they not a she. I enjoyed the first ep and (*slight spoiler alert*) was great to see Matt Berry appear in the shorts at the end. In the flesh no less. All signs point to this being a cracker
Is that Michael Rapapport in glorified cameo as Titus in ep02? Definitely him.
Sure is. And, for some bizarre reason, it’s also Mykelti Williamson in a glorified cameo at the end of the first episode. They’re getting recognizable actors for throwaway roles just because they can, apparently.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (also Amazon) did the same thing. Every episode had cameo roles that were only there for a few minutes. I don’t mind it, I love a good game of “hey it’s that guy!” (which reminds me of the most important cameo from episode 2: Jon Daly as chicken-fucker-guy)
Ah, yes indeed. Also those two SNL alumni definitely unmistakable.
There was also Steve Zahn. The guy who drank Lucy’s water.
I thought it was Zahn as well but credited as Michael Abbott Jr.
that was a weird scene that felt like it was meant to be funnier than it was. seemed mostly there to provide a little expo on Filly
All episodes dropping at once surprised me. I thought this was going to be prestige week by week tv.I think I’ll take a few days gap between each episode, it’s very dense.
Yeah, when I heard that my heart sank a little because it made me think that Amazon doesn’t have any faith in it.
Yeah, I don’t see this continuing past season two if it even gets that. I loved it’s mix of humor and violence, but it looks sooo expensive and I’m not sure how many non-players will appreciate the weird tone.
yeah i could see releasing the 1st two eps at once (so you can see the leads come together for a few scenes) but all at once doesn’t bode well imo
Yeah it really made me loose hope. Gave me straight to video vibes. But it’s actually a great show!
They/them not she for Dane.
Dane is not a “her”. Even the uber-religious Elders of the Brotherhood of Steel referred to Dane as they/them.
Who are recaps for? Two sentences into this I thought “oh this is going to spoil every scene in the episode and I want to watch this?” Gengine question is this more for people who have already seen it and want a recap of the highlights or like…. just at what point would someone read a recap? To my knowledge I thought reviews were something to be read before a viewing to entice my to watch it. What is even the point of a recap…?
A “recap” would typically imply that it’s re-capping the episode, no? It’s like a post-watch review, highlighting things that do and don’t work and (sometimes) picking up details that other viewers might have missed 🙂
It’s pretty self explanatory.
probably for people just looking for a space online to discuss the ep with other internet randos, esp ones who recall the AV club back in its prime
I have it all set up to watch…on a Sunday evening when I don’t have to worry about work the next day. Then I’ll watch with my with booze. Sadly no drinking companion, so I guess I won’t have the Whiskey Rose perk. Oh well, maybe I could mix together an Atomic cocktail.
Maybe it’s just me but I didn’t think the episode felt particularly bloated. I mean, they probably could have saved “The Ghoul” for the second episode as a re-introduction of Walton Goggins, since we obviously got that amazing opening with him. But the episode positively flew by for me.
Yeah, the comment that the series feels bloated or there’s too much exposition or fan service etc that reviews tout out to give lower scores always confuses me. Like I enjoy if a series has a lot to chew on, exposition less shows are usually exposition less because the story was done already or so tropey they don’t need to explain anything, maybe the rare times they do no exposition and its a complex unique story, (taking a bit of exposition not hours). I also think fan service is only annoying if you make it. Like this show is called the “right fan service” but others say it’s too much for having anything like the game etc. Opinions I guess lol.
I agree. So far in this show, most of the fan service is in set decoration, and they’re not actively calling too much attention to much of it. It’s just genuinely background Easter eggs, more than anything.
I would say the total lack of naturalism around the stem pack is a bit of an issue for something trying to not be 100% a cartoon.
I think part of the problem is that they didn’t spend enough time establishing that even pre-war, this was an alternate future.
I agree. I watched the first episode with a friend who has no familiarity with the games, and when we were talking about it after, he was a bit confused as to when the flashbacks were supposed to be taking place. He got the impression that it may have been the real world 1950s. To be fair, the flashbacks do show some of the anachronistic tech of the game like the cars, a quick shot of a Mr. Handy, etc. but I think it would’ve benefited from establishing the technological and political state of the pre-war world a bit more at the start. My friend was left with the impression that most of the tech, like the BoS’s vehicles and power armor were invented after the war.
Sidebar personal hangup here. As far back as Porkins I’ve wondered how people living in tight situations manage to end up obese. I like Cherry fine as an actor but we’re talking about people who have to be living on slim rations, yet he goes 250?Anyway, show looks cool and I’ll given anything with Goggins a chance.
Cannibalism. Once in a while the number of people decreases and the rations suddenly get bountiful.
They seem to be mostly eating corn? And there was a lot of jello at that wedding feast. Lotta carbs/sugar + not a lot of exercise could certainly do that.
Yeah, their rations would probably be high calorie, low cost food. I’d bet most of the people in the vaults would be carrying a couple extra pounds.
Nothing wrong with picking any nits but sometimes you have to just ignore things for your own enjoyment/sanity. Like Lucy knowing about raiders despite living her entire life literally under a rock.
It’s not like she is never given any basic studies about the outside immediate dangerous denizens that happen to have habit about, among all things, raiding. Especially given the status of her father as the overseer.
Their knowledge of the outside seems to be largely pre-war and we weren’t shown any sign of them having acquired new knowledge of their world. There was no reason for her to know what a raider was.
Well isn’t her knowing what a raider is a sign that they have some knowledge of the outside world?
Yes. And that comes off as wrong in episode and, going off info up to ep 3, makes no sense as their vault never opened itself up to the outside until Lucy left.
Personally I’m willing to look past it, as “raider” is a pretty generic term. It’s easy to imagine those in charge needed some boogey-men as reasons why opening the door was such a bad idea. So it’s not hard to imagine someone came up the idea that there might be people out there who would want to raid the vault. It’d be weirder if like she mentioned Ghouls or Deathclaws. Also, and maybe I’m just conflating with Fallout 3 here, but I got the impression Lucy’s dad had not spent his whole life in the vault. That’s why they wanted him. So he could have introduced the concept of “raiders” to the vault people, without even admitting he’d been to the surface.
I don’t think it’s inconceivable that Vaulties would assume that there would be survivors of the apocalypse that were reduced to being feral and murderous. That seems to be their default assumption about anyone not living in a Vault, really
I always wonder that, but Cherry is cool and I’m glad he’s in it.
Shout-out to Porkins portrayer William Hootkins, who led a legitimately fascinating life. A high school classmate of Tommy Lee Jones!
Some people tend toward bulkiness just as a genetic thing, but it’s worth pointing out that people in Vaults are probably the most well-fed people in the setting. What stuck out for me was the fat guy with junk launcher. That’s a guy that’s probably not getting the requisite number of calories per diem
I just watched the first couple of episodes last night and agree with bc222 up there that corn seems to be their main foodstock so it’s not unreasonable that people would look well-fed. Lord knows corn syrup hasn’t been good for our IRL health. The guy digging up Goggins being full-on fat? Makes much less sense.
Xelia Mendes-Jones identifies as he/they, there’s actually a notable lack of female BoS shown
Please excuse my turnip-truck naïveté, but “he” and “they” position in a sentence – until your comment, every pronouns declaration I’d seen was “he/him”, “she/her”, or “they/them”. I don’t want to start being a dick, but I also don’t understand how grammar is supposed to work when talking about they.(For clarity, it’s not any typo on Tristan’s part – “he/they” are consistently cited as Mendes-Jones’s pronouns everywhere I looked.)
They use both “he/him” and “they/them” – when people use multiple pronouns (they might be trans nonbinary etc.) they typically list both. You can conjugate either pronoun yourself as normal 🙂
Thanks for the clarification.
They also refer to them as “they” in the show. The dumbest corners of the internet are totally going to be chill about this.
After watching…First, yes, you could draw the daddy quest parallel to “Fallout 3″ with “Vaultdweller goes on quest to find daddy”. You could also draw a comparison with Fallout 4, in “Vaultdweller’s family is stolen from them and they’re gonna get them back”. The tech shown is 100% F4 level. I’d say that – and this is made even more likely by the direct input of Bethesda in the show – the tech level is likely very specifically what we’ll be seeing in Fallout 5 which likely will have elements used in F4.Second… everyone probably is going to have their “meh” storylines. I (as of now) couldn’t give a wet fart for what’s going on back in the vault. I’m more into the BOS storyline than the review, but I’ve always been amused at how schismy the entire clan is portrayed in the games and am waiting for that to raise it’s head in the show.Definitely agreed that the pacing felt weird. They haven’t figured out how to integrate the shifting between storylines without it feeling forced and kinda intrusive.Personal wishlist: Send everyone to Nuka World. Thank you.
Good first ep. Have to agree w/ Hughes about the choice of dividing the focus to other stories not really being the best choice. Watched ep 2 — no spoilers here — I think ep 1 would have been better if it focused on Lucy’s story up until her first campfire, maybe w/ slightly more wasteland scenery porn, before then moving on to The Ghoul. Maximus’ story would be reserved for ep 2.
Liked it very much. Maybe indeed a little too long but really not by much.
You have a LOT of nerve calling this show bloated. This website is like a bloated stinky carcass of an old friend.
Watched the premiere, liked it, like the actors. Really well-casted. But it kinda just made me more excited for season 2 of Silo.
Yea, when they talked about the tech from before and called them relics i thought “when is Silo coming back?”.
Watched the first episode, and I had a ball. Very fun. Ella Purnell’s great. “Okey doke,” indeed.
I haven’t seen her before (didn’t watch Yellowjackets) but I was struck how much she looks like a younger Rashida Jones.
I don’t mind something like this throwing too much at us, but showing us the sky in Maximus’s story did really fuck with the vibe.
Question though: I missed how the Vault 32 people were supposed to be able to get to Vault 33, if going to the surface is so unthinkable.
There was a connecting tunnel. It’s where the welcome ceremony took place, and how Lucy’s brother got there to see the blighted crops and dead people.
31, 32 and 33 are all connected.
This show is what happens when the writing is too on the nose with the lore and acting is stifled by fan boy shouting. This show is sapped of ingenuity to appease “canon”. You can’t tell a new story anymore without the public railing for the same-old.Goggins is a pillar. Leslie Uggams is a gem. The cameos of comedians are appreciated. But they can’t save this show’s pandering script and cartoon pacing. Video game movies should never be too faithful. It makes for a clunky, cheesy, forced experience. Joke timing is off when paired with the drama of the apocalypse.
I’m having a hard time with it too. It really does feel like the creators were stuck making exactly what Bethesda needed them to make but also overly concerned with appeasing a certain subset of fans. I was binging it but stopped halfway through episode 5 because most scenes were a lot of me seeing what they were going for but not really feeling it.I could forgive its flaws and the peculiarities of some of the scenes (Maximus awkwardly slamming a toilet seat while screaming to the heavens, for example) but that sense of “offness” extends to the action scenes. The CG is good enough (T60 flopping around in the air not withstanding) but there’s so many weird edits and the choreography isn’t the best. They seem to be aware of this because they slow down a little for comprehension, like the Gulper holding on to a certain character’s boot and then being fed another character’s very precious resource. The weapons also fail to land in a lot of cases. The dart gun is fun but other weapons are big and showy but their wielders don’t use them in any way that shows competence. It feels like a player in an FPS cycling through their weapons to see what they do.I think that’s ultimately it. Amazon/Bethesda gave us Fallout: The Game: The Show, rather than a Fallout show.I’m going to finish it because it’s fun enough but I’m not with the rave reviews. Might fire up New Vegas again though.
did uggams even have any lines in this? can’t remember
Compared to the realism of The Last of Us this felt almost campy.
It seems an intentional choice given the amount of comedy this ep started with.
Given the Fallout games as the basis for this, there should be a little camp.
“One quick ritualized branding later and he finds himself promoted in her place[…]”Xelia is a trans man; given we don’t see any other women in the Brotherhood in the first episode (I’m not familiar with the games), it’s safe to assume that Dane is meant to be a trans man as well.
FYI there are women in the brotherhood in the games, even as knights. However the organization is not like, ruled by one national governing body. As I recall the Brotherhood you encounter around D.C in Fallout 3 (where I remember them having ladies) operates a bit differently than their west coast counterparts. I think they were more benevolent.
The BoS in the series is def the East Coast one, they mention being in the Commonwealth and they’ve got that stupid airship from FO4. Having watched 7 episodes I don’t think there’s any mention of the west coast BoS, or there being a schism at all. Many play-throughs of FNV do end with the west coast BoS being almost completely wiped out by the player, though later episodes put some amount of doubt on the canonicity of the Courier’s actions (thanks Todd Howard)
In the game world some factions of the Brotherhood of Steel do have women knights but it varies. Since long distance travel isn’t especially easy the wasteland, and it’s easy to be isolated, the different factions are shown to vary from extremely, almost religiously, zealous, (like the BoS of the show which seems to be only men) to more pragmatic and somewhat reasonable.
What’s really odd about this is that I’m sure he was referred to as “she” by one of the characters during the interrogation, which threw me; but people seem intent on whispering in all TV shows these days so I could have misheard.
Has anyone else noticed that The Ghoul is basically a rip off of Westworld’s the Man in Black? His violence, his cruelty, the tragic backstory, the way you root for him in spite of it all bc of his charisma? The shows have the same writers and it shows.
Cherry seems like another one of those actors who’ll play the same character with the same look no matter what show, film or genre he’s in like Brett Gelman, Ben Schwartz, Jason Mantzoukas, and Betsy Sodaro.
“promoted in her place” Dane is referred to in the episode with they/them pronouns! 😀
was surprised this was a Jonathan Nolan gig, this felt a lot closer to Rogen’s Preacher series than Westworld (and not in a good way). but still, i’ll give it a few more eps
Bloated? Jesus fucking christ, would you be happy instead with the Disney Plus model of decompression and have 20-30 minutes episodes that barely move the plot forward?
Daily episode recaps is better than having one recap encapsulate the entire season… but idk if this style is the final solution to the “released all on one day” model. My thinking is it works at first but the moment you get hooked and watch two episodes in one sitting it falls apart. I’m way ahead of the review now. And I imagine people are actually finished sorta just waiting for you to catch up.I don’t have a suggestion for a solution I’m just noticing things.