By Carly Shaner
“Everyone wants to save the world. They just disagree on how.”
About 200 years after the entire world is nuked, Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) ventures out to the surface to find her father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), who has been captured. She encounters folks like the Ghoul (Walter Goggins), Maximus (Aaron Moten) of the Brotherhood and everything the irradiated world has to offer. After learning through her journey in the wasteland, it’s revealed that her father isn’t who he claimed to be, and a battle breaks out between the Brotherhood and a faction called the New California Republic (NCR). Season one ends with the NCR scattering in defeat, Hank running away, Lucy and the Ghoul setting out to find him and Maximus being knighted in the Brotherhood for something he didn’t do.
Season two’s story picks up right after the aftermath, leaving no storyline untouched. The audience is taken on Lucy and the Ghoul’s journey to find Hank. We get a glimpse of the Brotherhood’s progress since retrieving an artifact from season one. We even get to see where Hank ran off to and what he’s doing there.
One of my favorite aspects and a popular trademark of any post-apocalypse show is the 40s and 50s tunes, and “Fallout” is no different. Just as with season 1, the titles and lyrics of the featured songs fit what’s happening in the scene. The fact that these songs are put in the foreground makes scenes like a man being forced to beat up his friends and Brotherhood members fighting in their armor almost fun.
Another great part is the episode titles. The first episode, “The Innovator”, gives us a peek at the bad guy and how advanced Vault-Tec believed itself to be before the bombings. Episode two, “The Golden Rule”, is less about the biblical golden rule and more about what the Ghoul refers to in the first season as the wasteland’s golden rule. Episode three, “The Profligate”, shows us other groups in the wasteland and makes us ask where the line really is when it comes to surviving in a hostile environment.
The actors of “Fallout” have returned, and they are better than before. Ella Purnell plays Lucy as still somewhat naive, but more moral than the others because of her upbringing. Walter Goggins brings the internal struggles of Cooper Howard and the Ghoul to life. Aaron Moten shows Max’s slow adjustment to his new position. Kyle MacLachlan puts Hank in a new light as we are given more of his background.
“Fallout” season 2 centers around loyalty, humanity and morality. Maximus struggles in his new position when the factions of the Brotherhood and Max himself have to make difficult decisions. When Lucy finds out the Ghoul is trying to find his family, she urges him to think about their reaction to seeing what he’s become. Lucy has to deal with what she’s become and struggles to maintain her own humanity. Norm (Moises Arias), Lucy’s younger brother, faces the infamous choice of order or chaos. Hank has seemingly lost all humanity, continuing experiments he believes in without caring about the toll it takes on the subjects.
With this season taking us to New Vegas, there’s also a focus on chance. In the wasteland, if you hesitate for too long, you may die. We haven’t seen New Vegas up close, but the first three episodes have our protagonists taking chances that lead to unexpected destinations.
Something we see across the first three episodes, or should I say only in the first episode, is the main antagonist. The only glimpse we get of him being the big bad is a flashback. There are references to people still around in the present-day story timeline who are continuing his work, but no showing of him besides that initial flashback.
While they were few and far between, some shots felt angled weirdly or cut strangely. This was mainly prominent in the second episode. The camera movements felt too quick or unnecessarily filmed from halfway behind an object when the focus is only on one or two characters in a moment of peace.
Overall, I think the start of “Fallout” season 2 is off to a good start. The plot is right back on track, the visual effects are still consistent and the characters have opportunities to grow and gamble as all roads point to New Vegas.
I give these first three episodes 8/10.
“Fallout” is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
Carly Shaner is a junior Professional Writing and Information Design Major. She spends her free time consuming media and coffee of all kinds.
Images courtesy of IMDB.
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