Fallout review: A strange, surprising hoot
Review Overview
Cast
8World-building
8Exuberance
8David Farnor | On 14, Apr 2024
This review is based on the opening episodes of Season 1.
From The Last of Us and Arcane to Castlevania, TV adaptations of video games are on something of a roll – and Fallout, the latest player to join the game, is another blast.
The series vividly brings to life the video game’s post-apocalyptic premise, whisking us a couple of years after the Great War, when a nuclear exchange decimated the planet. Vaults, built by the company Vault-Tec, provided shelter for humanity, but primarily the ones who could afford it, while those on the surface scrabbled to survive in the wasteland. Many of these have become raiders, scavenging and hurting others. Meanwhile, attempting to control the aftermath of the war is the pseudo-religious movement the Brotherhood of Steel, a military organisation with “knights” (warriors in mechs) and “squires” (to carry their stuff) who are tasked with preserving pre-war technology. Also seeking power is the Enclave, the remnants of the political and military systems from before the conflict. And, in between them all, are a host of monsters and critters – not to mention lingering radiation and mutants. Oh yes, there are mutants too.
If all that sounds like a lot, you’re not wrong: Fallout is stuffed to the brim with ideas and characters, so the first episode is a bit of a rush to keep with it all. But once it settles down, well, it stays a rush – because what showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner have done is crafted a romp of a sci-fi-action-satire, which barrels along at speed and with no shortage of energy or exuberance.
Within the first two hours, we’ve met a whole host of eccentric characters, from cheesy TV star Cooper Howard, who is working the children’s birthday party circuit when the first nuke drops, to Maximus (Aaron Moten), a bullied, ambitious squire who will do anything it takes to become a Knight. Our hero is Lucy (Ella Parnell), who lives in Vault 33, which is led by her dad, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan). When raiders attack, and Hank winds up in trouble, she breaks the rules and goes up to the surface to find him – and immediately begins to realise just how sheltered her shelter has been.
We realise it a little sooner than she does, thanks to a brilliantly kitsch 1950s production design that sees Vault 33 preserve comically retro decor and endearingly retro morals – they still do arranged marriages and everyone beneath ground obey the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do to you, even as they also go through routine weapons training. Sporting a blue and yellow jumpsuit with a zip – as if that’s going to protect anyone from nuclear radiation – Lucy cuts an entertainingly jarring figure on the surface, where buildings are half-rubble, people are half-deformed and dirt is everywhere. Even the fact that she has all her fingers marks her out as an oddity.
Ella Purnell is absolutely charming as the determined but also helplessly naive daughter in search of her dad. She’s polite even in the face of the most perilous threats, much to the amusement of the hunters and traders around her. She makes for a wonderfully unlikely double-act with the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a mutated gunslinger who gave up on his American values a long time ago. Goggins is delightfully despicable from the moment he swaggers into frame, but he’s also believably bemused by Lucy’s still-kind-hearted stranger, and as they become reluctant companions in a quest to track down a severed head, the series sets the stage for an arc that’s as sweet as it is completely unpredictable. Also on the hunt for the head is Maximus, and Aaron Moten manages to make his self-centred fighter rounded and nuanced enough for us to root for him.
The result is a madcap frenzy of shootouts, explosions and flying limbs, orchestrated with just the right mix of chaotic and cartoonish that it doesn’t descend into sheer survival horror. That, in itself is a remarkable achievement, let alone that the arch sense of humour that punctuates every set piece and plot twist doesn’t detract from the human heart that will – even despite your better instincts – make you emotionally invested in everyone’s fates. All the while, back in the vault, a gentle strain of political tension keeps things grounded in a way that you wouldn’t expect from a show in which bottle caps are currency, shops carry boxes of spare feet under the counter and queasy sea-dwelling monstrosities have gulping innards that look like they’re made of thumbs and fingers. Sitting somewhere between Westworld (Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are exec-producers, with Nolan directing the first three episodes) and AMC’s Preacher, what a strange, surprising hoot of a TV show this is. Expect Amazon to boot up a second season immediately.