Fallout may have debuted two years ago, but it remains the best video game adaptation TV has produced.
Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet did something rare. They took a video game famous for its empty landscapes and made a series full of people you can’t stop watching. The Prime Video show is not a faithful copy of the games. It is better than that. It is a story that uses the world of Fallout to ask questions about power, survival, and the lies we tell ourselves about the past.
The plot follows three characters. Lucy (Ella Purnell) leaves her underground vault for the first time. Maximus (Aaron Moten) is a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel, a military order with a holy mission. The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is a bounty hunter who has survived 200 years of radiation, and his face is a horror show of decay. Their paths cross in the ruins of Los Angeles, and the result is a chain of violent, funny, and often sad encounters.
Trailer, via Prime Video.
Lucy Leaves the Vault
Lucy is the heart of the show. She is raised in Vault 33, a community that believes in order, manners, and the rule of law. When her father is taken, she leaves the vault with a pip-boy on her wrist and a naive smile on her face. Purnell plays her with a perfect mix of optimism and steel. Her arc is the classic hero’s journey, but the world keeps breaking her expectations. She learns that the surface is not a wasteland of monsters. It is a wasteland of people, and people are worse.
The show does not mock her for her faith in rules. It respects her enough to let her grow. By the end, she is not the same woman who opened that vault door.
Cooper Howard’s Long Memory
Walton Goggins is the reason many people tuned in, and he does not disappoint. His character, Cooper Howard, was a movie star before the bombs fell. Now he is a ghoul, a radiation-scarred creature who lives for caps, the currency of the wasteland. Goggins plays both versions of the man with the same quiet menace. The flashbacks to his past life in Hollywood are some of the best scenes in the series. They show a man who sold his soul long before the apocalypse, and the wasteland just made that fact visible.
His story is a slow burn. But when it pays off, it pays off hard.
Brotherhood of Steel’s Iron Faith
Maximus is the third leg of the tripod. He wants to be a knight in the Brotherhood, but he is a squire, a servant who carries armor and dreams of wearing it. Moten gives him a wounded dignity. His journey is about faith. He believes in the Brotherhood’s mission, but he keeps finding reasons to doubt it. The show uses his story to ask a simple question. What happens when the institution you serve is wrong?
It is not a subtle question, but the show handles it with care. Maximus is not a villain or a hero. He is a man trying to do good in a system that rewards cruelty.
Ruins of Los Angeles
The production design is outstanding. The vaults are clean, bright, and sterile. The surface is a brown ruin of broken highways and rusted cars. The show spends money on its look, and it shows. The creatures are gross. The gore is plentiful. The tone is black comedy, but it never tips into parody. The writers treat the world seriously, even when the jokes land.
One of the best sequences is a trip through a ruined city filled with a gang of raiders. It is absurd, but it is also terrifying. That balance is the show’s signature move.
The Ink Spots and the Sound
The soundtrack is a character in itself. The show uses mid-century American pop songs, like “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” by the Ink Spots, to create a sense of nostalgia that is deeply wrong. The music is beautiful. The images are not. That contrast is the show’s thesis. The past was not a golden age. It was a lie told by people who wanted to sell you something.
Fallout Holds Up
Fallout is not perfect. The middle episodes drag a little. Some plot threads feel rushed. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a show that respects its source material without being chained to it. It is a show that uses a video game to talk about real things. And it is a show that knows how to have fun.
This remains the best video game adaptation ever made. It is also just a great show, full stop. If you have not watched it, start now. The wasteland is waiting.
- Series: Fallout (Season 1)
- Creators: Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet
- Platform: Prime Video
- Episodes: 8
- Starring: Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins
- Critical score: 8.3/10
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