The first season of Fallout was yet another reminder that the video game-to-movie genre had noticably pulled it’s socks up from the days of Street Fighter and Super Marios Bros. as it dived headlong into apocalyptic, 50s retrofuturism and copious lore. Well, tighten those gunbelts partners and get that thumb up into the air, as season 2 is now upon us and we’re heading to the city of sin. That’s right, after bringing many aspects of the world of the game to life, the series is now turning its sights to New Vegas which provided the main location of of the Fallout: New Vegas game released in 2010.
Of course, before we reach the land of gambling chips and roulette wheels, we’ve got quite a hefty amount of plot to catch up with – in fact, there’s so much, there’s not actually enough room to bring us up to speed with everyone yet. However, with Lucy MacClean teaming up with the ruthless Ghoul to bring her corrupt father to task for his crimes, we’d better get started sooner rather than later.
After the events of season 1, we find that the tenuous truce between Lucy and the Ghoul is still holding somewhat, despite the former Vault dweller still trying to cling to her more innocent beliefs. Of course, that proves to be a major inconvenience when you’re trying to outwit and slaughter various desert scouring gangs, but while Lucy is still trying to appeal for rational calm, her noseless companion still has no qualms about popping skulls and blowing out ribcages. But as they continue to follow the trail left by Lucy’s father, the hopelessly corrupt and vicious former Overseer of Vault 33, they soon find that his nefarious plans are getting even more insidious.
Meanwhile, multiple flashbacks to the time before the bombs dropped show the Ghoul in his former life as actor Cooper Howard as he roped in to a conspiracy to help uncover the inhumane and potentially catastrophic wheelings and dealings that Vault-Tec are behind. But we also find that he’s tasked to sniff out the similarly ruthless CEO of RobCo Industries, Robert Edwin House, who seems to be on the breakthrough of creating a mind control device.
Meanwhile, back in the various Vaults, life is going on with tedious regularity. But while Betty Pearson and Stephanie Harper continue to settle into their jobs as Overseers of Vaults 33 and 32 respectively, Lucy’s brother, Norman is still trapped in the mysterious Vault 31 and is slowly being starved to death by the cyborg brain caretaker known as Bud. But while Norm’s discovery that Vault 31 is a cryogenic unit to distribute Vault-Tec employees if an when they’re needed to rule means that he’s been checkmated by a brain in a bowl, his counterstrike proves to be rather chaotic.
As all these threads continue to spin, Hank MacClean seems undeterred by his experiences and is eager to get back to work subjugating mankind for corporate gain – but what project does he hope to finish? Why Robert Edwin House’s head popping, mental control device, of course.
It says a lot for the complexity of a show when the first episode is so stacked with plotlines to catch up on, you can afford to leave out literally all traces of Aaron Moten’s Maximus and the entirety of the Brotherhood Of Steel, but thanks to a solid first episode strives to bring us up to date with almost all of the rapidly spreading storylines, I guess it’s understandable. In fact, the world is so vastly thanks to the many different micro plots and the numerous flashbacks to the time before the war, there are times when Elle Purnell’s Lucy feels more like a supporting character rather than the supposed focal point – especially when you consider that Walton Goggins has not one, but two entire threads running parallel with one another thanks to the flashbacks to his human life before the nukes dtopped.
In fact, if Fallout’s big kick off to season 2 has a noticable flaw, it’s that if you haven’t boned up on what occurred in the last couple of episodes in season 1, you make be initially overwhelmed at how many plates season 2 is spinning the very second it starts. While the prologue is dedicated to a recast Robert Edwin House acting like an evil Howard Stark courtesy of Justin Theroux, we’re soon thrown into the glib, skull bursting action as we find the uneasy partnership of Lucy and the Ghoul trying to get information by trying that old fake out hanging trick from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Of course, Lucy still hasn’t gotten the hang of being a natural, cold-blooded badass like her skull-faced partner, so she’s still prone to trying to talk things out in a civilised fashion rather than shoot first and ask questions never, but it’s a good and reassuring reminder that the cartoonish gore hasn’t been toned down between seasons.
However, while it’s fun watching Purnell and Goggins bitch and complain at each other with a good old spirited action sequence, I have to say, without the momentum of any other episodes, keeping an eye on the other Vaults is a little bit of a chore. While Moisés Arias’ Norm discovering the cryopods in Vault 31 is no doubt imperative to the unraveling of the central conspiracy, it’s strange that we get so much time with him and the other Vaults when the Brotherhood Of Steel is nowhere to be seen. Still, while Vaults 32 and 33 continued to get choked by red tape and lashings of naivety and we get a jokey side plot about a help group about dealing with incestuous parents, at least the doings within 31 are moving forward.
Elsewhere, we continue to see via flashbacks just how entwined Cooper Howard really got back in the pre-nuke days with the attempted bringing down of Vault-Tec. We already know that his wife was on the board for making the desicion to nuke their own contry to best ensure that humanity continued to use their products (a twist that scarily seems less far-fetched every single day), but now that he’s been enlisted to assassinate Robert Edwin House, we’re starting to see how this in-over-his-head actor started on his road to becoming the Ghoul.
Aside from all that, there’s still the bizarre, throwaway jokes that drill home how much it sucks to live in the Apocalypse. With the genuinely grotesque sight of a bowl of flea soup scratched fresh out of the scalp and some continued superlative efforts from the set designers, life in the world of Fallout continues to be a very witty feast for the eyes. However, I have to say, while there is an influx if plots to keep in order, the episode does admirably well to keep things moving at a brisk pace – even if it might take a minute to catch up.
Still balancing the goofy gore with crazed conspiracies, The Innovator manages to get the complicated ball rolling with style. However, despite being a successfully solid start, there’s the feeling that a lack of Maximus (one of the main characters, let’s not forget), means that maybe some downsizing needs to occur sooner rather than later to streamline matters. I mean, just because it’s the apocalypse, it doesn’t mean things can’t still be tidy, y’know?
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