REVIEW: ‘Fallout’ Season 2 Is More Of The Best Of TV

Fallout is easily the best live-action video game adaptation I have seen. In Fallout Season 2, showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner have picked up right where they left off, but also doubled down on their dedication to bringing the world of the Bethesda video game franchise to light. 

The series stars a lineup of new and familiar faces, including Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins, Kyle MacLachlan, Moisés Arias, and Frances Turner. An adaptation of a world and its story with new original characters at the forefront, the Prime Video original understands the importance of effects work and character work in equal measure. That’s why the first season of the series shone brightly, and why Fallout Season 2 continues to delight with action and emotion.

Fallout Season 2 picks up in the aftermath of Season 1’s epic finale. Cold fusion is in play, the Brotherhood of Steel admires Maximus (Aaron Moten) after he seemingly killed a rebel leader, Lucy Maclean (Ella Purnell), and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), who are a duo now, are journeying through the wasteland of the Mojave to New Vegas to find Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan), Lucy’s father. Oh, and things are moving in the Vault, thanks to Norm (Moises Arias).

At its core, Fallout Season 2 remains a story about the haves and have-nots and how that hierarchy continues from the past into the Wasteland. Taking place months before the apocalypse and 200 years after the apocalypse bombs dropped, Fallout Season 2 is about family, truth, and, to put it simply, the evils of capitalism. 

Fallout Season 2 excels because of how seriously it takes its source material and its original characters.

With a large ensemble cast, Fallout Season 2 is spread across five primary narrative elements; however, small character moments past and present connect them all. The series achieves a rare television feat of navigating multiple characters in vastly different situations and coming out the other side as one cohesive story with connective tissue running through every decision. The series’s character work is just as thoughtful as its production and costume design. 

The series follows Maximus (Aaron Moten) as the Brotherhood of Steel doubles down on its zealotry with cold fusion in tow, pushing toward a civil war with the Commonwealth. More importantly for this story thread, however, is the fact that Maximus’s morality is being tested even as he attempts to push his own thoughts aside and replace them with the Brotherhood’s doctrine. Still, Maximus is Maximus, and the Wasteland changed last season. 

Then there is Lucy’s father, Hank. Held up in a Las Vegas Vault, Hank is busy continuing Vault-Tec’s work. MacLachlan’s performance is the right amount of detached yet engrossed in his experiment, so you can’t help but see both the evil and the charm. The ability to pull off an “okey dokey” to the camera and to be responsible for nuking the entire population at the same time creates an amazing antagonist. 

Prime Video’s video game adaptation uses pieces of the video game for more than just Easter Eggs to point at.

Ella Purnell’s Lucy remains a solid central figure in Fallout Season 2. Having been in the Wasteland for some time now, she has started to change. Lucy is unique among protagonists. She is both changed by her surroundings, more violent, and more capable of protecting herself.

She knows how to handle weapons, and as she uses various drugs throughout the world (which all callout to different buffs in the video games), the way she handles action is distinct this season compared to last. 

Lucy’s Vault 33 represents another element in the series, as does Norm’s discovery of Vault Tec’s lies. For the Vault itself, they’re running out of resources and authority. Thanks to the discovery that one of the connected Vaults is filled with former Vault-Tec employees in cryosleep, uncertainty has settled over Lucy’s old home. Leadership erodes, and dualing Overseers may not be able to see it through.

Each of Fallout Season 2’s characters, from Lucy to Maximus and even Norm, is expertly acted.

On top of that, Norm is still locked in with the frozen, and how he deals with it has a big ramification for everyone. While the Vault dwellers could use more development, what we see keeps everything entertaining and highlights key aspects of what it is like to live in this world.

Still, Lucy doesn’t allow the Wasteland to change her entirely. While she is more violent than last season, Lucy chooses to maim instead of kill and doesn’t lose her kindness. As everything develops, events push her to realize that niceties don’t help her protect herself.

Of course, with Lucy comes the Ghoul and his loving dog, the best deus ex machina element in the narrative. Where Lucy hardens, the Ghoul softens. He is thoughtful and mourning, but despite how much he tries to turn off the part of him that cares, he just can’t. 

The past is just as important as the present in Fallout Season 2.

But Fallout Season 2 isn’t just the Wasteland, it’s also the past. Connecting Lucy’s father and the Ghoul’s old life as Cooper Howard, the season routinely explains how everything came to pass. We learn more about Cooper’s place in the push to stop Vault-Tec’s obsession with nuclear war and the profit it brings.

Seeing Cooper Howard doesn’t just build empathy between the Ghoul and the audience, but also gives the audience vital understanding about the world before, the choices made, and what greed does to even those put on a pedestal by their husbands.

We see Robert House for the first time, and we see other pivotal pieces of Fallout lore. More importantly, the past informs the present, as we see from Cooper’s time and the war he fought in to the destruction of Shady Sands, year by year. But everything always comes together. The breadcrumbing across the narrative elements in Fallout Season 2 works well to keep the audience engaged and understanding, and it never feels like too much is happening at once. 

The second season of Fallout is once again one of the best shows on television.

While Fallout Season 2’s story offers more than enough to admire, it’s the action that sets this Prime Video original series apart. Last season gave us a glimpse of the creatures of the Wasteland, but this one doubles down. The creative work around ghouls like Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton), the rad-affected animals, and, more crucially, the Death Claw sets a practical-effects standard that we are just not seeing on prestige television series today. 

The depth that the blend of practical and computer-generated effects brings to every action scene and set piece makes the series effortlessly immersive. Taking for the world of Bethesda’s (and Obsidian for Fallout: New Vegas) iconic video game means that Fallout 2′s visual language was already set.

However, this season, like last, is much more than an Easter Egg hunt. Instead, every Buffout, stimpack, song, Vault Boy animation, animal, and other small details that Fallout fans can point to don’t overwhelm.  They aren’t stacked one after the other to make you point at your television screen. 

Fallout Season 2 sets a standard for adaptation and practical effects yet again.

Instead, audiences see the Wasteland as a world so close to ours that it feels familiar yet different enough to be entertaining. Each Easter Egg is there for those who see it, but fit the story from the start. Fallout 2 is a story unto itself, making those who have played the games feel more rewarded.

At the same time, it never isolates viewers who may have never played the video games. Speaking to two audiences is always a tall task, but the retrofuturism and dystopian view of the world get people in the door, even when the name doesn’t mean much.

Finally, though, unlike other big hits that video game adaptations have under their belt, this live action doesn’t shy away from the camp of its source material, doesn’t emulate other dystopian stories, and instead looks to the special items, systems, and even characters that made its source material mean something to so many people. This isn’t about trying to be prestige television; it’s just good sci-fi TV, and that matters. 

When it comes to rating, however, it has to be noted that I only saw and was given six of the eight episodes that make up Fallout Season 2. It’s enough to call the series one of the best of the year, but not enough to award it a perfect score. What I can say, though, is that the second season of Fallout continues to set a standard for creativity in video game adaptations and, more excitingly, the highest bar to clear for special effects work. 

Fallout Season 2 covers a lot of narrative ground and even directly interacts with Fallout: New Vegas, bringing the game’s elements to life. The series is in conversation with the Bethesda video game franchise, and it’s better for it. The series isn’t constrained by its source material; it’s thriving. 

From action to retrofuturism and detailed politics, Fallout Season 2 just works. It modernizes some of the video game’s pain points, develops broader concepts, and seeks to place the blame for greed directly at its feet whenever possible, even when dealing with the New California Republic.

Senseless or necessary, the violence in this series asks audiences to invest in a world close enough to our own but twisted enough to feel unique. And we do. With every episode, Lucy gains more depth, the Ghoul makes more sense, and the impending weight of cold fusion becomes more terrifying. Fallout Season 2 is just good in every way. 

Fallout Season 2 is streaming now on Prime Video with new episodes every Tuesday through February. 

Read our interview with the Fallout showrunners here.