Fallout

Our Review

Amazon’s adaptation nails the tone: the retro futurist satire, the vault boy grimness, the capitalism eats-itself worldbuilding. Lucy (Ella Purnell), the vault dweller whose idealism gets weapon grade testing; the Ghoul (Walton Goggins, the show’s best character, a pre war actor turned 200-year old mutant bounty hunter, and Goggins’s best role in years); and Maximus, a Brotherhood of Steel aspirant, cross paths in the irradiated Wasteland, and the mystery (what happened to… the… the vault… the cold fusion…, the conspiracy at the season’s center) unspools with game faithful glee.

The production design (the props, the power armor, the junktown texture) is movie grade, the violence has the game’s slapstick gore register, and the lore expansions (the vault experiments, the… the New Vegas…, the season 2 road to the…, feel made by people who love the games. The rare adaptation that’s a great show first and a great adaptation second.

Verdict: Watch it. War never changes, but TV adaptations finally did.