A Review of Fallout: Give Me More Goggins

I would've taken 8 hours of The Ghoul but this wasteland mishmash ain't bad at all.

Fallout is a video game series I revere. Love. Adore. 

When Interplay (the Michael Scott of 1990s Game Publishers) released Fallout 1 & 2 in 1997 and 1998, respectively, I was able to get copies from my local library. I was awful at them. They are top down isometric CRPG games with a combat system that was difficult for me to be proficient in at the age of 10. The games, like many others at the time, were heavy on text dialogue and while my reading comprehension is thanks in part to gaming from this era, the material went right over my head. It was tabletop RPG stuff with lots of numbers and branching narratives and I only picked up the games because it had a cool looking armor suit as box art. Fallout 1 & 2 had a moment with me but it wasn’t until I was older I could appreciate them. 

Fallout 2 in 1998

But then, Fallout 3 came out in 2008. Bethesda, having purchased the rights to the name, rebooted the franchise with a first person Action RPG with a game engine they used for their successful 2006 hit The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Bethesda and I have a long history starting with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind so when I heard they were taking on Fallout, your boy was HYPED. Fallout 3 has the world exploring and character freedom of their fantasy series but set in the desolate world of Fallout. An alternative timeline where nuclear technology was pursued after WW2 until we all blew our world to hell. Corporations like Vault-Tec created Vaults underground to house those fortunate enough to get a spot and they would wait centuries before resurfacing on a new earth to start again. Of course, nothing goes as planned and once people do get back up top, the world is complete chaos with raiders, ghouls, creatures, and cults. 

Yeah baby - that’s what we’re talking about

Following Fallout 3, Obsidian stepped in to develop Fallout New Vegas (while Bethesda focused on Skyrim). New Vegas is hands down one of my favorite games of all time. It improved upon the formula in 3 and contained quest writing that I still think of to this day (Ghoul in the rocket, anyone?). 

After Skyrim was released in 2011, Bethesda worked on Fallout 4 which…is a good game but I never finished it. I think I have restarted it about 3 different times, got about 40 hours in and called it quits. I don’t know! I love Dogmeat and the guns felt better but I found the quest writing to be boring, uninspired. This was also the beginning of Bethesda’s fascination with “base building” which continues to be an added feature of their games I ignore. 

Talks of a show have been going on since Fallout 3 arrived in 2008 but Lord Todd Howard (Bethesda’s game director and internet punching bag) rejected all proposals for a show feeling it didn’t do the brand justice. Microsoft would go and buy Bethesda’s parent company, Zenimax, several years ago and now Todd had to make sweet, sweet revenue for the shareholders - no more holding back! 

In 2022, when it was finally confirmed that Fallout was going to become a TV show (no longer a rumor), I had reservations. Unlike an IP like The Last of Us, which was also in production at the time, Fallout didn’t have a linear story. Bethesda retconned Fallout 1 and 2 so those were out. Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 and oh yea that MMO ‘76 have a contiguous world but you the player MAKE the story. It’s an RPG - your character is a blank slate to thrust out into the wasteland and do what you want in. So what would a story in Fallout look like? Just vignettes of different folks? Or would they try to make a huge narrative involving the factions at war or the corporations who orchestrated all this? The world is cool, sure, but not games I came to the main narrative for. It was the side quests and their writing that stuck with me. 

I was going to remain hopeful. Jonathan Nolan was attached and hey, Westworld was good (and just a memory now because HBO is a SCAM) though the idea of Fallout coming to Amazon is quite hilarious. Vault-Tec is essentially Amazon in-universe and the plotline of corporations orchestrating the end of the world, well, you get it. I mean in 20 years when we are fighting in the Water Wars and have to pick either Team Disney or Team Amazon, you’ll think of me and smile. 

Anyway, a trailer dropped earlier this year and it was exciting. It seemed to hit all the Fallout notes and looked like the source material. If Fallout is consistent in anything, it is how wacky it can be and the trailer delivered that. Did they pull it off? I think so. My irritations with the show have little to do with the handling of the material but more of how it was written but we will get there. 

Fallout (the show) follows several interconnected characters whose motives all differ but collide for various reasons. The first character we meet is Lucy (Ella Purnell WHO ALSO VOICES JINX IN ARCANE OMG ANOTHER GREAT VIDEO GAME SHOW) who is a vault dweller. After her vault is raided and her father (played by THE Kyle MacLachlan) kidnapped, she takes it upon herself to go to the surface and find him. 

Maximus (Aaron Moten)  is a member of the titular Brotherhood of Steel, a lore-favorite faction. They are the cult of Knights who scour the wasteland for technology from before the war. These are the folks who walk around in the highly marketed Power Armor and believe what they are doing is godly. We can also call them Wasteland Fascists. 

My favorite character and easily the show stopper is The Ghoul played by none other than Walton Goggins. A former Hollywood actor who survived the atomic fallout only to become a radiated ghoul who has been keeping himself alive for about 200 years. The Ghoul connects us to the world before everything went sideways with flashbacks showing the rise of Vault-Tec. 

This is a Goggins fan site btw

There are several other characters as well but these 3 are the focal points. 

For the first few episodes, I struggled with Fallout. I appreciated the aesthetic and the wacky tone but there were things just rubbing me the wrong way. For instance, once Lucy is out of the Vault we find her in a California desert wasteland and several scenes later we are in a lush, northeast deciduous forest by a lake. I was looking up screenshots of the games like, “was there this much GREEN in the games?” Even in Fallout ‘76 which takes place in Appalachia, there is not that much healthy vegetation. There is a disconnect for me because there is no way the characters walked half a day to a lake. Does not make sense at all given the terrain. I know this sounds small and specific but several times my immersion was broken by inconsistencies like this. 

The most egregious of these issues takes place in the first 3 episodes which are, ironically, directed by Jonathan Nolan whose addition to the team I was excited about. It isn’t until the 4th episode that I feel like the show gets comfortable with what it wants to do. But even as the show levels out I found myself irked by the lack of transitions or explanations of how people found each other. For example, when Maximus (not a spoiler) found the cave with the radiation bear right after the crazy scientist was there. How did they randomly drop right in the path of the character they are looking for? There are these convenient moments of characters finding each other without a logical connection as to WHY they would find each other. The world is big and the wasteland is vast - it just creates a narrative disconnect for me.

With that said, I also think that this should’ve been The Walton Goggins Story Hour. The Ghoul is the most developed character with a sympathetic backstory of losing his family, his conflict with politics pre-war, his need to survive in the wasteland and the need to maintain a small part of his humanity. The western vibe of the anti-hero stranger wandering around shooting everyone just to get answers is all we needed. He is the Mandalorian without the baby to look after. Not only is The Ghoul well drawn but Goggins is just delivering an incredible performance. I love that dude so much and for someone who always is a side character, he always steals the show. 

But I understand why we have Lucy who presents a naive perspective of the wasteland. A person who was raised on “doing the right thing” is met with the insanity of the world. Her life of rules is turned upside down and adds these child-like moments of appearing simple and innocent in the face of murderers. The Vault Dweller is the most marketable character too as it is who the “gamer” usually plays (except the incredible Fallout New Vegas or I guess, Fallout Tactics but you get it). Purnell delivers that wide eyed innocence and over the 8 episodes it morphs into assuredness.

Maximus also presents the perspective of another group of rules but theirs are archaic, barbaric, and a dictatorship. The problem I had with Maximus is that he’s kinda a bitch at the start and pretty much stays a little bitch until the end. His arc could be better and there are hints of him getting there but for the sake of spoilers, I won't explain. Writing this now though, maybe that is his arc and maybe he’s just supposed to be a little bitch! I think it’s more than that because the show truly wants you to side with Maximus but…

Also: it would’ve been fun to have the world building commercials the games have. It would provide insight for casual viewers on what the world looked like before the bombs.

For example:

I enjoyed all 8 episodes and watched them over the course of 2 days even staying up way past my bedtime. I was engaged and found myself chuckling consistently. My nitpicks are a product of my high regard for the franchise and my fear of Amazon ruining my baby. What Paramount did with the Halo series gave me trust issues with how media companies handle VIDEO GAMES. The same can be said for Netflix and their fuck up-ing of The Witcher (like how do you just…). Fallout is good and I assume will be better for people who casually enjoy the series or go in blind. It’s no Last of Us but if you like absurdity, it has you covered. 

What I find the most effective part of Fallout (outside of Goggins) is the narrative trick of mystery surrounding motives and history. The show holds its cards until the last episode and it plays out better than it should. Not only is the pay off handled well, but the set up for a 2nd season had me audibly saying AW YEAH. 

Is it uneven? Yes. But it’s engaging and it tries, which is always what I appreciate with adaptations of video games. I would say watch for Walton Goggins and stay for the season’s wrap up. It’s fun, violent, goofy, and every so often, a little sentimental.