The second season of Amazon Prime’s Fallout series debuts later today, but reviews for the post-apocalyptic atom-punk show are pouring in now—and the vibes seem mostly positive, aside from concerns over the story expanding in too many different directions.
Picking up exactly where season one left off (with Ella Purnell’s Lucy and Walton Goggins’ Ghoul setting off in pursuit of Lucy’s evil dad), Fallout’s second season takes us to what many players believe is the setting of the best game in the franchise: New Vegas. Goggins’ world-weary and cynical Ghoul and Purnell’s wide-eyed and naive Lucy are a match made in Western heaven, and it seems that their dynamic still feels fresh in this new season—though critics only got to see six out of the eight episodes in season two.
Whereas season one spent a lot of time setting the scene and building the audience’s connections to the lead characters (who also include Aaron Moten’s Maximus, a rookie soldier in the Brotherhood of Steel), Fallout’s latest installment focuses on the apocalyptic wastelands’ competing factions and their leaders. Much like in the games, their conflicting ideologies and consistent tensions make the wasteland even trickier to navigate, but it seems the time spent on these various factions dilutes the adventures of the three leads: Lucy, the Ghoul, and Maximus.
There appear to be numerous flashbacks to the pre-apocalypse in this season, focusing on Goggins’ pre-Ghoul identity of Cooper Howard, who spies on his wife and her work with the Vault-Tec corporation. According to Andrew Webster at The Verge, the show ensures that the cause of the nuclear wasteland is abundantly clear: greedy tech execs: “Fallout is never subtle with its social satire and that remains true here. The end of the world is brought about by a group of tech oligarchs who wield too much power, and as one character muses early on, ‘every dollar spent is a vote cast.’ Board meetings show billionaires salivating at the business opportunities that come with the apocalypse.” I wonder what Amazon’s Jeff Bezos thinks about that.
In IGN’s review, Matt Purlow writes that Fallout season two is “structured more akin to Game of Thrones,” with “multiple other concurrent storylines that make Fallout feel like the story of the wasteland itself as much as it is the tale of the key characters.” This results in a “very packed season” with “inevitable casualties,” mostly notably of which are the stories of the vault dwellers, whose silliness Purlow feels is at odds with the rest of the season’s tone.
Here’s what other reviewers had to say about Fallout season two, which is currently sitting at a 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with just 28 scored reviews in:
I worry that Fallout’s downward spiral will only continue. As Westworld soldiered on, the world got bigger, but the story got more generic. By the time HBO canceled Westworld—on a major unresolved cliffhanger!—it didn’t seem like anyone even cared where it was all headed. Fallout risks going down the same path. The last few episodes of season 2 might correct that course (season 3 is also already greenlit, for what it’s worth) but if not, Nolan may develop an unfortunate reputation for setting up exciting sci-fi TV shows that fail to pan out. – Jake Kleinman, Polygon
Though all the storylines aren’t as compelling as the others, the series’ structure and pacing keep it moving so the audience doesn’t completely lose interest. For viewers who are well-versed in the Fallout game universe, seeing Easter eggs around New Vegas and various factions coming to life on screen for the first time undoubtedly adds a level of interest and delight that may go over the heads of newcomers. – Aramide Tinubu, Vanity Fair
Fallout remains a show that glories in high contrast visuals, emotions and characters. There is no shortage of new disgusting ways for the people of this irradiated world to get maimed and die, and no shortage of new mutant creatures for Lucy, Ghoul and Maximus to have to battle, either. Both Parnell and Moten have settled comfortably into their roles, and the latter feels distinctly more natural as buttoned-up Maximus this time around. — Kelly Lawyer, USA Today
Bogged down with world-building, Season 2 feels as if the Amazon Prime Video executives know they’ve got a hit on their hands and can’t help but game out a Fallout universe filled with spinoffs and sequels, even though they still need to develop the characters who first got viewers invested in a post-apocalyptic society that’s still controlled by corporate interests. — Ben Travers, Indie Wire
The comparisons to Westworld and Game of Thrones certainly have me worried, but I’ll weigh in myself when I can watch Fallout season two with my own eyes—you know, the same ones that actually liked the Halo TV series (eesh).
Fallout season two episodes air every Wednesday on Prime Video, starting today, December 16.
