DISCLAIMER: This recap of Fallout Season 1 Episode 1, “The End,” contains spoilers. Proceed at your peril.
It’s the end of the world as we know it … well, on Fallout, that is.
The highly anticipated video game adaptation is finally on Prime Video. So far, so good. I’m digging this series premiere’s visuals, aesthetics and intricate world-building. The ultraviolence is inexplicably whimsical and dark. Additionally, the performances are compelling, especially from our leads.
From a narrative standpoint, “The End” does a solid job of laying the groundwork for the season, especially for newbies of this world. It’s immersive and moves at a nice clip.
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Episode 1 — 2077: The End
We open with Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) performing at a children’s birthday party. He boasts the same blue and yellow color scheme as the vault dweller jumpsuits. He sits and stands on a horse while swinging a lasso about. The kids, including his daughter, Janey (Teagan Meredith), are impressed. We see the Los Angeles cityscape in the background. The year is 2077, and nuclear war looms large on the horizon.
The birthday boy’s mom attempts to keep the TV off at all costs, hoping to prevent everyone from thinking about the apocalypse. We hear Matt Berry‘s distinct, recognizable timbre from the family robot. After the show, Janey expresses her concerns regarding the inevitable moment those bombs drop. Cooper explains that his superiors told him to hold a thumb up to the sky while in the military. If the cloud is smaller than your thumb, run. If it’s bigger, though … you’re screwed.
Suddenly, Janey sees a mushroom cloud bloom in downtown LA. It gets significantly bigger. The delayed blast knocks the glass out of the windows. Everyone scrambles, with the family seeking refuge in their fallout shelter. Cooper and Janey saddle up their horse, making a beeline for safety. We see more clouds materialize all over LA. It appears they’re riding past the Griffith Observatory. Side note: Teagan Meredith is absolutely adorable and delivers a moving performance even in these opening minutes.
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219 Years Later
Two hundred nineteen years later, Lucy (Ella Purnell) broadly smiles as she tells the Vault 33 council — Betty (Leslie Uggams), Woody (Zach Cherry) and Reg (Rodrigo Luzzi) — why she deserves to marry someone from Vault 32. We see a montage featuring Lucy as she participates in various activities. She must prove why she’s worthy of partnering and procreating. Overseer Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), her father, and Norm (Moisés Arias), her brother, appear in said montage.
Next, Lucy sees via the Pip-Boy on her wrist that the council accepted her application. She’s gettin’ married, y’all. The vault prepares for her big day while a very pregnant Steph (Annabel O’Hagan) helps her into her wedding dress. Everyone wears the same dress for their nuptials. Lucy signs and dates it underneath Steph, who wore it last time. Lucy is ready to put cousin stuff aside and get the real thing! (Uh, I have questions.)
Goin’ to the Chapel
Hank, Norm, Steph and the other vault dwellers join Lucy as they meet the residents of Vault 32. Lucy’s cousin, Chet (Dave Register), claims the door is malfunctioning, but she knows Chet is in love with her. He’s trying to prevent her from getting married. After gently urging Chet to cast his feelings aside, we meet Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury), the head of Vault 32, and Lucy’s groom, Monty (Cameron Cowperthwaite). Everyone heads into a cornfield for the wedding, but it’s actually a projection.
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We learn that Vault 32 suffers from rotted crops, so its dwellers are ravenous when it’s time to eat after the ceremony. Hank delivers a moving speech. He reveals that because radiation levels outside are falling rapidly, Lucy and Monty’s children will repopulate and re-terraform the Earth. Later, Lucy and Monty arrive at their new home. It’s a picture-perfect 1950s-esque bunker. Monty immediately strips down to his birthday suit. He’s ready to get it on.
Meanwhile, Norm explores Vault 32. He sees the destroyed crops, but that’s not all. Every room is empty, complete with overturned furniture. It’s like a tornado ran through each space. Then, he sees a dead vault dweller sitting in a rocking chair in the nursery. Well, that’s not good.
The Raiders Are Here
Lucy basks in that post-coital glow while Monty fixates on the kitchen sink faucet. Lucy’s Spidey senses tingle. She grabs her weapon and trains it on him. She acknowledges that he’s a Raider. Then, Monty hurtles toward her as the two tango in a different way now. Unfortunately, he stabs Lucy. Fortunately, she retaliates by raking a smashed glass across his face. He goes down for the count. Lucy grabs a first-aid kit to treat her stab wound. Well, no one else is wearing that dress again.
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Next, Lucy ventures out into the vault to find abject chaos. The Raiders, led by Moldaver, attack Vault 33 residents with almost gleeful abandon. Norm takes shelter under a picnic table as Vault 33 fights against the onslaught of Raiders. At one point, Steph, whose husband was murdered by the Raiders, launches a fierce attack to avenge his death. A Raider stabs her in the eye with a fork.
Amid the mayhem, someone breaks the projector, causing the projection of the idyllic cornfield to look like the opening moments of nuclear war. We even see the “Please Stand By” waiting screen. Lucy finds Norm and hides him in a secret compartment. Monty returns to exact vengeance on Lucy. Thankfully, Hank steps in, killing him. Eventually, Hank and Lucy find Steph, Chet and a few others on their knees. Moldaver and her crew have rigged a bomb. Hank realizes he recognizes Moldaver before she offers him an ultimatum: either he chooses his daughter and lets the others die or allows Lucy to die so the others may live.
Hank Falls
Hank shoves Lucy into a separate room, slamming the door behind him. He tells Lucy he loves her before giving himself to the Raiders. They knock him unconscious and drag him away. Then, Moldaver tells Steph, Chet and the others to run before the bomb detonates, which they do. Before she departs, Moldaver remarks that Lucy looks identical to her mother. Lucy’s mother passed away some time ago.
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Later, we see Maximus (Aaron Moten) getting the snot kicked out of him courtesy of his fellow aspirants. Then, his friend, Dane (Xelia Mendes-Jones), helps him up. The pair move about the Brotherhood of Steel headquarters. Maximus attends class, where he’s not quite as up-to-date on his studies as the rest of the aspirants. We learn the Brotherhood is responsible for preserving technology and regulating its usage, ensuring the Wasteland doesn’t fall prey to another apocalypse.
Next, a massive aircraft carrier arrives with the Brotherhood of Steel knights in their power armor. Maximus and Dane stare at them in awe. Afterward, Dane persuades Maximus to abandon latrine duty to check out the power armor up close. The higher-ups pull Dane aside to inform them that they’ve been promoted to squire. Maximus looks slightly envious. That evening, he steps outside to scream, so he clearly wants to climb the ranks of the Brotherhood.
Regrouping
The following morning, Dane sustains a nasty injury courtesy of a blade in their boot. An elder escorts a blindfolded Maximus out of the barracks to interrogate him. Elsewhere, Vault 33 regroups and rebuilds in the blood-soaked aftermath of the Raiders’ attack. The council meets in the cornfield with the survivors to discuss their next move. Lucy staples her stomach wound together before joining them.
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Lucy believes they should take a small group outside the vault to search for Hank. Betty, Woody and Red vehemently protest this. Nobody visits the Wasteland. However, Lucy understandably wants to find her father. She doesn’t know where the Raiders took him. Norm remarks that the council would rather not locate him so they can remain in power.
So, Lucy takes matters into her own hands. She dons a backpack with supplies for her journey. Chet and Norm distract the others while they take her to the entrance. Chet claims he’ll accompany her; however, Lucy administers a dart to knock him unconscious. Eventually, two older vault dwellers see Lucy open the massive door to the outside world. She ventures onto the Wasteland despite their protests. Outside, she sees skeletons and bones. Corpses caked in sand. Finally, she spots a Ferris wheel in the distance. My guess is this is Santa Monica Pier.
Interrogation
Next, Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer) interrogates Maximus as Knight Titus (Michael Rapaport) lurks above him. Quintus reveals the other aspirants claim he put the blade in Dane’s boot. However, Maximus asserts his innocence. We see flashbacks to young Maximus emerging from a milk bottle fridge—all alone. He connects with a Brotherhood knight. Maximus insists the Brotherhood took him in and cared for him when no one else did. He has ambitions. He wants to move through the ranks.
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Elder Cleric Quintus believes him and states that Dane’s now out of the running as squire. Maximus will take their place and work for Knight Titus. Aaron Moten is quite gripping in this scene. Later, Maximus undergoes a ritual as the elders promote him to squire. Knight Titus brands him. Then, the knights and their squires prepare for a mission from the highest clerics in the Commonwealth. A denizen of the Enclave has escaped. He fled with an object of “profound potential.” The Brotherhood of Steel must retrieve this man and the tech.
Before Maximus departs with the other knights and squires, Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton), one of the aspirants who beat him up, hands him a photo of “The Target.” It’s of Dr. Siggi Wilzig. Maximus probably feels pretty great right about now. Bullies never win!
The Ghoul’s Grave
Next, three men in Western gear launch a baby doll’s leg through the chest of one man guarding the entrance of Dom Pedro’s camp. Points for creativity. The leader informs the other two that Dom Pedro digs one man up annually to cut pieces off him before reburying him. The trio stops in front of said man’s grave in a small cemetery. We learn it’s none other than The Ghoul’s plot. The men procure The Ghoul’s coffin. They’ve brought a chicken to sate his appetites.
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Finally, The Ghoul (Goggins) emerges. He looks at the chicken and licks his lips but doesn’t consume it. The men tell him about the missing Enclave denizen and how there’s a significant bounty on him. They want The Ghoul to join forces with them to find Dr. Wilzig. They also tell him that the doctor is running toward Moldaver in California — The Ghoul’s old stomping grounds.
The Ghoul remarks that if this is these guys’ “last job,” their hearts were never in it. Our fella does this sh*t for the love of the game. He kills them before departing.
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Will The Ghoul intercept Dr. Wilzig? What will Lucy find in the Wasteland? What other plans does Moldaver have? Will Maximus fare well in his new squire position? Only time (and more episodes) will tell.
Fallout Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.
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