The last episode of Fallout ostensibly gave us what most other shows would either wait to the finale (or even the midway point) to bring us and had its three main characters violently butt heads in a showdown for an important macguffin. However, it Fallout can be accused of anything, it certainly isn’t a strong desire to follow the rules, and so, while only on its second episode, Ella Purnell’s well-meaning Lucy, Aaron Moten’s wannabe Knight, Maximus and Walton Goggins’ gunslinging Ghoul met in the ramshackle town of Filly and promptly wrecked the fucking joint.
However, twist followed twist, followed twist and when the dust settled, the man they were all there to collect, Dr. Wilzig, not only killed himself, but instructed Lucy to sever his head in order to make transporting it far easier. With such seismic switches keeping us reeling and a meeting of the three main cast members (human ones, anyway), does Fallout have enough gas in the tank to maintain those all-important surprises?
As Lucy continues in her mission to locate her kidnapped father, it seems she has a legitimate bargaining chip in the form of Wilzig’s severed noggin that is to be delivered to the woman named Moldaver. However, whatever the mystery element is that the good doctor injected behind his ear for safe keeping, it’s definitely got those other, eager parties chomping at the bit.
One of those parties is Maximus, who has now fully adopted the identity of Knight Titus to fulfill his dream of becoming one of the Brotherhood of Steel, but after fixing the damage to his battle armour sustained in the battle at Filly, his superiors, utterly unaware at the subterfuge that’s transpired, has sent him another squire. If this wasn’t awkward enough, said squire turns out to be Thaddeus, one of Maximus’ most persistent bullies back at the training barracks.
Meanwhile, Lucy has a fateful run-in with a Gulper, which is essentially a giant, mutated salamander that manages to swallow Wilzig’s head in the attack, but before she can formulate a plan to get it back, she’s waylaid by the Ghoul, who was led there by Wilzig’s dog, CX404 and has the perfect solution for fishing for Gulpers – live bait. However, dunking Lucy repeatedly into the lake only results in the Ghoul breaking the chems that helped sustain the noseless gunslinger during his unnaturally long life.
As he leaves while taking Lucy hostage, back at Vault 33, the denizens are still trying to regroup after the raid they suffered at Moldaver’s hands, but Lucy’s brother, Norm is disturbed at the decision to try and rehabilitate the obviously deranged surviving surface marauders.
However, with the head still in play, and Maximus proving to be more than a match for the Gulper, the most surprising event may be a flashback that reveals that before the war, Cooper Howard (aka. The Ghoul) was affiliated with Vault-Tec.
After that majestic, knock-down, drag-out rumble last episode, its clear to see what direction Fallout is going to head in in the rest of the remaining episodes of its first season. With dusty vistas, crumbling towns full of swarthy unmentionables and a trio of very different personalities all shooting toward the same goal, there’s a real clear feel that Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is a major influence here as the Ghoul, Maximus and Lucy all drift in and out of each others paths in the quest to own Wilzig’s separated bounce and the secrets it holds. One minute, Lucy is in full possession of the cranium, wrapping it carefully in a rag and carefully sticking a tracker up its nose in order to plan for the worst, the next, one of the wasteland’s alarmingly misshapen examples of wildlife has swallowed the fucking thing just as the Ghoul comes a’calling. The result seems to be riffing on the moment from Leone’s Western opus where Clint Eastwood’s Blondie is captured by Eli Wallach’s spiteful Tuco and is tormented and while the 60s legendary Western didn’t have a giant, nightmarish salamander to play with, Lucy’s tortures at the hands of a ruthless Ghoul has much the same effect.
However, while Lucy doesn’t have that much to do other than get served up as a prospective Gulper treat, there’s some serious character arc work happening elsewhere. After the Brotherhood send Maximus another squire to replace – well… him, the wannabe Knight finds that his subterfuge is getting out of hand when one of his bullies us drafted in to assist in the mission. However, while Maximus is still getting the hang of this whole mysterious hero thing, he now has to act like the aloof professional which could be yet another step on his path to being corrupted by his new found power. He gets fairly close, too as he almost smooshes the skull of Thaddius when he eagerly turns up to help as the snivelling little snot has been responsible for making Maximus’ life tougher than a two-dollar steak. And yet, after some awkward bonding time, the would-be Knight discovers that Thaddeus’ actions were born because he was the one absorbing random beatings until Maximus came along.
However, while we get some extra layers to Maximus and Thaddeus, the real revelations here belong to the Ghoul as we get some more flashbacks detailing the life of Cooper Howard before the ravages of two hundred years of radiation turned him into the cold as ice killer we that struts from scene to scene. Not only do we get more time with him and his daughter, but we also meet his wife who works for the company who not only built the Vaults Lucy and her people would go on to live in, but seemingly created their whole nicer than nice culture – in fact, while Cooper models that iconic blue and yellow jumpsuit after agreeing to be Vault-Tec’s new spokesperson, he even comes up with that thumbs up pose in an act of improv. While all these points will undoubtedly bubble to the surface thanks to gis close proximity to Lucy, the real news here is that Cooper was once such a gentle man, he didn’t even like killing people in his Western movies.
Finally, supreme kudos have to be given to whomever designed the magnificently grotesque Gulper, who not only is a great example of CGI on a TV scale, but boasts some immensely disturbing physical attributes. I don’t know who decided that the inside of its mouth should be lined with hundreds of grasping fingers (complete with finger nails) should either be given a raise or a long overdue psychiatric exam.
Another wander through the wasteland means another cracker of an episode, but even greater weirdness probably lay ahead.
🌟🌟🌟🌟.
We Have Issues 