The second season of Prime Video’s successful video game adaptation series, Fallout, recently dropped the first two episodes of the second season and it might be even more thrilling than season one (so far). We pick up right where we left off, with Lucy and The Ghoul heading to Las Vegas to find Lucy’s father, Hank McClean, who we learned at the end of season one was actually a bad guy the entire time.
The action is – in the simplest terms – so damn fun. Well-timed explosions and gruesome gunshots are paired with a swell of ’40s / ’50s era jazz music. That, combined with The Ghoul’s sassy one-liners and eye rolls as he kicks off the first scene, feels like a glorious and violent tap dance.
Speaking of The Ghoul, Walton Goggins continues to do what he always does – steal every scene of every show he’s ever been in (looking at you Justified, The White Lotus, The Righteous Gemstones, etc). The sheer charisma and magnetism of The Ghoul (already a beloved figure in the original video game) sets him apart as a bonafide antihero; but in the early episodes of season 2, we’re diving deeper into his back story pre-apocalypse and learning more about what this might all mean to him. His characterization between the two characters (Cooper Howard and The Ghoul) is distinct but has a clear through line – his nearly-heartwarming interactions with Ella Purnell’s Lucy.
Between the costuming, the music, the lighting, and the settings, there’s not a detail out of place – this show screams BIG BUDGET. It’s an eye candy buffet of objects that jumped out of an apocalyptic / video game fantasy, juxtaposed with ’40s and ’50s iconography, all of which are well-paced between the handful of major and minor characters we’re following across this world.
That’s both a testament to the source material (Bethesda Studios) and the belief Amazon has in this show. I’m gobbling up the rest of Fallout Season 2 and am already crossing my fingers for a third season.
