Fallout’s final scene hints at a more complicated universe
[Ed. note: The following contains spoilers for Fallout season 1.]
When the credits roll on Fallout season 1’s finale, bad dad Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) is trudging toward a city on the Wasteland horizon. It’s not just any city, either. It’s New Vegas — an iconic locale from the Prime Video show’s video game source material (primarily the aptly named Fallout: New Vegas). So it looks like post-apocalyptic casinos and Hoover Dam firefights are coming our way in Fallout season 2.
Both are worth getting hyped over — as are the many other superficial delights of the New Vegas setting. Yet there’s another, deeper reason to get excited about Fallout hitting the Strip for its next batch of episodes. If the games are any guide, shifting the show’s focus to New Vegas should also open up its underlying moral framework. Indeed, New Vegas’ bright neon lights could supply the shades of gray the live-action Fallout is currently missing.
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Don’t get me wrong: Fallout season 1 has plenty of moral ambiguity — just on an individual level. Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), Maximus (Aaron Moten), and even The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) are regularly forced to choose between what’s right, what’s easy, and what feels good in an uncaring world that seemingly has no preference. The same doesn’t really apply to how season 1 treats Fallout’s various factions, though.
Sure, the Brotherhood of Steel is a bit of a mixed bag, and Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) and her New California Republic remnant’s methods early on are… extreme. But, generally speaking, Fallout season 1 is fairly clear on who its goodies and baddies are. Vault-Tec? Bad. The NCR? Good. And if we could get rid of the former and get behind the latter, the Wasteland could be a Shady Sands-esque utopia, complete with cold-fusion-powered street lamps and trams.
For Fallout season 1’s purposes, this binary worldview works. It’s not even that much of a departure from some of the faction-centric storytelling in the likes of Fallout 3 an
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