Some Thoughts on Fallout Season 2

When Fall The TV series comes out in 2024, I published my thoughts on it on this blog, including why I think it’s a fantastic adaptation of a gaming property. The filming locations, the acting, the story, it all makes for one of my favorite shows on TV right now.

I rewatched it ahead of the release of Season 2, and it really holds up. Sure, there were some odd things, like fusion cores being extremely rare and powering entire vaults, which was a bit odd, but overall it was better than I realistically expected.

I have now watched Season 2 in its entirety. Do I like it? You bet I did! Are there still any confusing aspects (which I’ll get to in a moment)? Also yeah. Regardless, I definitely watch it eagerly every week, with my family, to see what drama is unfolding in the wasteland that week. Did I mention we are a Fallout family? Yes, this is a big event in our household.

Before I continue, here are your obligations LEAK warning. If you haven’t watched the second season, I highly recommend you watch it before reading this blog. Are we okay? OK, let’s first discuss the advantages of this season.

Set: I’ve mentioned before how amazing the sets look in Season 1, especially the inside of the vault. This time, most of the events take place in New Vegas, and once again, the filming locations are simply stunning. Walk into Mr. The house at the top of the Lucky 38 is very precise. The proximity of Ultra-Luxe and Gomora, everyone feels it Right. We even got to see the Strip before the bombs dropped, which was really cool.

Acting: I can’t say enough about the acting talent on this show, especially Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell, who both shine like diamonds here. Kyle MacLachlan gets a lot more screen time this season, and he turns in a chilling performance, being both a loving father figure and a cruel villain at the same time. We even get some really great moments with Aaron Moten as Maximus, especially when he’s wearing NCR power armor while hearing Fallout’s main theme play. There were so many amazing moments that I can’t tell you all about them here.

Super Mutants: When I first heard his voice, I knew it was Ron Perlman, the famous narrator in previous Fallout games. Super mutants who retain their intelligence, such as Fawkes and Erickson, always attract my attention. They’ve been hit by the virus of forced evolution, but they haven’t turned into raging barbarians who collect bags of gore and decorate them with twisted metal. It looks like they’ll be a major force against the Enclave next season, and I’m all for it.

NCR Power Armor: This gets its own list. I love power armor, in general, and Iron Man is one of my favorite superheroes. So, seeing the NCR Ranger’s iconic helmet customized with power armor is pretty spectacular, especially considering all of his built-in weapons and abilities. It’s a shame that it was thrown away to the point where Maximus would probably have just abandoned it. I would love it if he joined the NCR and this armor became his signature power armor.

On the other hand, there are some things I don’t like so much. Again, I like it overall, but these things often don’t work for me.

Problems on the Home Front: The storyline that takes place in the vault is one of the weakest storylines of the season. I really commend the writers for bringing back the broken water chip. One of my criticisms of Season 1 was that it was mentioned later and never followed up again. We’re getting more movement on that, but that’s just kind of it blah. I’m glad we got to spend more time with Stephanie Harper, because there’s definitely more going on with her than meets the eye. But overall, there isn’t enough screen time or engaging beats to make this happen. And what happened to her marrying Chet and not even telling him? Steph just co-opted it, but we’re not entirely sure why.

Norma and Bud’s Buds: The last second, the arc of Norm emerging from Vault 31 seems to go nowhere, and that’s a shame. Last season, Norm investigating what was going on in the vault was something I found interesting. Norm himself being physically weak but very intelligent and perceptive was something I enjoyed, and his dynamic with Chet was great. This season, she split from Chet, and it wasn’t pretty. The Bud’s Buds group ends up being nothing as they are all wiped out by cockroaches, except for Norm’s friend and his future lover. Convenient, that is. Norma is too good a character, and Moisés Arias has too good talent, for an arc that lacks any real substance. Let’s hope Norm gets his due next season.

Emperor’s Legion: This might be more of a set design issue, but that doesn’t seem to be the case somebody could he have snuck up to that embankment in the middle of the night to retrieve Caesar’s body? If it were more separate, in full view of the other side so that snipers were always a risk, and more dead legionnaires had tried and failed, I think I would have more faith in that scenario. But more than that, if no one knew which heir was chosen by the original Emperor (Edward Sallow), how could the two rival Emperors justify taking over the office? And who put Sallow’s body out there and put barbed wire around it? The whole setup had me scratching my head. That said, seeing Macaulay Culkin as the new Caesar is pretty cool, and the fact that they wanted “Caesar’s Palace” on the Vegas strip was a nice touch.

Brotherhood of Steel: While it was interesting to see the different branches of the Brotherhood come together, and witness firsthand the differences between them, that part of the story ended early enough that I was surprised when we got the ending. I think that’s all we’re going to get from Brotherhood for a while. It’s also a bit strange that Quintus chose Maximus as his champion, then openly insulted him in public, which clearly eroded Maximus’ loyalty. It’s also strange that if cold fusion diodes really were the key to making infinite fusion cores (which they rarely find) then it would be left alone. It looks like several fire teams, each led by a trusted Star Paladin, all wearing power armor, will be there to make sure one of the other chapters doesn’t come in and take it for themselves.

Additionally, the showrunners and Bethesda have an allergy to establishing a canon ending for Fallout: New Vegas And Fallout 4. However, the arrival of Xander Harkness from the Commonwealth branch seems to imply that the Minutemen or Brotherhood endings of Fallout 4 are canon, as the Institute and Railroad endings see this. Prydwen disintegrated, and the Muslim Brotherhood was almost completely dissolved. The appearance of Xander isn’t as significant to the lore as, say, if Arthur Maxson appeared on screen, but it does mean that the Brotherhood still operates in enough strength in the Commonwealth to remain a force.

Walking Back to the Big Reveal: Last season gave us the jaw-dropping revelation that Vault-Tec may have been the one responsible for launching the nukes that started an apocalyptic nuclear war. This is something completely new in history, which previously still led to uncertainty as to whether the US or China launched it first. This season, they’re moving away from that. Mr House even said that it was ultimately “unclear.” We also saw where Enclave’s Siggi Wilzig instructed Barb that she should say that line in the meeting. All the tension they built up in the scene in Season 1 was largely lost in Season 2 with the rather cryptic reveal being “the surface is an experiment.” So we’ll see where this leads, if they don’t walk That revealed again next season.

Ghoul Family Temptation: I included this one because it was sent via telegram before. For all the other cryopods we see, like Bud’s Buds, we can clearly see figures inside them. Both Barb and Janey’s pods looked blurry when we looked at them, which told me they were empty. So, no resolution there, but we do get a clue to lead Ghoul/Coop on the next stage of the quest. Let’s hope there’s a resolution for next season.

My Biggest Worry: Really, I’m a little worried that Season 3 will be overblown, especially if we only get eight episodes per season. One of the main problems with this season seems to be that there isn’t enough screen time to cover everything. More storylines are opened than resolved. If we look at what could possibly happen for Season 3, we have:

• Brotherhood/Liberty Prime civil war
• Caesar’s Legion vs. NCR controls the route (along with Mr. House)
• Ghoul goes alone to Colorado to look for his family
• Enclave vs. Super Mutants
• The Pre-War Story of Cooper Howard and his family
• Vault-Tec/Enclave hidden control chip
• The Vault 32 rebellion against Stephanie Harper
• Vault 33’s instability and water/food scarcity
• Norman and whatever he ends up doing

There’s still a lot to cover, not to mention the new arc they’re creating that we’ve never heard of. If we had a 12 episode season, that would be one thing, but eight episodes seems like it would be hard pressed to advance the plot in a satisfying way. I hope Season 3 will start to give us some resolution, so they can really focus on the main characters and important things.

I was also a little worried that the Ghoul would go away on its own. I think some of the best moments in the show are when Lucy and the Ghoul are on screen together. It’s likely we won’t get much of that for a while since the distance between them will be so great.

Final Thoughts

Even with my worries, I still attended this event. Fallout is one of my favorite gaming worlds, and even with some flaws and missed opportunities, this team and these actors, (in my opinion) are able to do it justice.

I wonder where they go from here.

Thanks for reading!

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