Trailer for the series "Fallout"/Amazon Prime Video
It's quite a surreal experience to watch a post-apocalyptic series in the midst of a real existential threat. Certainly one like "Fallout" which takes lightly and with a wink the guts of ruins, social disintegration and the products of exposure to radiation. The transition between her and the news broadcasts during a weekend of real threats of a direct and unprecedented attack of hundreds of missiles - which eventually materialized - was such that only a crazy reality can produce. In one of the first scenes in the series, one of the characters says to her neighbor: "It is not certain that there will be a next week" And so, with an identification that I did not believe could happen in such a genre, we rode together towards the unknown.
These are apparently not favorable conditions for the series, but also in relation to the goods that "Fallout" is trying to sell. How many such works about a post-disaster world have we seen in recent years, and what can we do with them? Even the idea of focusing on the seclusion of survivors in underground shelters was tested a few months ago in "Silo". But the uniqueness of "Fallout" lies in the execution of questioning about human nature, capitalist greed and social experiments with a futuristic and creepy western, and also a lot thanks to the fact that she manages to build a very complex and branching story, without feeling exhausting or too dark.
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The result is eight hours of great fun, a lot (and it must be emphasized, a lot) of graphic violence against the rather trite background of classics from the 50s, wonderful acting performances by Walton Goggins ("Private Justice", "The Shield", "The Gemstone Family" ) and Elle Parnell ("Yellows") and very clever writing. Although Geneva Robertson-Dort ("Captain Marvel") and Graham Wagner ("Portlandia") are signed as showrunners, the fingerprint of the two actual producers is very evident: Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy, who created "Westworld" together. The many moral choices that are faced by the heroes along the way, manage to create the very difficult connection between a game experience and a narrative creation. Of course, both works correspond profoundly with Western aesthetics and ideas. The work that Nolan also directed in the first three episodes also makes the couple's impact on visibility and tone especially significant.
Attention, from here on spoilers for the entire series.
Along with Lucy's line-breaking trajectory, the most fascinating character is "The Creature," who begins at the opposite point of Lucy's: a cynical and ruthless bounty hunter whose true motives are withheld until the last chapter. Cooper Howard, the western star who would become The Creature, is in many ways a pre-bomb Lucy
The plot of "Fallout" begins in 2077 in a parallel reality to ours, which developed differently after World War II. This is also the explanation for the retro-futuristic design of the technology in this world. On the one hand, the receivers and gadgets look visually outdated (probably because the technological acceleration was done without the use of receivers and chips, like in our reality), but on the other hand, it has autonomous robots that help with housework, advanced military armor and the ability to cryogenically freeze humans. All of these are of course based on the very popular game series of the gaming giant Bathesda. And while gamers who have played it will surely enjoy a nice layer of references and winks, it also works great as a piece for those who have never been exposed to the game.
In the reality of the series, the nuclear race between the superpowers took place between the United States and China (which annexed additional territories over the years), with the growing fear of a nuclear holocaust hovering over a growing shortage of energy resources and leading to a struggle for control of them. In the atmosphere of the approaching end, the American administration left the The protection of the residents' lives in the hands of private companies, which started to produce atomic safes for the population. One of them was the Volt-Tech company, whose story revolves around the fact that the number of shelters produced was small and intended for the powerful and connected. And here, too, take this crazy connection to our reality as you wish.
In a nice twist, the opening episode of the series is called "The End", and it depicts the moment the first bombs fall on Los Angeles, only to take us 219 years into the future. Lucy MacLaine (Parnell) is the poster girl for the vaults vision: a kind of wide-eyed Barbie doll who sees only the best in everyone and excels in every activity from renovations, through science, gymnastics, fencing, wrestling, history and the use of weapons. The kidnapping of her father, the leader of the vault, leads her to contradict everything she has learned in her life - and to go out into the nuclear wasteland of the outside world to get him back.
The use of Lucy is very reminiscent of the idea served by Dolores in "Westworld", a character whose complete naivety emphasizes the magnitude of the injustice done to her and her friends, and the change she must make to survive in the cruel world outside. And speaking of this world, it turns out that the vault dwellers' vision of being the first inhabitants of the post-bomb world was a legend. The wasteland is full of types, creatures and organizations, who in the harsh reality will do anything to survive. Among them is the Brotherhood of Steel, a religious-militaristic organization dedicated to locating and preserving technologies to "maintain order"; "The government" (no, that's not a mistake), an organization that tries to enforce order in the wilderness; as well as a woman named Lee Moldaver, who is chasing after an item that can change the balance of power in the fight for the wasteland.
Along with Lucy's groundbreaking track, the most fascinating character in "Fallout" is the one known as "The Creature" (Goggins). Here too, similarities can be seen with the "Man in Black" from "Westworld", a character who starts at the opposite point of Lucy's: a cynical and ruthless bounty hunter whose true motives are kept until the last episode. Cooper Howard, the western star who would become The Creature, is in many ways the pre-bomb Lucy. The revelations he will reveal about the true intentions behind the population of the safes, their management and especially the way in which their profitability will be guaranteed (the dropping of the first bomb, at least by Volt-Tech people) are what will make him the tough gunman and also serve as the basis on which the second season will be built, hopefully it will soon be approved by Amazon .
The third main character, Maximus (Aron Moten), is much more a tool to advance other plots than has a distinct path of his own. With the help of Maximus, we are exposed to the tragic fate of Shady Sands - the city that rose after the bomb and was destroyed after it was discovered by Hank McClain - to the methods of operation of the Brotherhood of Steel, and especially to the difficulty of life on the surface of the wasteland compared to the comfort of life in vaults. This complexity allows "Fallout" to play between times and moral lines, and to deal a lot with questions of the nature of war. This is an issue that accompanied the games as well, but becomes much more interesting here mainly due to the story that each side tells itself as its justification. "Everyone wants to save the world," the creature tells Lucy, "they just don't agree on the way."
First and foremost, "Fallout" is aesthetic and spectacular, starting from the shots of helicopters hovering over the wasteland to the design of the safes. Thanks to her, the ruins and the destruction become interesting and eye-catching. Beyond that, most of her characters serve opposing worldviews, so that the encounters between them do not amount to a fight for some accessory - but to a deep debate about justice and values. It's writing that makes every scene much more intriguing. And yet, this ideology does not weigh her down, but rather arouses curiosity to continue reading and learning about each of her details after watching.
The end point of the first season is in many ways the end of a long exposition, but also a great story that accompanied it. Lucy and the creature follow Hank to find his patrons, the people who run the vaults and know where Cooper's wife and daughter are. Maximus officially becomes a steel knight in a historic moment, when the brotherhood lays its hands on the cold fusion, an infinite source of energy that changes the balance of power in the struggle for resources. The ending scene suggests that next season we will meet New Vegas, which was built on the ruins of Las Vegas and is considered a central location in the game, with lots of new characters.
But more than anything, "Fallout" is proof that even genres that are seemingly exhausted can be intriguing and creative. The lightness with which the series is conducted manages to balance opposing and complex agendas and worldviews, which generate a lot of interest in the meetings and the conflicting interests between them. Of course, the fact that her main characters are great in their own way, and constantly challenge what we think we understand about them, helps. Thus, precisely Lucy, a good-girl-California, proves toughness and resilience, while the creature hides a touching emotional trauma under the cynicism. It's a crazy, violent and witty journey to the edge of humanity, and now - when it doesn't seem so imaginary to us anymore - it's even more interesting than before.
The first season of "Fallout" is available in its entirety on Amazon Prime Video.