Fallout S01E08: The Beginning Review
Medium: Television
Release date: 4/10/2024
Review date: 6/30/2024
Score: 6/10
One of the biggest pieces of criticism lobbied against Bethesda, the current owners of the “Fallout” license, during the release of their first “Fallout” game, “Fallout 3,” is that their version of “Fallout” was a world obsessed with the already existing iconography of “Fallout”: the Pip Boy, the Vaults, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, and the G.E.C.K. Critics accused Bethesda of being too focused on what the “Fallout” universe already was instead of being preoccupied with what the setting could become. And with “Fallout 3” being the company's debut with the IP, with that game being their chance to make it exactly clear what stories and adventures they wanted to tell with the series, Bethesda’s choice to navel gaze and relish in the already established “Fallouts” past felt, while a bit thematically appropriate, rather disappointing.
“Fallout” the show suffers similarly; this is Bethesda's first chance to introduce the “Fallout” license to a whole new audience, and seeing what parts of “Fallout” the company ended up choosing to highlight feel a bit shallow and superficial. My biggest takeaway from this episode? I don't like how well supplied and technologically advanced the Brotherhood is portrayed in the show. I think the image of multiple helicopters full of multiple power armor powered knights with miniguns, all under the direction of a massive zeppelin, feels a bit much for a resource limited post apocalyptic wasteland. Not that the NCR, the organization Moldaver (the lady who kidnapped Lucy's dad) is revealed to be a part of, feel any less well equipped, with all of their automated rocked defense towers and their, uh, cold fusion power generator, which is another element that feels weirdly too high stakes and advanced for the where I was thinking the show was at. The chip that everybody was after this season was some sort of blueprint/code for a cold fusion generator with enough kick to power all the circuits in the nearby Wasteland, which Moldaver switches on but that the Brotherhood claims by the episode's end. That is very high stakes, especially compared to the previous seven episodes - why did the plot need to escalate so severely? Why couldn't this conflict have been paced out a bit better over some of those earlier episodes where not enough seemed to be happening plot-wise?
Lucy's dad being responsible for her mom's "death" felt weird, Lucy's dad being responsible for nuking Shady Sands felt weird, Lucy's dad being a frozen pre-war ValutTec manager that knew the Ghoul back in the day felt weird, Lucy's dad running off to New Vegas in a set of power armor at the episode’s end felt weird. In fact, this whole finale feels like a perfect encapsulation of the criticism against Bethesda’s “Fallout”: the bit about Lucy leaving the Vault to rescue her Dad feels like “Fallout 3,” the bit about the Ghoul being a pre-war movie star feels like “Fallout: New Vegas,” the bit about Lucy's dad being cryogenically frozen feels like “Fallout 4,” Lucy wears the iconic and marketable VaultTec jumpsuit the whole show, everybody's apparently got a set of iconic and marketable power armor, half the show's needle drops are just songs first featured in the games, Shady Springs and the NCR are involved because those are locations and organizations that fans of “Fallout” might recognize, and you know what, let's have Lucy's dad run to New Vegas at the end too, won't that be a fun Easter Egg? It just feels very been there, done that, “won't this sell a lot of Vault Boy t-shirts,” you know?
I don't like the reveal that Maximus didn't sabotage his friend in the Brotherhood in the beginning of the season out of jealousy of them being chosen for the mission, that felt like a cop out to make Maximus seem like a better person. The supposed relationship between Lucy and Maximus feels forced, or at least has advanced too quickly, like I believe they're friends, but I think the show wants me to believe they're more than that and I just don't. The reveal that VaultTec wanted to make middle managers the rulers of the post-bomb world by ensuring the bombs get dropped no matter what felt so well telegraphed by the show at this point that I'm just happy to get that reveal finally out of the way. The old Brotherhood priest who wants to make the Order rulers of the Wasteland with Maximus as one of his knights was interesting, but also felt derivative of Father Elijah from “New Vegas.” I’m not particularly excited for Lucy and the Ghoul teaming up to, I don’t know, get to the bottom of Lucy's dad and the other thawed VaultTec middle managers? Something about tracking Lucy's dad to whoever's really pulling the strings in the Wasteland? In New Vegas, if the episode’s end is to be believed, I guess?
I don't know man, I'm ultimately disappointed by this whole production. The show seems more interested in reveling in what “Fallout” already is rather than what it can be, and thinks that just showing off "iconic" “Fallout” imagery every couple minutes is a good enough replacement for actual setting or story progression and development. I don't really care what is going to happen in Season 2 plot-wise - I only care if the show finally manages to throw off the yoke of Bethesda's “Fallout” and actually do something original and interesting.
But I'm not too hopeful.