Fallout is a gripping post-apocalyptic TV series on Prime Video about a woman, Lucy, leaving her idyllic life in a nuclear bunker to search for her captured father in the wasteland above.
Lucy’s story soon becomes intertwined with that of a bounty hunter and a squire—and they each face battles with robots and mutants on an epic quest to reach a ruling villain.
Discover here what makes Fallout worth watching, as well as how the show could be better.
Fallout Review
Fallout is a uniquely entertaining post-apocalyptic show. With its eye-catching world-building, hilarious ironic humour, and abundance of tongue-in-cheek gore, you won’t have seen anything like it. It just becomes a little dry and too serious near the end.
The Good
- Unique retro-futuristic and post-apocalyptic sets
- Full of irony, parody, and funny moments of gore
The Bad
- Slow-paced filler scenes kill the suspense
- Takes itself too seriously towards the end
Fallout gets off to a great start. Down in vaults sheltered from post-disaster radioactivity, life is sugar-sweet for Lucy and her community. Each member has their job to do, lovely little marriages are arranged, and everyone is perpetually smiling. Life couldn’t be better for Vault 33.
All of this changes abruptly, however, when some visitors to the vault—led by the military leader Moldaver—stage a violent attack at Lucy’s wedding. Body parts are torn off, people are blown up, Lucy’s father is captured, and someone amusingly treats themself to some wedding cake in between the blood and gore.
The ironic humour and gore in these first scenes set the stage for the remainder of the show. Having resolved to go above ground and find her captured father, Lucy encounters a wasteland full of absurdly sadistic mutants and robots, as well as two characters—a squire and a bounty hunter—who’ll either make or break her quest…
The acting is excellent in Fallout, verging on parody—which adds to the show’s ironic, tongue-in-cheek feel. Lucy’s wide-eyed naiveté, the squire’s bumbling incompetence, and the bounty hunter’s raging sadism are all heavily exaggerated by their respective actors, which continually adds comedic effect.
And it’s not just the characters who are parodied in Fallout, either. The underground bunker life—with its big smiles, picture-postcard décor, and corny motivational posters—speaks to the ridiculous indoctrination and propaganda that arise in real-life disasters and wars.
And if you never thought you’d laugh at severed heads, fingers, and feet (of which there are plenty in this series), you will with the ironic, quirky way that it’s done in Fallout. Cheery old-fashioned music often scores very violent scenes, a funny contrast that works throughout.
Where Fallout falls short, however, lies firstly in its pacing. Many of the ‘in-between’ scenes, like when characters are walking silently to a new place, are unnecessarily drawn out. Possibly done deliberately to hit an 8-episode runtime, this dragging-out kills a lot of suspense.
What’s more, the show becomes too serious and un-self-aware towards the end, losing its unique ironic charm. Plotlines are crammed in to criticise Hollywood, capitalism, and corruption—which are fair points to make, but they lack the parody and winks to the viewer of before.
‘Hollywood is in the past… The future, my friend, is products. You’re a product, I’m a product, the end of the world is a product’. Multiple ‘deep’ statements like this arise towards the end of the season, and it becomes quite condescending and cliché. Done right, a show’s political message shouldn’t need to be spelled out in this way.
Faults aside, Fallout comes to a satisfying conclusion and leaves lots of anticipation for more. Many viewers are, in fact, already hoping for a second season. In the meantime, the video games that the show is based on are seeing a surge in plays.
Overall, Fallout is a uniquely entertaining post-apocalyptic show. Although the pace could be sped up and the political message delivered more subtly, Fallout ultimately stands out for its hilarious ironic humour, very creative world-building, and off-the-wall gore that you’ll never unsee.