The show incorporates a licensed soundtrack similar to the video game series and includes many of the same songs as the games. I have included a list of the featured songs for each episode.
Spoiler Warning: I am going to give a synopsis of each episode and my opinions at the very end.
Episode 1: The End
On an alternate version of Earth where real-world history diverged from reality after 1945, a resource war breaks out between the retro-futuristic societies of the United States of America and China. A series of nuclear attacks are launched on the United States in the year 2077, forcing the populace to seek shelter in underground fallout bunkers called "vaults".
219 years later, seeds and parts from Vault 33 are exchanged with Vault 32 as part of the dowry for 'Vault Dweller' Lucy MacLean's marriage to a Vault 32 dweller. During the wedding reception the Vault 32 dwellers reveal themselves to be raiders led by Lee Moldaver, who takes Hank MacLean (Lucy's father) hostage. Against Vault regulations, Lucy leaves the vault to rescue her dad.
Elsewhere, a paramilitary faction known as "The Brotherhood of Steel" questions aspirant Maximus about a trap that injured aspirant Dane - someone who was recently promoted over him. Maximus denies having had anything to do with the trap and offers up his life as a show of loyalty. He is promoted to the rank of squire for his obedience and sent on a mission with the power-armor wearing Knight Titus to hunt down a member of the Enclave (another paramilitary faction). Cooper Howard, an actor from 2077 who was transformed by radiation into a ghoul (disfigured humans with long lifespans), is approached by bounty hunters seeking the same Enclave member.
The Brotherhood, at least the branch seen in the show, is portrayed as the strongest toddler on the playground. These guys are not the best and brightest, just one of the better armed factions. The power armor they use is powerful but not impervious; there are plenty of weak points and it won't accomplish much if the pilot is incompetent or a coward.
Featured Songs:
- All Over Again (by Johnny Cash)
- Brighter Side (by Connie Conway)
- Crawl Out Through The Fallout (by Sheldon Allman)
- Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes (by Perry Como)
- Keep That Coffee Hot (by Scatman Crothers)
- A Nervous Kiss (by Carl Coccomo)
- Orange Colored Sky (by Nat King Cole)
- So Doggone Lonesome (by Johnny Cash)
- Some Enchanted Evening (by The Castells)
- Who Do You Suppose (by Connie Conway)
Episode 2: The Target
The 'target' Dr. Siggi Wilzig flees from an Enclave facility with his laboratory dog, CX404, and runs into Lucy in the wilderness. He warns her against starting fires at night and urges her to return to the safety of her vault. Meanwhile Knight Titus and Maximus follow Wilzig's trail to a cave where Titus forces the unarmored Maximus to search the area alone. A yao guai (mutated bear) sneaks up on Titus, who tries fleeing in vain. Maximus shoots the bear dead but decides not to administer aid to Titus as retaliation for his mistreatment. Once dead, Maximus takes Titus' power-armor for himself.
Lucy travels to the ramshackle town of Filly where a shootout over Wilzig takes place between Cooper, Maximus, and various other bounty hunters. Wilzig looses a leg in the fighting and CX404 is badly wounded while protecting her master. A shopkeeper specializing in vault merchandise instructs Lucy to take Wilzig to her client Moldaver and to use him to bargain for Hank's freedom. On route, Wilzig takes a cyanide pill to avoid putting Lucy in further danger by slowing her down with his bad leg. He instructs her to cut off his head to use as a bargaining chip with Moldaver instead.
Featured Songs:
- Don't Fence Me In (by Bing Crosby)
- I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire (by)
- Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall (by The Ink Spots)
- It's A Man (by Betty Hutton)
Episode 3: The Head
When The Brotherhood requests a status update from Knight Titus, Maximus assumes his identity and lies about 'the squire' dying in an attack. The Brotherhood sends squire Thaddeus as a replacement, along with a message from the Elder Cleric that whomever obtains the target will have the power to control the wasteland. Maximus recounts his battle with Cooper over Wilzig, which Thaddeus interprets as an intentional loss as ghouls leave radiation trails that can be followed.
Lucy is attacked by a gulper (mutated mudpuppy) which swallows Wilzig's head. Cooper uses Lucy as bait to lure out the gulper, but the drugs he uses to maintain his health are destroyed in the attempt. With few other options available to him, Cooper takes Lucy as his prisoner and abandons the head. Maximus and Thaddeus then follow Cooper's trail to the same location and defeat the gulper, retrieving both the head and CX404.
Featured Songs:
- Act Naturally (by Buck Owens)
- Maybe (by The Ink Spots)
- Tweedle-Dee (by LaVern Baker)
- We'll Meet Again (by The Ink Spots)
Episode 4: The Ghouls
Lucy becomes increasingly disgusted with Cooper after witnessing him
murder another ghoul for flesh. The two banter about ethics in a
survival situation that ends with Lucy biting off one of Cooper's
fingers and he cutting one of hers off in retaliation. He then takes her
to an organ harvesting operation in an abandoned supermarket where he
trades her for new drugs. Lucy manages to fight off "Snip Snip" the
Mister Handy robot performing the procedures and frees several caged
ghouls in the facility, unaware that some of them were "feral"
(basically zombies). Lucy kills for the first time in self-defense and
realizes that Cooper needs the drugs he traded her for or he could turn
"feral" as well.
Back in Vault 33, Lucy's brother Norman decides
to investigate Vault 32 after conversing with one of the captive
raiders. He discovers that all the Vault 32 residents died two years ago
from infighting and that someone used his deceased mother Rose's
Pip-Boy to open Vault 32 from the outside.
"You know, that... that creature that brought me here. He did not treat me very courteously. When I pointed out that he wasn't following the Golden Rule, he put a leash around my neck and made me drink from puddle water that I'm pretty sure was just some kind of animal pee. And I thought I was here to be a sex slave." -Lucy MacLean
Featured Songs:
- It Ain't The Meat (by The Swallows)
- I Can Dream Can't I? (by The Andrews Sisters)
- Let's Go Sunning (by Jack Shaindlin)
Episode 5: The Past
Maximus confesses his true identity to Thaddeus and then attacks him when Thaddeus refuses to lie to The Brotherhood about what happened. Thaddeus manages to disable Maximus' power-armor by removing the power core and then leaves with both the head and the canine. Lucy happens upon Maximus and frees him from the immobile suit. The two agree to work together, traveling to the ruins of Shady Sands - the former capital of the New California Republic (NCR). Lucy is dismayed to discover the NCR had a population numbering 34,000+ after the Great-War, as the whole purpose of her vault was to repopulate the country, but it seemingly "happened without them".
"You could've been lying about the medicine, and you weren't. And you could have killed me when I collapsed back there, and... you didn't. I get that trust doesn't come easy up here. But you can trust me. I'm from a place where the worst someone can do to you is forget to say thank you." -Lucy MacLean
During their journey Maximus is injured by cannibals while attempting to
cross a bridge, forcing the duo to search for medical supplies in an
abandoned Vault-Tec building where they stumble into Vault 4.
Meanwhile,
Norman finds mummified bodies in Vault 32 that appear as if they were
trying to get into Vault 31. Hacking the central computer reveals that
every overseer in Vault 32 and 33 originally came from Vault 31. At that
same moment, council president Betty Pearson is elected as overseer of
Vault 33 by a 98% majority vote. Her first order is that Vault 32 be repopulated by 33
once repairs have been made.
"It's the same thing that always happens. Everyone wants to save the world, they just... they disagree on how." -Maximus
Featured Songs:
- Henry (by The Jet Tones)
- It's Just A Matter Of Time (by Brook Benton)
- Ladyfingers (by Herb Alpert)
- Robin In The Pine (by Bonnie Guitar)
- What A Difference A Day Makes (by Dinah Washington)
Episode 6: The Trap
Lucy and Maximus have their wounds treated by the residents of Vault 4, many of whom are refugees from Shady Sands. Oddly, most of the residents native to vault 4 have physical deformities of some kind and are unhappy with their Vault's policy of openly interacting with surface dwellers. This strikes Lucy as odd because her Vault's policy was the complete opposite. And after witnessing a bizarre ritual in which the refugees drink blood and worship Moldaver as "The Flame Mother", Lucy decides to investigate the Vault's forbidden twelfth floor. There she finds women being used to birth human-animal mutant hybrids in an attempt to create radiation resistance within future humans.
Featured Songs:
- Give Me the Simple Life (by June Christy)
- Lonely Hours (by Gene Armstrong)
- Skitter Skatter (by Metrotones)
- Summer in Love (by I Marc 4)
Episode 7: The Radio
The Vault 4 residents explain to Lucy that all Vaults were used by the Vault-Tec company to conduct immoral experiments on the unknowing occupants inside. Vault 4 rebelled against its scientists and have done the best they can to ease the suffering of the remaining test subjects. As punishment for her transgressions, Lucy and Maximus are banished from the Vault.
Thaddeus abandons CX404 at a Red Rocket gas station but his foot, which had been injured previously in the scuffle with Maximus, forces him to seek aid from a snake oil salesman. The cure seems to work, so Thaddeus makes his way to a nearby radio tower to call The Brotherhood for a ride. Lucy and Maximus arrive at the same location and recognize that Thaddeus' miraculous new healing abilities are because he is turning into a ghoul. Maximus takes the head to act as a distraction for Thaddeus, as The Brotherhood has a policy of killing all 'sub-humans' such as ghouls, mutants, and synthetic lifeforms.
With repairs finished, half of the residents from Vault 33 are moved to Vault 32. Stephanie Harper (originally from 31) is appointed as overseer. Finally having had enough, Norman sneaks into Vault 31 using Betty's computer.
Featured Songs:
- From The First Hello To the Last Goodbye (by Jane Morgan)
- Only You (by The Platters)
- Sixteen Tons (by Merle Travis)
- I'm Tickled Pink (by Jack Shaindlin)
- You're Everything (by The Danleers)
Episode 8: The Beginning
Cooper reunites with CX404, whom he renames Dogmeat
(a recurring companion in the video games), and reflects on his life
219 years ago, before the bombs dropped. His wife Barb was an employee
at Vault-Tec, but he disagreed with the company's policies and began
eavesdropping on her meetings. To his horror, Vault-Tec planned to
eliminate its competitors using nuclear war and would then take over as
the world's new leaders. His wife proposed that each top brass at the
company take several vaults to conduct whatever experiments they think
would best serve humanity - no matter how unethical.
Back in
Vault 31, Norman finds the cryogenically stored junior executives of
Vault-Tec, which have been watched over by Bud, a brain-on-wheels
cyborg. Norman is then sealed within Vault 31.
Lucy brings Wilzig's head to Moldaver, who reveals that both she and Hank are from 219 years ago. When Lucy's mother Rose realized that Hank was hiding dangerous Vault-Tec secrets from her, she fled to the surface with her children. Outraged, Hank tracked Rose down to Shady Sands and had it nuked, turning Rose into a feral ghoul. Wilzig's head, which everyone has been after, contains the secrets to cold fusion - limitless energy, which Moldaver created and wishes to share with everyone in the wasteland. But before the war, Vault-Tec took it from her and made it proprietary, so only a Vault-Tec higher-up like Hank knows the code to activate it. With some pleading from Lucy, Hank relinquishes the code.
"What do you suppose your Brotherhood would do with infinite power? Maybe you can stop them. Maybe you can't. Maybe all you can do is try." -Moldaver
Upon Maximus' return to The Brotherhood they plan to have him executed
for lying about Titus and bringing a fake head. Aspirant Dane admits to
injuring himself to avoid the battlefield and pleads for them to show
mercy to Maximus. Maximus is then allowed to join them once more provided he
takes them to the actual head. During the battle against Moldaver's
forces, Maximus frees Hank from his prison but then attacks him after
learning about his part in Shady Sands destruction. Lucy disowns Hank
when he grievously wounds Maximus and expresses no regret for anything
he has ever done. When Cooper arrives demanding to know where his family
is, Hank flees to New Vegas using Brotherhood power-armor.
Cooper
invites Lucy to travel with him and Dogmeat to find the Vault-Tec
leaders, which she accepts. Moldaver is injured in the battle with The
Brotherhood but manages to activate the fusion reactor, powering Los
Angeles before succumbing to her wounds. Maximus is then proclaimed
Knight Maximus on the false assumption that he was responsible for
Moldaver's death.
"The Brotherhood has lost its way. We once ruled the wasteland... and yet power is taken, not given. A lesson you seem to have learned." -Brotherhood Elder Cleric
Featured Songs:
- I Don't Want To See Tomorrow (by Nat King Cole)
- We Three (My Echo, My Shadow, And Me) (by The Ink Spots)
Final Thoughts
The show manages to keep the aesthetics, themes, music, tone, and humor
of the video games while remaining accessible to a general audience. It is common for video game adaptations to either
assume the viewer is already familiar with the work being adapted, and so
don't bother to explain it properly, or they assume the viewer knows
nothing and explain everything. The Fallout TV series manages to tread a
middle-ground where the terminology, creatures, technology, various
factions and how the world functions are all introduced and explained
organically. For example, when Lucy gets a new finger attached by Snip Snip at the organ
harvesting facility, this scene isn't essential to the plot or character
development but it demonstrates how advanced medical care was before
the bombs dropped and the range of work a Mr. Handy bot could perform.
They even managed to include obscure lore from the games, such as purposefully
taking a substance to become a ghoul, which to my knowledge has only
ever been mentioned briefly by the character Hancock in Fallout 4.
The
show also prominently incorporates major themes and topics from the video games; namely idealism, morality, survival and society. These themes are especially evident in the dynamic between Lucy and
Cooper. Both originally came from a place of relative comfort and stability,
and both were people of great integrity before being cast into the
unforgiving
harshness of the wasteland. Despite having to do heinous things to survive in the new world they now find themselves in, both still try to hold onto a modicum of virtue, such as Cooper getting the ghoul (the one he killed for
flesh) to reminisce about his mother's cooking and waiting until he was
looking away before shooting him. Lucy likewise tries to be diplomatic and non-violent, such as when she tried to find a way to cross the bridge without Maximus or the cannibals drawing a weapon (clip). And even when that doesn't pan out she still talks Maximus into returning a power core he stole from Vault 4 so that the vault dwellers within wouldn't die from a lack of power. These themes are also seen to a
lesser extent in Maximus, who was saved by a member of The Brotherhood
of Steel and came to idealize them. He joined the faction and worked his
way up to squire only to be disappointed when his 'heroes' weren't the
white knights he thought they were. Maximus tries to be better than them
but can't do it without getting a little dirty and betraying the The
Brotherhood's ideals.
It's a constant dilemma of the survivors wanting to be altruistic but having to balance their needs against those of others while also worrying about who they can trust. And treachery is everywhere; from companies like Valt-Tec betraying their own country to use the people as unknowing guinea pigs in horrific experiments, to individuals like Cooper and Lucy being betrayed by their own families (or found family in Maximus' case). It very elegantly manages to demonstrate how every faction, no matter who they are, are flawed in some way and are more than willing to engage in morally questionable actions for what they consider to be the 'Greater Good'.
Have you seen the Fallout TV series? What were your thoughts on the show? Have you played any of the games?
Videos exploring the characters and themes of Fallout:
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