Amazon’s Fallout series is a sci-fi masterpiece. But in many places the characters are too well-behaved for me. The series needs to take a leaf out of Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad’s book.
There’s nothing more upsetting than seeing a hero do evil. Or feeling sorry for a nasty character. At least that’s what series like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones prove. Self-hatred makes Walter White so unscrupulous, trauma makes Cersei Lannister so cruel. Fallout has to do the same in season 2.
This is not an attack on season 1 of the Amazon series. I love it. I think it’s a true sci-fi masterpiece and the best thing in video game adaptations besides The Last of Us. But the story about bunker dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell), warrior Maximus (Aaron Moten) and the bounty hunter Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is sometimes a bit too good for me. What do I mean by that?
Why is Amazon’s Fallout series too nice?
Fallout follows Lucy as she searches for her father outside the bunker. She is joined by Maximus, who is on a mission with the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Ghoul, who wants to capture an escaped scientist. In a subplot, Lucy’s brother Norm (Moises Arias) uncovers a conspiracy. We also learn the ghoul’s backstory as Western star Cooper Howard. That’s a lot of plot, but it never really hurts.
Watch the latest Fallout trailer here:
I want a character to experience a moral dilemma. A protagonist who has to act cruelly in order to achieve good. Or a character gives in to their dark urges in the end and is counted among the villains for all time. Fallout often hints at such moments without fulfilling their promise.
For example, Lucy and Maximus are actually enemies. Both are looking for the same thing for different parties. Wouldn’t it have been exciting to see them sometimes as comrades, sometimes as bitter opponents who care for each other and then betray each other in the next moment? This potential is simply squandered in the dialog because Lucy guesses the common goal and naively offers to search for the object of desire together.
And what about Norm, who is considering killing the looters trapped in the bunker? The camera hovers suggestively over the breakfast he brings the inmates every day. But he doesn’t poison it. Wouldn’t his character be even more exciting if he were to weaken for a moment and take revenge on his friends for the massacre? Smuggle a razor blade into the dessert? And is ashamed and in tears afterwards?
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(Ella Purnell as Lucy)
Not to mention Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury), who Fallout sells us as the big baddie for a long time. When Lucy finally confronts her in the finale, the cruel bandit has turned into an idealistic freedom fighter. Can’t you do both? What’s the problem anyway?
Read more: Fallout season 2 officially confirmed by Amazon Prime
Fallout squanders potential, but the reasons are understandable
The problem is that the Amazon series sometimes subordinates the complexity of the characters to the story. The storylines need to be simplified? Then Lucy and Maximus are now making common cause. Good and evil need to be turned upside down in the finale? Then Moldaver becomes the Che Guevara of the wasteland, bunker massacre or not.
And what about Lucy’s father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan)? He is torn between his love for his daughter and his obligations to Vault-Tec, but in the end he simply flees. If he had possibly tried to kill Lucy, I would have clawed my fingers into the armchair watching it. A twist like that would have really grabbed me.
(Walton Goggins as the Ghoul )
What sound like accusations at first glance are, in the end, observations of tolerable flaws. Because the Amazon series’ reasons for such decisions are understandable. This is a first season. The world-building alone takes a lot of time. The morals of the Fallout universe need to be explained in broad strokes first. And the bizarre humor of the original game doesn’t make it any easier: the more you want to make the fans laugh, the more difficult it becomes with the moral ambivalence. Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad never had this problem.
Read on to find out more: Our interview with Fallout mastermind Jonathan Nolan
Fallout on Amazon: Season 2 of the sci-fi series has to be different
At the beginning of Fallout season 2, however, things look different. The world has been politically staked out, the characters established, the humor has reached a level that makes you laugh even at the absurd cruelty of the nuclear dystopia.
So if Fallout is not to become boring, the producers will have to make their heroes more evil from season 2 onwards. Lucy has to descend into the mire, sawing off the heads of corpses was just the beginning. How does she feel about cannibalism, for example, when the options become scarce?
At the end of season 2, she and Maximus are once again on opposite sides. Against his will, Moten’s character has become the hero of the Brotherhood of Steel. Embittered by Lucy’s departure, he could rule the wasteland with a heavy hand and brutally hunt her down, at the end of which death awaits – or a kiss.
(Aaron Moten as Maximus)
And what about Walton Goggins’ brilliantly played ghoul bounty hunter/ex-John Wayne? He’s the only main character who is truly evil. So evil, in fact, that there can be no question of ambivalence, cute dog or not. The flashbacks to his Hollywood days are also flashbacks to another character.
Accordingly, the ghoul in the atomic present could grow on us more. Or show weakness. Perhaps he meets his wife or daughter again, but instead of love, they only have glowing contempt for him.
Read on to find out more: All cameos and guest appearances in Fallout season 1
Fans will be talking about Fallout for decades to come
Why is it so important that the Fallout heroes become more ambivalent? Can’t the Fallout series just stay the way it is? Basically, I could spend another season just getting sick of the humor and setting of the Amazon series. But series need change.
Nothing is as gripping as the twists and turns a character goes through in the gauntlet of the story. And nothing binds me so strongly to series that can tear away my affection for characters at any time. Or even the characters themselves. Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad are long gone. But fans will still be talking about Jane’s death and the Red Wedding decades from now. And hopefully of Fallout, the masterpiece with 1000 seasons
