Fallout review: A rare gem of an apocalypse show you don't want to end (2024)

Fallout spoilers won't be found in this review.

Prime Video's Fallout begins with the end, quite literally. A title card flashes up with those two words – "The End" – and then we witness a nuclear apocalypse first hand through the eyes of Walton Goggins' Cooper Howard.

He, along with the rest of LA, knew the end was only going to be a matter of time. But it's what happens after the end that's more interesting: the "fallout" that fans already know so well from the extremely popular, expansive video game series this show was inspired by.

That's when the series jumps forward 219 years to life in an underground vault where so-called "lucky" survivors thrive the best they can in the hope of one day returning to the surface and restoring civilisation to the Wasteland above.

Related: How to watch Fallout TV show for free

It's there that we meet Lucy MacLean, a young vault dweller who's about to embark on a wedding that's supposed to be a new beginning, yet ends up marking the end of days for life as she knows it.

Without spoiling too much, Lucy is soon forced out beyond the confines of the vault for the first time in her entire life, and let's just say she doesn't exactly love what she finds. But as she traverses this toxic hellscape, Maclean meets a ragtag assortment of survivors who – well, they don't help exactly, but they do make things interesting.

Personality is where Fallout has always excelled, first in the games and now here on Prime Video. Beyond its exceptional cast – more on that later – each frame brims with character thanks to an extremely faithful retro-futuristic design that lends Fallout its quirky yet grim nostalgic view on a perfect world that never was in a damaged world that's all too real.

For fans of the games, everything from the vault's satirical ads to the bleak yet vibrant toxic world above is captured with such precise detail that you'd assume creator Todd Howard worked for Vault-Tec itself. At the very least, he and his team have clearly spent a lot of time obsessing over everything that's come before in the franchise, as there are Easter Eggs galore along with pitch-perfect CGI that nails each setting and character design alike.

One particular monster, the show's version of a Gulper, horrifies with its giant slimy salamander body and the array of human-like fingers that protrude out of its mouth. Yet for a show so concerned with pain and death, Fallout never gets too depressing, and that's because of the franchise's wicked sense of humour, which is on full display here.

This naughty playfulness, as well-realised as the special effects, comes out at the most unexpected moments, like when a salamander chases a man onto dry land and swallows him to the backdrop of old-timey chase music. Yet crucially, these laugh-out-loud moments of disbelief don't detract from the harsh reality of this world, which is perhaps even more violent than you might expect, especially for newbies to this franchise.

It quickly becomes normal to see limbs and even faces hang off a person's body, and you'll grimace when a hidden razor slices through someone's foot as they try to put on a booby-trapped shoe. And that's all just in the first episode alone. You'll wince and even laugh at many points throughout, but the horror of what's happening is never undermined.

That's a tough balance to maintain, so it's a shame that the show doesn't quite manage to reach that same kind of balance when it comes to pacing. Bursts of violence and near-operatic action help punctuate the longer stretches where your attention might waver, but that's not because nothing is happening. Almost the opposite is true, in fact.

With multiple protagonists, settings, and tons of set-up unfolding simultaneously, there are points when you might wish for shorter episodes or a tighter focus. That's especially true of the flashbacks to life before the apocalypse.

Yes, they're a great addition that flesh out the world's past in ways the games never could, and sure, it's bonuses like this that help justify an adaptation in the first place, but there's something to be said for how the games wove this kind of world-building in more organically via recordings and lost remnants of the past.

Instead much of the show's most effective nuance can be found in the acting and characterisation. Emancipation's Aaron Moten and And Just Like That... standout Sarita Choudhury nail the determined, world-weary drive that propels their characters forward while Justified's Walton Goggins gives one of his best performances yet as Cooper Howard, a mutated ghoul of a gunslinger who gives everyone a hard time with biting quips and searing bullet work.

As anyone with even a passing familiarity with Walton's filmography knows, that really is saying something.

Just as Goggins has left us agog with his charismatic cowboy, a role he was clearly born to play, the same can also be said for Yellowjackets star Ella Purnell who embodies everything that's so great about this show in one feisty role.

While there are a lot of cooks playing in the show's radioactive broth, Fallout ultimately hinges on Lucy's journey, both physically and thematically speaking. Much of the show's success rests on her, so thank the overseer that Purnell decided to leave Yellowjackets – a show she already excelled on – to star here in the lead role as Lucy.

There's a sweet naivety to her performance, especially at first, but what's so impressive about Ella is how she retains that even as the wasteland threatens to consume Lucy entirely with wave after wave of cruel, unfair ordeals that would usually break someone of her disposition.

But throughout all this, Lucy maintains a quiet yet fierce determination that pushes her through even the show's darkest chapters, and Purnell embodies that just as well as she does bizarre lines like: "Sperm is pretty important in perpetuating America."

The fact she doesn't just pull this off but goes on to outshine pretty much everyone involved speaks more to Purnell's talent rather than any weaker link in the wider cast. Because everyone does admirable work here, navigating Fallout's unique tone as if they had always lived in this nuclear-drenched world.

And as such, it's actually in the show's quieter moments, when Lucy and Cooper realise bitter truths or when Lucy and Maximus find trust in each other, where Fallout excels most. The big reveals and twists that come rapid-fire towards the end feel earned as a result of this, even if some take a bit longer to arrive than you might hope.

You'll probably see some of this coming already, regardless of whether you're familiar with the games or not. But there's also plenty here that will surprise you too, including too many standout scenes that we've been tempted to mention here.

With so much now established and an inevitable setup for season two at the end, Fallout could very well end up being the kind of five-star show that people will obsess over in two centuries from now, huddled up in a vault watching old tapes of times gone by as the world burns outside. Let's just hope our future bunkers are a bit more resilient than Vault 33, where Lucy once resided.

Fallout will premiere on Prime Video on April 10 in the US and at 2am on April 11 in the UK.