The popular game series Fallout is now an equally popular streaming show, becoming Amazon’s most-watched TV season since The Rings of Power. This despite the belief that a Fallout show or movie was never really right or even possible.

The series of video games date back to 1997, with the franchise's most recent release in 2018. Set in a retrofuturistic alternate United States after a tense resource war in 2077 where the world powers unleashed their nuclear arsenals on each other, the planet is now a nuclear wasteland.

Pockets of humans survive in underground shelters called vaults created by Vault-Tec. The games usually follow someone born in a vault venturing out into the surface world on a quest ranging from finding a new water chip for their Vault to tracking down their dad, who mysteriously leaves the vault.

Fallout takes the world of the video game and creates its own original story that is canon to the series. As the story goes, society stopped developing some time in the 1950s and remnants of that time still exist.

The series follows three main characters. Lucy (Ella Purnell), a vault Dweller, is thrust into the wasteland on a quest to find her father (Kyle MacLachlan) after he is kidnapped by raiders from the surface. Maximus (Aaron Moten) is a squire from The Brotherhood of Steel, a techno-theocratic cult that wants to control the old-world technology in the wasteland.

The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is a radiated human bounty hunter with a mysterious past. All three characters and their storylines show different aspects of the world of the show. The Vault is much different than the surface world, and Lucy is a fish out of water. Large factions inhabit the wasteland with their own ideals and missions.

The performances of the show's big three are fantastic. Purnell is great at playing the wide-eyed and naive Lucy. Aaron Moten’s performance as Maximus is hilarious and nuanced. Maximus is similarly naive but is dogged in his mission, and in his stunted adulthood, he is very conflicted. As the Ghoul/Cooper  Goggins is the perfect and smooth-talking outlaw. The show also features great performances from the likes of Kyle MacLachlan, Moisés Arias, Sarita Choudhury, and many more.

The show's most interesting part might be the situation in Vault 33, where Lucy hails from. The show could have quickly abandoned the vault when Lucy ventures out into the wasteland, but it instead makes the vaults integral to the plot.

The vault is a controlled environment in the show with rules, and something is clearly going on behind the scenes. The vault dwellers of Vault 33 are polite and have a civic responsibility. So, throwing in a massive conspiracy and violence from the outside makes for an interesting dynamic.

The games are known for their humor and atmosphere and this carries on into the show which is funny and weird and hard to watch at times. Humor can instantly turn to terror in Fallout's uncertain world.

Roaming the wasteland, you might get kidnapped and sold to a robot to have your organs harvested. You might stumble upon a community that feels safe but is hiding a terrible secret. The episodes sometimes feel like quests in a game, and they work pretty well. In the games, you keep moving and might get sidetracked, but those side missions might give important context to your experience.


Is the show exclusively for fans of the game? No, it is surprisingly open for fans with no knowledge of the series to jump in. It explains its world through its three main characters and flashbacks to the times before the bombs fell.

It may not be for everyone. The episode length can be grating at times, and some plot reveals down the line may be obvious (most are very well done). There are some big exposition dumps toward the end that can put a wrench in the momentum, but these shows always have big exposition dumps. It may feel daunting or weird if you are unfamiliar with the source material, but it can be rewarding.

Fallout is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.