Amazon Prime’s Fallout Review

Amazon just dropped a nuclear-sized hit that will Grab brand new fans to the beloved franchise 

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Warning: This article may contain spoilers from the Amazon Prime show as well as games in the Fallout franchise. Consider when and where it would be appropriate to read this piece. 

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Crawl Out Through the Fallout

Boy what a triumph Amazon Prime’s Fallout series is for video game IP’s. It wasn’t that long ago that it was an absolute given that movies or television shows adapted from a game would be terrible. I’d forgive you if you tried to shed Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Doom from your memory as you were watching it in 2005.

It’s 2024 now and I will officially claim that a new era is underway for video game based media. Netflix gets a lot of credit for getting the ball rolling with their smash hit series The Witcher, but I am willing to go as far as to imply that Fallout is the best video game based television show ever made. It is just that authentic to the source material, yet creates something totally original and exciting that season one of this series is unrivaled in my eyes.

The fact that I felt like I was experiencing a new Fallout game while watching the show is a feat in its own right.

From the get go, the opening scene in episode one felt like the tutorial stage in a Fallout game. To be precise, Fallout 4 is the game I’m referencing as I do surmise it was intentional in the way they delivered that opening scene. Fallout 4 was a huge launching point to many gamers and their journey into the Fallout world. It certainly was for me, and I’ve been hooked on the lore of this world ever since. Fortunately enough, you don’t have to know anything about the franchise to enjoy the TV series. By the end of the first three episodes, new viewers will already have an effectively painted picture of the world in Fallout. I am astounded at just how accurate and lore heavy the show leaned into. From the licensed 1940’s soundtracks that became a staple as players wandered the Wasteland, to the oddball quirkiness of the Mister Handy robots, the production team nailed every single aspect of the game. 

Just so we’re clear, this is a completely original story that is canon inside the game franchise. The fact that I felt like I was experiencing a new Fallout game while watching the show is a feat in its own right. I could absolutely see this show as a plot in an iteration of the gaming franchise. The cool thing is that it won’t be Fallout 5, because it’s now canon as the show.

A Brotherhood of Steel power armor looking like it came straight out of the game

Atom Bomb Baby

The complexities of the Fallout series is somewhat hard to explain. It really is a franchise that needs to be experienced first hand in order to really grasp the greatness and ingenuity of the concept. Nonetheless, let's try to summarize the main plot of the adventure our main hero Lucy MacLean goes through in season one of the Prime series.

The show feels like a canon game in the best ways possible

This alternate version of the United States was enthralled in a nuclear cold war with China that became known as the Great War. The world developed into a retro futuristic society that feels like it's stuck in the 1950’s yet is more advanced than our actual real world in 2024. Nuclear bombs detonate all across the world, but fortunately a company called Vault-Tec was prepared for this and created underground fallout bunkers known as vaults. Hundreds and hundreds of vaults exist across the country to keep select humans alive in order to potentially repopulate the surface world when the radiation is low enough for them to leave the underground.

200 years after the nuclear war, Lucy MacLean, played by the sensational Ella Purnell, is living the perfect vault life in Vault 33.  Her duty to reproduce with a neighboring vault dweller in Vault 32 brings the two communities together to celebrate their wedding. As is with most things in the Fallout world, nothing is as it seems. If it's going too well, something dark and twisted is most likely behind it. Lucy’s wedding night is ruined in the most atrocious way as many of her fellow Vault 33’ers are massacred by raiders from the surface world pretending to be Vault 32 residents. 

The leader of the raiders, a woman named Lee Moldeaver, played by the also sensational Sarita Choudhury, abducts Lucy’s father, Hank, the Overseer and leader of Vault 32. Determined to find her father and to bring him back home, the wide-eyed optimist leaves the safety of her home to wander the Wasteland.

Here’s where Fallout the show deviates from traditional Fallout (the game’s) framework. Lucy the vault dweller is only one point of view to this story. Aaron Moten’s Maximus is another main character that we quickly get behind his point of view. As a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel, he’s tasked to also head into the Wasteland to search for an extremely important person carrying a pre-war artifact. This pseudo militia has ruled and controlled the surface world since the aftermath of the Great War thanks to a mecha-like armor called power armor. Hoarding artifacts of technology from the olden days is their priority in life and they will do anything including kill to obtain these things.  

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Once again, true to Fallout fashion, Lucy and Max’s paths cross as their lives intertwine over a detached head that is also being hunted for by a super old Ghoul who was once a famous Hollywood cowboy actor. Bethesda games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls are known for their adventures with companions by your side. By the end of the first season of the Prime show, there really is that Bethesda game feel to it as Lucy comes across various characters that will explore the Wasteland with her in the upcoming continuation of the show in season two.

The show also handles the faction wars with grace and respect to the games. Once again, that’s not an easy feat to accomplish as Bethesda properties are known for forcing players to choose sides and to find the organization they sympathize with most as they all kill one another. Season one introduces not only the Brotherhood faction, which has long been either an antagonistic militia or a beneficial ally to vault dwellers, and also the remains of the New California Republic. Lucy gets caught in the middle of everything and has to learn the dynamics of the surface world on the fly. In a symbolic way, Lucy represents a brand new viewer with no knowledge of this wacky franchise. They’re learning about the world together in the most chaotic and entertaining way possible.

Lucy’s first view of the outside world

Anything Goes

It all sounds insane and there are plenty of twists and turns that you’ll never see coming. That’s the beauty of Fallout. It’s not something you can easily foresee in your analyzing of the plot. Somehow the mysteries all weave together into a truly compelling world building exercise. And boy are there a lot of mysteries to unravel. Prime’s Fallout offers a lot more Vault-Tech pre-bomb origin story than I was expecting from any Fallout property to reveal. We’ve always gotten bits and pieces of the sinister nature of the capitalist-drunk company, but this show is as close to a villain origin story for the organization as I surmise we’ll ever get from developer Bethesda Softworks. Many of the characters have a history that predates the vaults and the post-bomb world. In fact, some of them were pivotal influences to how the Fallout universe eventually becomes what it is. 

While I was watching the season, I was thinking to myself that the production team missed a huge opportunity by not titling the series something like Fallout: New California Republic, or something to distinguish it from the title of the first game which was simply named Fallout. But as the plotline continued to reveal itself, I’m kind of glad it’s just called Fallout as in many ways, this is a story that gives life long fans of Fallout so much backstory and easter eggs that it's like an origin tale. Set 219 years after the infamous year of 2077 which was when the bombs fell, we as fans have a definitive date of where this story takes place in the Fallout world. Some of the sights and scenes we see in the show are places players have actually explored before in the games. New California Republic is a faction that has appeared in multiple Fallout games set prior to this series. In a way, this is a direct sequel about a decade or so past where we last saw what was happening in this part of the remains of America. If the teases should be taken seriously, season two will take us to New Vegas which is also a highly popular setting in the video games.

As you can see, I am clearly entertained and hooked with the new information fed to us by Bethesda. I seriously find this as intriguing as a new game release. They’ve done something that a lot of other longstanding franchises have recently struggled with while adding properties into their lineup. For example, Star Wars has a ridiculously expansive world to explore. I loved reading Legends stories (formerly called Expanded Universe), but I’ve completely lost interest in their new television stories. Disney is adding to the lore and expanding the universe, but it doesn’t feel right. The tone is off. You can blame politics or outside factors dictating the direction the stories are going towards, but they just don’t have the same tone that previous Star Wars properties have crafted so lovingly in the past.

Fallout the television series does that. One of main props the show deserves to be recognized for is the dedication to matching the actual tone of the Fallout franchise. It is definitely not easy to capture the essence that exudes off of this franchise. I struggle to even describe what it is that makes Fallout so beloved to many fans without spending hours explaining nuances of information that makes no sense to non-fans. In some ways, Fallout is like watching characters from 1950’s television or film dramas displaced into a serious post-apocalypse environment like that in The Walking Dead. On paper they just don’t sound like they should work together.

The Ghoul and Lucy have a lot adventures in store

Pistol Packin’ Mama

There’s a campiness behind the concept that feels like satire. This is offset by a truly dark undertone that viewers and players alike will eventually learn is the truth of the world as they explore the Wasteland and the depths of vaults. The actors and actresses harnessed all of these factors and gave a magnificent performance true to the source. I can’t praise them enough, especially Ella Purnell. The idea of a person being born and raised their whole life underground to a cushy lifestyle while the rest of the world above them is burning in hell should theoretically produce a character exactly like Lucy. Someone who is idealistic and believes that she is optimistically destined to change the world. Purnell was the perfect actress to give this naive character life. From her shocked expressions, to the sudden smiles full of bewilderment, Purnell pulls all of these things off with precision and becomes a pistol packin’ mama. 

I found Lucy’s character development to be so refreshing to see. In a lot of these shows and films set in an apocalypse environment, the main character either devolves and loses their mind trying to survive, or they forsake their morals instead. Lucy finds a good medium by the end the season. She isn’t the naive wide-eyed vault dweller she started out as in episode one anymore. The lessons she obtained while traveling through the Wasteland has given her the ability to make tough decisions.

This is evident in the final episode when she mercy kills the ghoul that we learn was an important character in Moldaver’s base. When she witnessed Cooper Howard do the same act earlier on in the season, she was appalled that he would kill his former friend. Mercy killing is a blessing in the Wasteland and by living in the surface for a bit, Lucy has absorbed that way of life. However, she still has her vault dweller pureness that is still vital to her character. As she tells The Ghoul when sparing his life, “I may end up looking like you, but I’ll never be like you.” It’s a full circle moment at the end of the season when the two join forces and finally find some middle ground.

The Wanderer

There was only one aspect of the Fallout experience that I felt the television show couldn’t capture well and that was the wandering portions of the gameplay. In a franchise where the main characters are often given titles like “The Chosen One”, “The Lone Wanderer”, and “The Sole Survivor”, time alone in the vast deserts of death known as the Wasteland is a given. Thanks to the Pip-Boy that all vault dwellers have, our heroes at least have fantastic music from Cole Porter, The Ink Spots, and Ella Fitzgerald to entertain them as they spend hours exploring. Some of my favorite moments from playing Fallout titles is when you’re simply doing nothing but exploring the Wasteland with a companion. Those eerie moments when you come across a deserted building with no clue whether friend or foe might be lurking inside. Those dark nights when you’re nearing a destination but can’t find it. I still remember those amazing feelings conjured up in my mind because of the awesome games.

This is a television show with limited run time, so I understand that screen time needs to be allocated to story beats that progress the main story. We just don’t get those special downtime moments that games can afford. Still, I think they knew what they were doing. While watching the show, I had such an incredible urge to boot up my copy of Fallout 4 and jump back into the Commonwealth after so many years away from it. In fact, Amazon absolutely intended for this to happen as they are offering Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas for viewers to play for free with their Prime membership using Luna streaming. This is the perfect example of Vault-Tec capitalism synergy at work. Those fiends!

Yup this looks about the right spot for a hidden vault

While I missed the wandering aimlessly feeling that comes with Fallout, I can tell that Executive Producer and Director Jonathan Nolan has experience playing the games. One of the best feelings you can get as a Fallout gamer is when you accidentally stumble upon a new vault to explore. The anticipation of discovering the harrowing secret of what lies within the newly discovered bunker is an adrenaline that is hard to replicate. Episodes 5 through 7 did a fantastic job of capturing that feeling. Lucy and Maximus accidentally stumble down a shaft elevator into Vault 4 where they quickly realize something was strangely peculiar about the residents there. From the dark abandoned medical rooms, to the actual vault layouts, once again I felt like I was back inside a Fallout game about to learn the dark truth behind the experiment designated at this location.

Sin To Tell A Lie

The ending of season one sets up for an exciting path forward for not only new viewers, but longtime fans as Lucy is bound for New Vegas. As sort of a continuation of Fallout 3, New Vegas was in itself a beloved game in the franchise. We know this story in the show is set about a decade later than any of the games. Could we run into any familiar faces (Courier you still around)? How about iconic locations? If Amazon MGM Studios can continue to produce seasons at the same quality as this first season, then we’re going to be in for a fun time.

I would actually love to see completely new seasons of the show that aren’t connected to Lucy’s story. In the near 30 year history of the franchise, we’ve only really gotten to explore a handful of civilizations and vaults in America. There’s so much untapped potential that still remains available to create for Bethesda. What are vaults like in a rural place like Idaho or an island like Hawaii? I would love to watch a show set in Canada as well. The USA annexing Canada is one of the most intriguing alternative history changes in Fallout lore. Were there vaults in Canada since they were a territory with resources for the country run by Vault-Tec? We’ll see what the future holds, but one thing is for sure not a lie, the Fallout franchise will be welcoming a lot of new fans thanks to Amazon Prime.

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