Fallout Amazon Prime Video Series was a surprising binge-worthy series of the year. When I first heard the idea of turning the video game franchise into a series, I thought it was going to suck. It proved me wrong as I kept watching it after I reviewed episode one The End. The last video game movie adaptation that kept my interest on a similar level was Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (2019). And I can congratulate it for maintaining my interest. Having never played the franchise in my life, I was still interested in the lore of it through YouTube. The first two games and just now discovered Fallout: New Vegas (2010) are my favorites. The latter two games of the series made by Bethesda—Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 were not as great. I’ll explain that in a different article, but for now, let me get straight to the point.
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Throughout the series, Lucy (Ella Purnell), Maximus (Aaron Moten), and Howard Cooper/The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) are all after one runaway Enclave scientist head who is valuable to the future of the Wasteland. However, there were some crazy revelations along the way. Events have unique consequences and huge impacts on the Fallout universe forever.
Image via Wiki Commons/Amazon Prime Studios/Bethesda Game Studios
Vault-Tec, the infamous company that created the vaults was not only responsible for manipulating the occupants as a grand social experiment (as explained in this video from Fallout 2 involving the Vault Dweller’s ancestor talking to President Dick Richardson about the vaults and his plans to kill every mutant in the globe for “true humanity” to reign supreme again); they ignited the nuclear bombs on purpose, suggested by Cooper’s wife Barbara (Francis Turner). (and most likely still launched bombs on their enemies too). The point is they are culpable for genocide in the attempt to eliminate their competitors and profit from it, even if they are long gone.
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One of those people who were at the board meeting just happens to be Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan), Lucy’s dad. He tries to convince his wife and kids to come back to the Vault with him until he forcibly kidnaps the siblings and drops a nuke on the New California Republic. A revelation from which Lucy learns that she was a child of the Wasteland all along, not a born Vault Dweller. And probably breaking the hearts of every Fallout gamer to know that the town formerly known as Shady Sands in the first game, and eventually grew into the NCR in Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas got blown to smithereens.
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A battle between the Brotherhood of Steel and what’s left of the NCR erupts with Cooper Ghoul entering the fray looking forward for 219 years of payback. Hank goes on the run with Lucy and Cooper on his trail, and Maximus is then crowned ‘Knight Maximus’, unable to tell his team that he only witnessed Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) bleed to death after she used the cold fusion to turn the power back on in the California Wasteland.
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The series’ last scene finds Hank walking alone in the blazing desert in his power armor. He then happens upon one of the popular locations in the Fallout universe; an isolated, untouched pre-war city of New Vegas.
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I’m happy it turns out to be a great watch overall. Unlike HBO’s The Last of Us live-action series, the story is more progressive in not re-telling the games. You’re not wasting your time re-watching the same sequences gamers played again. The story affects the Fallout lore rather than knowing what will happen after experiencing the game.
Image via Amazon Prime Studios/Bethesda Game Studios
Now I’m excited to see when season two of Fallout will drop. Probably be after whenever the next mainline game is released. But at least I will have time to get educated on the lore before it is announced.
Image via IMDb/Amazon Prime Studios/Bethesda Game Studios
I almost forgot about Lucy’s brother Norm (Moises Arias). He finds out that the rest of the residents of Vault 31 and many others are in cryogenic freezers (similar to the opening of Fallout 4) overseen by a rolling brain robot named Bud. So…yeah, we’ll probably see him again the next season.
