Now, I’ve never been a big PC gamer or Western RPGs (Role Playing Games) as I got into video game RPGs through the Japanese lens of Squaresoft, Enix, and Capcom (90s y’all). So, while I didn’t know much about Fallout back then, I learned about it during the 360/PS3 era. Again, I still didn’t play it, but Fallout became such a significant force in modern gaming that it’s hard to escape it and its visuals and how much impact it’s had. That Vault Boy mascot giving a thumbs up had become iconic. With games making a move into film and TV, it makes sense that Fallout will end up being adapted. Now, as a newbie to Fallout, how is it? So Fallout takes place in a world where, after WWII, the Nuclear age brought very advanced technology that we don’t even have now, but all with the late 1940s and 50s aesthetic. The retro-futuristic look masks that the world changes after nuclear war happens and most of the world is destroyed, and many go underground into vaults with those who can’t afford that to survive by any means necessary. The story then starts almost 200 years after the worldwide disaster as the characters have to survive in this world.
Like many of the core games, the show begins in a Vault with many of these inhabitants having never been outside of the Vault, yet something, usually violent, causes a person to have to leave that safety to go on a quest. In this Fallout story, our first lead is Lucy MacLean, played by Ella Purnell, our wide-eyed hero who lives in vault 33 with her brother Norm (Moisés Arias) and her father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), who is also the Overseer of the Vault. The life of Vault 33 is thrown upside down, which upsets the life of the residents of the Vault. Lucy decides to go against the leadership of the Vault and venture outside to help solve the issue. Outside in the world, a young man named Maximus (Aaron Moten), part of a group called The Brotherhood of Steel, is constantly beaten by bullies and wishes to become a Knight. In this world, knights wear very large mech armor – think very chunky Iron Man armor to go out in the wilderness, bring about justice and order, and claim all of the old working technology. Lastly, we have The Ghoul, played by Walton Goggins, a mutant bounty hunter with connections to the world before nuclear destruction. With all these things set in the pilot, it makes for a series that does give the feel of an open-world RPG.
Ella Purnell does a great job of being this blank slate of sorts, a wide-eyed heroic lead. She plays Lucy with a very naïve nature as the life inside the Vault is reminiscent of the mid-20th century middle-American suburban ideal, and her going into the world feels like a person going to the big city for the first time but way more dirty and dangerous. Lucy is a great character to watch throughout the whole season as she deals with things with a decent moral compass and a go-getter attitude. Aaron Moten’s Maximus is a pretty simple storyline, but his performance adds complexity to the character’s arc, which builds as each episode progresses. He has a fascinating set of changes and motivations that I feel is entirely sold by how he’s performed through a lot of body language and facial acting. Then we have Walter Goggins, who’s just fantastic in this role, playing a character that caters to both of his strengths. For most of his time as The Ghoul, he goes into that badass western character who has all the wit, one-liners, and a real sense of dread when he enters a scene. When you see Goggins in other scenes, though, he becomes the core of the show, and his place in it changes over time to be, for me, the best character.
The art direction of the show is impressive. It looks expensive and captures the look of the games perfectly. Making things in the game with very tactile objects and some of the wild creatures is very believable. The look of the Vault and the retro-styled posters inside to the wild costuming and makeup on the denizens of the Fallout wasteland. The show also uses its main characters and another to really capture the feeling of playing a single-player open-world game. There are some partnerships, but having a character go on specific paths and reach a fulfilling end is one of the better ways of adapting an interactive medium to a passive one like television. While I think so far this is probably the second-best TV video game adaptation (at least until Knuckles comes out) that I have seen, something about it still bothers me. This might be something I’ll expand upon later, but there is a level of hopelessness and cynicism in many Western games and their adaptations. As much as I was entertained, the level of gore and violence at times took me a bit aback. The love of having dystopias that evolve into Westerns of civilizing the wild world out there makes me wonder about the people who make these stories’ viewpoints of the world. Hey, if extreme violence is an issue for you, take note it has a lot of rough stuff in this show. Blood and guts and more. So, even with some of these issues, the world of Fallout was a great season to watch. It makes me want to see where they go with season two and just maybe make me play some of these games. That’s some successful television.
Score: B+
