I was worried about Fallout Season 2. The dud second season is a cliché in TV just like it is in sport—the sophomore slump where a show loses its spark. Amazon should know this well, having turned a bunch of The Rings of Power’s second season into a weird rehash of Star Wars with Tom Bombadil as Yoda. And though I didn’t hate the second season of The Witcher, it was a shame to lose the twisty structure of the first season’s jumbled timeline, which relied on viewers spotting details to untangle which events took place when, and not gain anything nearly as thinky to replace it.
So I went into Fallout Season 2 with concerns. For starters, I expected the pre-war flashbacks to become vestigial, hurried past to get on with the modern day story of Lucy, Maximus, and the Ghoul. Praise be to the Atom then, that the flashbacks remain central. Barb continues making moral compromises on behalf of her family and Coop keeps finding out about corporate shenanigans that force him to become involved.
But usually the reason TV shows disappoint in their second season is, while the first season can focus on introducing the core cast, the second needs to broaden things to keep generating new story. There’s just no guarantee we’ll be as interested in the B-listers as we were in the leads.
Fallout set itself up for success on this count. The first season was full of great bits where the stars were absent, when it bounced back to Norm or over to Wilzig and Thaddeus and all the rest. Season 2 carries on some of those stories—Norm continues to be a highlight—and introduces new ones, like what Hank’s actually up to in Vegas, which are as interesting as the activities of the core trio. (No, he’s not just hitting the slots and vomiting in the fountain.)
When the season starts, Lucy and the Ghoul are trailing Hank, which means crossing the Mojave. It’s a real treat for anyone with fond memories of New Vegas, bringing back the Legion and Novac and Freeside and whatnot. Things have changed since we saw them last (the dinosaur’s facing the other direction, for one thing), but I was constantly delighted by seeing the show’s fresh characters interact with familiar leftover remnants of New Vegas, and the references to its most memetic moments. I was basically the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing jpg for hours.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
Maximus, meanwhile, has finally become a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel, attaining his dream, but realizing it’s a nightmare. Ain’t that a kick in the head? The Brotherhood continue to be depicted as gung-ho wingnuts, even as the show brings together members of chapters from across the country. Each chapter is allowed to have its own identity, while being unified by the fact they’re all absolute dipshits. After seeing the Brotherhood weirdly valorized in the last couple of Bethesda games it’s a relief to see them treated like complete clowns here.
The Last, Best Hope of Humanity
Away from the main plots, the water chip issue mentioned in passing back in Season 1 returns with a vengeance, becoming Overseer Betty’s problem in Vault 33. I always wondered what things were like in Vault 13 while I was gallivanting around the Wasteland looking for a replacement water chip in the original game, and if the careless wastefulness of the Vault dwellers here is anything like what happened in the game then they didn’t deserve to be saved. I found myself sympathizing with Overseer Betty despite myself.
I’m not mentioning what happens with Norm because it’s difficult to talk about without spoilers—suffice to say his story’s not ignored, and the way it continues demonstrates the show’s commitment to black comedy.
On the subject of black comedy, I was pleased to see Fallout play drug addiction for laughs. Which is a weird thing to say. In the wrong hands a subplot about Buffout addiction could have been an after-school special, but here it’s an excuse for gags and character development, just like it would be in the videogames.
I imagine someone has a list of “things that happen in Fallout games” with “be addicted to chems” written on it near “get a rocket-assisted super sledge”, and while that kind of fan-pleasing checklist-ticking can go wrong if overdone, Fallout pulls it off with a light touch.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
Yeah, a couple of moments are on the nose in the same way the first season’s scene with the excitable CEOs getting hyped about all the experiments they’d get to perform was. There’s one twist in particular so obvious I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a twist until it was presented like a big revelation, and there is the odd line of dialogue, like Lucy telling the Ghoul she stands for justice and intends to be an example for others, that seems like someone reminding the viewers what their deal is in case you forgot between seasons. But these moments of unsubtlety are few, and balanced by toothy satire, gory gags, and the occasional moment that actually makes you think.
At one point a flashback flashforwarded to a flashback we’d seen previously to explain that this flashback actually happened even earlier than you might otherwise think it did, and at that point I had to pause to dwell on the implications of what I’d just watched. Fallout hasn’t simplified itself for second-screen viewers—it’s still a show you need to pay attention to keep up with, and more importantly it’s a show worth paying attention to. Bring on Season 3.
