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Only a few hours until Season 2 of Fallout premieres, and here are our impressions of the first six out of eight episodes.
Last April saw the release of the first season of the Fallout TV adaptation, which managed to stand out with its strong, three-dimensional characters and gripping storyline. We wholeheartedly recommended it to all fans of the RPG franchise, even though it did have its slow moments. Instead of releasing all eight episodes of Season 2 at once, as they did with the first season, Amazon will release a new episode on Prime Video weekly starting tomorrow, Wednesday, December 17th, at 3:00 AM CET, until the finale becomes available on February 4th, 2026. We’ve had the chance to watch six episodes of Season 2.
The season opens with a flashback to Los Angeles before the nuclear war in 2077. On the steps of City Hall, demonstrators are attacking robots, while Robert House (Rafi Silver) of RobCo Industries offers the US government his support in international relations during a television interview. Fallout fans will recognize the illustrious ruler of New Vegas from the titular video game. During a bar fight, an industrialist (Justin Theroux) injects a chip into a construction worker’s neck, allowing him to control him at the push of a button. Fallout enters familiar territory for its creators, as executive producers Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are also responsible for Westworld. In the sci-fi Western series, robots have overcome their programming, developed their own will, and even subjugated parts of humanity in its final season. Joy also took on some directing duties this time around.
220 years after the Great War, Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), with differing motivations, join forces to track down Lucy’s father Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) in New Vegas, who narrowly escaped in a T-60 mech suit at the end of Season 1. While his daughter tries to bring him to justice in Vault 33—one of the numerous elaborate bunker complexes deep beneath the nuclear-contaminated Earth where humanity has survived for centuries—for his alleged participation in wiping out Shady Sands with a nuclear bomb, the Ghoul wants to use him to reunite with his family, who disappeared into the vaults after the nuclear catastrophe. In his former life, the Ghoul was the prominent Hollywood actor Cooper Howard. In a powerful scene, we see him trying to get his daughter Janey (Teagan Meredith) to safety when the air raid sirens shatter the seemingly idyllic life in one of Los Angeles’ upscale neighborhoods, and he is confronted with a Vault-Tec advertisement featuring his own image. In the last season, we learned of Vault-Tec’s Barb Howard’s (Frances Turner) involvement in the nuclear attacks. In Season 2, she takes on one of the main roles, and flashbacks reveal significantly more about her motivations and influences.
Kyle MacLachlan once again delivers a fantastic performance as the enigmatic Hank MacLean, and even Twin Peaks fans—MacLachlan played FBI agent Dale Cooper in David Lynch’s mystery series—will likely be satisfied with his portrayal. His morally questionable actions stand in stark contrast to the loving way he treats Lucy. With Ella Purnell, MacLachlan faces off with an equally adept co-star. Lucy embarks on several wild adventures this season, at times facing difficult moral dilemmas. One particularly memorable scene from this season is a brilliantly edited one. Under the influence of medication, she uses her rifle to the strains of Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues,” taking out a group of ghouls dressed as Elvis. While the adaptation from video game to series works well, historical accounts don’t seem to have quite reached the Mojave Desert, and so Lucy encounters the legion’s camp, whose leader (Kaleti Williams), fittingly wearing a laurel wreath, isn’t named Julius Caesar, but rather addressed as Kaiser. This opens up an exciting subplot with a few surprises. The writers, as elsewhere, succeed in populating the world with interesting supporting characters. Fans of the franchise will be pleased to see several cameos of characters from Season 1 and of the games.
While by day we see the population—some in elaborate costumes—wandering the dusty streets of New Vegas, and a single moment of carelessness can let shopkeepers end up dead in a trash can, by night deathclaws roam the neon-lit streets of the former gambling paradise. These are swift and powerful variations of Jackson’s Chameleon, which the Ghoul encountered in a flashback to his previous life as a soldier in the Great War. Although the war is briefly mentioned from time to time, we see relatively little of it, and the first six episodes primarily focus on what led to it and what its consequences are hundreds of years later. Michael Esper delivers a compelling performance as the repulsive Vault-Tec executive Bud Askins and as vile Brain-On-A-Roomba, who psychologically dismantles Lucy’s brother, Norm MacLean (Moisés Arias), imprisoned in Vault 31—until Norm abruptly awakens the Vault’s disoriented inhabitants from their cryogenic sleep and welcomes them to a completely new world. This thrilling storyline takes us to the former headquarters of Vault-Tec, where giant mutated cockroaches are now being bred which feels on-brand.
Knight Maximus (Aaron Moten), whom we know from the first season in his iconic T-60 mech suit und who was promoted from his duties as Squire, becomes embroiled in a power struggle within the Brotherhood of Steel. The Brotherhood of Steel is led by Elder Reverend Quintus (Michael Cristofer), who resides in a massive, floating metal box in the Mojave Desert—Dune fans will find plenty to enjoy in these sequences. When Xander Harkness (Kumail Nanjiani) from the Commonwealth visits the Brotherhood, tensions rise even further. In a flashback, we witness, from the perspective of Maximus (Amir Carr) and his family, the self-sufficient paradise of Shady Sands, created from the ruins of the nuclear war, being destroyed by an atomic bomb. Maximus’s powerful character development spanning both seasons, from a subordinate keen on following orders to a courageous fighter who stands up for his convictions, is one of the main reasons to tune in week after week.
Other key locations in Fallout’s second season include Vaults 32 and 33. Following the raiders’ attack in Season 1, both vaults have been fundamentally restructured. While Overseer Steph Harper (Annabel O’Hagan) reigns over Vault 32 with an iron fist, her loyal companion Chet (Dave Register) and the occasionally watchful Zach Cherry (Woody Thomas) are slowly realizing that things aren’t entirely above board. Betty Pearson (Leslie Uggams), on the other hand, at the helm of Vault 33, is proof that humanity hasn’t completely vanished from the underground metal cages. In this Vault, Reg McPhee (Rodrigo Luzzi) fights for extra rations for a rather extraordinary support group. After another rather lavish party, it becomes clear that not only pop culture and fashion, but also the racism of the 50s and 60s is deeply ingrained in the minds of the vault dwellers. Racism is repeatedly addressed in Fallout, for example, in relation to the ghouls, who are viewed as inferior cannon fodder by the Brotherhood of Steel and not as people mutated by high radiation levels. However, shining counter-examples repeatedly offer hope that societal change is possible.
As in the stylish trailers of the video game series, the show effectively utilizes contemporary music by Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Chubby Checker, Ferlin Husky, Marty Robbins and Bill Haley and His Comets. The series is accompanied by the fantastic, epic orchestral soundtrack from Ramin Djawadi (Westworld). Special praise is due to the production and costume design teams, as the New Vegas depicted in the series closely resembles the setting of the titular game. The excessive use of bloom—especially in the flashbacks—becomes tiresome. However, the high-quality CGI effects create visually outstanding moments, such as when Lucy and the Ghoul are attacked by a giant radscorpion in a seemingly abandoned hospital, or when they are chased across New Vegas Strip by the wonderfully macabre Deathclaws.
Final thoughts
Fallout’s Season 2 builds on the high production quality of the previous season, and its New Vegas closely resembles the wonderfully bizarre and dangerous setting of the titular game. Whether we join Cooper Howard in flashbacks in desperately trying to prevent a nuclear war, witness the power struggles in Vaults 32 and 33 or within the Brotherhood of Steel, or watch Lucy and the Ghoul finding themselves in various jams in their search for Hank, every storyline is thrilling and expertly directed. It’s a joy to watch protagonists like Maximus rising to the challenge. The show’s numerous cliffhangers can be somewhat frustrating, as this time you have to wait a week for each new episode to be released and can’t binge the entire season. Though, it doesn’t seem like the new distribution strategy significantly detracted from the show’s excellent editing in an attempt to retain viewers and keep them subscribed to Prime.
With two episodes remaining, many mysteries remain unsolved, and we’re eager to see where each character will end up. Apparently, up to six seasons are already planned, though hopefully, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy learned from Westworld, which was cancelled by HBO one season before its intended conclusion, from planning overly optimistically and will lead the show to a satisfying ending. It doesn’t quite look like that’s happening at the moment, but at least Amazon seems to be fully committed to Fallout for the time being as they have already confirmed a third season, with filming starting this Summer according to Jonathan Nolan.
Amazon provided us with the first six out of eight episodes of Fallout Season 2 and the images.
