#brother looked at the barren wasteland and said okey dokey

[mearchy]

i'm watching fallout and when titus had maximus clean his codplate and then maximus went to put it back on and titus grabbed him and held him there, staring him in the face, i was like oh hell yeah, gay?? they gave us a nonbinary person are they also doing the queer thing?? but then titus turned out to be a snivelly little fuck head and that was an act of hetero male dominance or something. i'm still thinking ab it though. the inherent eroticism of putting someone else's armor on them is so good... i hope this comes up again, i'm only on ep 2. but i seriously doubt it.

[agentnico]

Fallout - season 1 (2024) review

The evolution of the phrase “okey dokey” throughout this show says so much for the good old fashioned writing of this season.

Plot: Over 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse devastates America, a violent raid by bandits on an underground fallout shelter forces one of its residents to set out into a barren wasteland filled with radiation, mutated monsters, and a lawless society of those who remained on the surface.

For a very long while in the cinephile and gaming community there has been this shared agreement over the video game adaptation curse. Video games have been plagued with adaptations that end up being met with terrible reception due to a combination of bad writing and poor visuals that don’t live up to the original game. To this day this fact arguably still continues with the likes of Resident Evil and Uncharted. And look, I love Hiroyuki Sanada as much as the next person, but that Mortal Kombat flick from a few years back was not great either. That being said, in recent years there has also been a trend of genuinely successful attempts that have translated surprisingly well. Detective Pikachu banked a lot on Ryan Reynolds sarcastic persona and the Pokémon creatures were utilised well; Netflix’s The Witcher has done pretty well for itself, well until now when they’ve swapped their lead actor for one of the cheaper Hemsworth brothers; Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Sonic flicks I’m not a fan of myself, but evidently from the box office numbers and audience reactions they seemed to have hit the right spot in the fans’ hearts. Then there’s The Last of Us. The original game won people over for its heart-wrenching human drama against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse, and the TV show has done a perfect job of capturing that. Every episode has recreated the game down to the last detail, and even when things are changed, the spirit of the source material is still kept alive. All of that makes it a rare adaptation that succeeds in giving people a new version of the original game and then some, giving it plenty to offer for old and new fans alike.

Now it seems that positive trend continues, furthermore underlining that the video game adaptation curse is now a myth. Well maybe, as that upcoming Borderlands movie is a looking suspiciously clunky but we’ll see how that one turns out. As for presently, Prime Video has shocked us all by giving us a truly fantastic show in Fallout. And I say shocked as the last time Prime Video adapted a famous property was The Rings of Power series and they butchered that one hard! I mean I’m sorry, but making an entire over-bloated season about the mystery of who is Sauron, and at the end the reveal is he’s some teen-Twilight-era dude and we’re supposed to all gasp in awe?? Look, I get that it’s not Prime Video themselves to be blamed, but the show runners and writers, but naturally Prime has left a sour taste in my palette. HOWEVER - Fallout is actually genuinely a good time!

I’ve never really played any of the Fallout games. Never appealed to me, and I have always found it difficult to get into any Bethesda games. My fiancée however tried Fallout 4 half a year ago and apparently gave up as she found it too confusing and she got stuck at a monster boss fight early on. I do hope she wasn’t stuck fighting one of those tiny little bugs, surely not. That would be embarrassing. So I went into this show without being a fan of the games, though I was aware of its post-apocalyptic backdrop. One of the best things about Fallout the TV show is that it’s very accessible whether or not you’ve played the games. Yes, fans of the games will notice a lot of fun stuff from the source material, but even if you’re a total newcomer, you can watch and follow along without any issues.

The story revolves around three main characters 200 years after a nuclear war basically destroyed everything, driving some survivors into underground bunkers called Vaults. Ella Purnell (that’s right, one of Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children!) plays Lucy MacLean, a Vault Dweller who, through unfortunate circumstances, leaves the relative safety of Vault 33 and travels to the surface on a life or death mission. She’s joined by Maximus (Aaron Clifton Moten) a squire in the secretive Brotherhood Of Steel - Power Armor-wearing knights who roam the land looking for lost technology. Maximus is almost as green as Lucy, venturing out on a quest he’s not very well prepared to tackle. Finally, rounding out the main trio, we have Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, a gunslinging bounty hunter and mutant who’s managed to live for well over 200 years. We learn more about his past as celebrity Cooper Howard through a number of flashbacks. Naturally more characters pop up along the way. I just want to urge anyone sitting on the fence to give this series a shot. It’s great fun, with plenty of humour, action and mystery and its creators clearly put a lot of effort into making it true to the game universe, while also being inventive with their storytelling.

It’s also really gory. You get to see a lot of human flesh out on display (heck, there are even zombies in this thing!) and it’s all visually looked really well done. Again with Bezos’ Amazon budget, like The Rings of Power show, Fallout looks like an expensive series. It just so happens that unlike Rings of Power this one happens to also have good writing, characters and narrative. There’s some impressive world-building, with every shot filled with various details that I’m sure will please the game fans. The story is really engaging, and I loved getting into the politics of this world and how companies like Vault Tec have more to them that meets the eye.

The primary element that works for Fallout is that’s its easy. As in it’s really enjoyable and straightforward and makes for a solid binge watch. Walton Goggins is superb as the Ghoul. Johnny Pemberton as Thaddeus, a squire for the Knights, was a great use of using a comedic actor and making them play things straight by simply trying to survive in this world, so that when the funny lines did come up they hit strong. Oh, and did I mention that Agent Dale Cooper himself, my boy Kyle MacLachlan is in this show?? Honestly, Fallout is a great time! Amazon, I still haven’t forgiven you for Lord of the Rings, but this is a good attempt for an apology.

Overall score: 7/10