I Watch TV: Fallout (Season 2)

 

Fallout (Season 2)

At the end of Season One Maximus had become a hero in the Brotherhood of Steel for finding the Cold Fusion Chip. The Brotherhood chapter move to Area 51 in the Nevada Desert where they use the Chip to produce energy cells. Elder Quintus invites leaders of other Western American Chapters to come, planning to keep the Chip rather than send it to the Head of the Brotherhood in The Commonwealth. A representative of The Commonwealth arrives unexpectedly and Maximus and the Brotherhood spend most of the season trying to figure out what to do about all this, in increasingly violent, fanatical, and farcical ways.

Also heading to Nevada are the other characters. Hank MacLean finds his way to a secret Vault-Tec underground corporate headquarters in New Vegas where he perfects mind control chips for a mysterious figure. His daughter Lucy MacLean intends to bring him to justice. She’s accompanied by the Ghoul, who wants to find his wife and daughter, who he believes have been cryogenically frozen since before the war in a Vault-Tec bunker. They encounter various wasteland groups, familiar to players of the videogame Fallout: New Vegas. Perhaps most important are Caesar’s Legion, a Rome themed slave empire caught up in a civil war since the death of the last Caesar; and the New California Republic, scattered since the destruction of their capital Shady Sands. Shady Sands was destroyed by a nuclear bomb smuggled in by a man mind-controlled by Hank MacLean; Maximus was a survivor.

This is linked to events in the pre-war past; Cooper Howard, destined to become The Ghoul, travels to Las Vegas with his wife for a meeting with Robert House. House, the head of RobCo industries, has predicted everything – but there is a rogue factor, someone playing against him. And it is they who intend for there to be a nuclear war. One part of this unknown factor is Cooper’s encounter with a Deathclaw while fighting the Chinese in Alaska (technically pre-war). Young Hank MacLean is carrying the Cold Fusion Chip to House, who intends to use it to protect Las Vegas and himself from the coming nuclear war.

There are two other storylines, related to Vault 33/32/31; within the Vaults problems arise as a water chip is damaged and the overseers can’t agree on how to deal with it. Overseer Steph resorts to murder, only for her fiancé Chet to reveal her terrible secret at their wedding – she’s Canadian. Meanwhile Norm MacLean, trapped in Vault 31, unfreezes all the pre-war junior executives and leads them into the outside world, only to discover they have secret plans for the vaults.

What to think of this show? In the end only The Ghoul’s dual-time quests and Lucy’s attempts to remain good, do justice, and find her father compel. Maximus has some strong scenes, yet most of his time is spent hanging around while the Brotherhood Of Steel try to decide what they’re going to do. The scenes in The Vault continue to be fun – the façade of 1950s techno-neighbourliness tearing at the seams. Yet the most interesting characters, the MaCleans, have left. The fate of the Vault(s) is in Norm’s hands and he’s leading a group of ruthless idiot executives from the before times into the wasteland, trying to stop them realising he knows nothing of their plans.

The Ghoul has made bad decisions unknowingly before, and makes more of them now, eyes open, cynically playing the best hand he can. Lucy has to get down in the dirt with the horrors of the wasteland, but she maintains her optimism, and there’s always a distance left between her compromises and the worst people.

This remains funny, zany, occasionally clever, gorily violent and sometimes presciently disturbing. I don’t know that it’s great TV, but it is good TV, mixing up elements from the games with some pointed writing, acting and effects. This might, god help us, be the Fallout TV show we deserve.

Watch This: Gory, gruesome dark TV hiding a heart of cleverness and sincerity
Don’t Watch This: Good people have bad things happen to them; bad people have bad things happen to them; one note joke characters have bad things happen to them