With the conclusion of the second season of Amazon's Fallout series a few days ago, it's time for a favorite moment of all cool kids and a glorious tradition of this website: another Fallout autopsy!
-Well, if you didn't like the first season and you constantly make fun of Bethesda's Fallout, why do you keep engaging with the series, you TOXIC FAN?
- It's a slow news week and I don't have anything else on my plate.
- [Intelligence 8] For the same reason Twitch streamers play Horror games that make them scream in terror: because it brings in the views/clicks.
- [Speech 29/70] Well, you fight like a cow!
- [Terrifying Presence] Because I just felt like it, punk. [Attack]
It goes without saying that spoilers for season 2 follow, so don't continue reading if you plan to watch episodes of it in the near future. Or continue anyway, who am I to tell you what to read and what not to.
To subvert expectations a bit like another Rian Johnson, I will begin this review by listing some of the things I liked about this season, which I would say have remained consistent from the first season until now. First among these is obviously the series' excellent production values. The costumes are spot-on, the weapons, the locations, the whole atmosphere is exactly what one would expect from a series set in this universe. Special praise must also be given to whoever had the idea to depict the Deathclaws with practical effects rather than green screened CGI.
Then we have some actors, led by Walton Goggins, who once again gives a masterful performance as Cooper Howard. Surprisingly, I still like the character of Norm MacLean and his unique plotline, which unfortunately wasn't given more emphasis, with the series only giving him about 3 minutes screentime in each episode. I also suppose that the portrayal of Mr. House could have been much worse than what we saw, although some of the motives attributed to him in the "pre-war flashbacks" are COMPLETELY lame and contrary to the character as we knew him in Fallout New Vegas.
Lastly, I appreciated that the showrunners had the sensitivity to retcon some of the unfortunate ideas they had in the first season. The intellectually cretinous plotline "Vault-Tec dropped the atomic bombs first to MAXIMIZE PROFITS" is thrown out and transformed into something different, not entirely perfect, but DEFINITELY better than the original choice. It also subtly changes the whole plotline about "the collapse of the NCR in the year 2277," again, not in a totally convincing way, but at least it's a start. Also, in this season, we see a different and clearly more vibrant New Vegas compared to the ruins they teased in the finale of season 1. Also in this case, of course, the end result has its facepalm moments, which I will analyze further below.
But let's get to the heart of the matter. As you may know, season 2 takes place in and around New Vegas, about 15 years after the events of FNV. As you probably also know, the series's creators chose the approach of "all factions claim victory in the game's finale" so that they would not be forced to choose one specific ending from Fallout New Vegas as canon for the series. And the solution they chose to depict this situation in the series was this magnificent one: ALL factions and inhabitants of the world are portrayed as mentally retarded.
The Vegas Strip, where all the casinos and such are located, has been taken over by a large number of Deathclaws. How did they get there? "The Enclave brought them" is the official line given in the series. The first comical element of the situation is that, despite the fact that the casinos are now essentially nests for Deathclaws, the lights on the Strip continue to function normally and the casinos continue to glow at night. Perhaps Deathclaws are now smart enough to operate light switches. The other comical element is that, despite the Deathclaw invasion, life in neighboring Freeside continues as normal, as if nothing has happened. Perhaps the second funniest shot of the entire season was when it showed the Freesiders wandering around the streets in broad daylight, while in the background, 10 meters away and behind a makeshift metal fence, the Deathclaws in the Strip roar and wander around carefree without bothering anyone!
At the same time, despite the Deathclaw invasion, Mr. House's computer remains fully operational in the ruined penthouse of Lucky 38, and the famous tycoon joyfully appears on his screen as soon as the Ghoul enters the penthouse and puts the thing in the other thing. Also, in the basement of Lucky 38, there is a colossal Vault-Tec facility (conveniently absent from FNV), where Hank MacLean appears, aiming to perfect some mind-control chips, which we learn from flashbacks were discovered by Robert House before the war. From the outset, we see that the chips in their current form are malfunctioning with disastrous consequences, but we also learn that Hank/the Enclave used such a chip in the past to "control" an NCR trooper who brought a nuclear bomb to the heart of Shady Sands, leading to the destruction of the city. Finally, Hank drops the line, "Robert House wants to turn all humans into robots, I just want to chip them so I can control them."
–QUESTIONS:How did the Enclave bring the Deathclaws to the Strip? When? For what reason? Why didn't they attack the Freesiders? How did Hank and his agents avoid them when they went in and out of Lucky 38? Does the Enclave even have a presence in the Mojave anymore (in FNV we saw that the only Enclave remnants in the wider area are five 70-year-old veterans and Arcade Gannon)? Why are all the Securitrons deactivated? Why is Mr. House still "alive"? Why does his computer suddenly need cold fusion to function? What happened to Yes Man? Since the Fallout universe is based on the lore that humanity never discovering transistors but stuck to using vacuum tubes forever, how can the miniature mind-control chips Hank is working on even exist in this universe? Since in Fallout 2 we see that Shady Sands, as the capital of a powerful state, has walls and countless guarded security checkpoints with force fields, how did the chipped NCR trooper manage to carry an entire active nuclear bomb into the city center without anyone checking/stopping him? Where in the entire FNV storyline does it say that "Mr. House's goal was to turn people into robots"?
-SHHH, DONT ASK QUESTIONS LIKE SOME SORT OF TOXIC FAN, JUST CONSUME THIS AMAZING PRODUCT.
The NCR, with its well-known presence of multiple camps, depots, trading posts, and patrols, following the pattern of disappearance seen in the first season, is now represented in the Mojave by one officer and two elderly Rangers, who have no contact whatsoever with HQ and sit idly by and... "wait for reinforcements" for the past 15 years. These reinforcements, magically and mysteriously, materialize out of nowhere just in time for the finale of the last episode of the season.
Special mention should also be made of a scene in the penultimate episode where Maximus appears in NCR Power Armor in Freeside, and all the Freesiders praise him with tears in their eyes, shouting "LONG LIVE THE NCR" and other such phrases, along with the final episode where the NCR reinforcements appear on the Strip. Here, the series begins to ignore even what it has established so far in season 2, and goes against its own lore solely for the sake of memberberries and to have a reason to bring the NCR into conflict with the Legion once again (more on that later). Apart from the fact that, as I already said, the NCR seemed to have largely disappeared from the world in general and the Mojave in particular, and that the series itself very often presented it during the second season as "vaguely problematic" and "essentially the same as the Legion," one of the many plotlines of FNV was precisely the NCR's attempt to infiltrate Freeside and Vegas, and how the residents viewed this infiltration with extreme suspicion. Active pawns in this suspicion were, of course, The Kings gang, who in season 2 appear to have all turned into Feral Ghouls, which Lucy happily and easily wipes out.
–QUESTIONS:Why did the NCR army suddenly appear? Where were they, for what reason, and for how long? Why had they had no contact with the three remaining soldiers in the Mojave for so many years? How did they know they had to go to New Vegas? Why did the Kings turn into Feral Ghouls? Why were the Freesiders so happy and excited when they thought the NCR had returned to New Vegas?
-SHHH, DONT ASK QUESTIONS LIKE SOME SORT OF TOXIC FAN, JUST CONSUME THIS AMAZING PRODUCT.
Then we have the Brotherhood of Steel, Todd's favorite faction, who, unsurprisingly, have once again completely lost their "isolated techno-zealots" character. Even worse, of course, is that, in a development we didn't even see in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, the Brotherhood of Steel on the west coast is now portrayed as a bunch of dudebros in Power Armor, who literally behave like horny college kids who beat each other up for no reason and destroy priceless pre-war relics just for fun. The scene where 2-3 steel knights locate and destroy a pre-war car in perfect condition with their weapons just for fun is probably one of the most sacrilegious and contrary to the lore of the entire series, although I'm sure the NON -TOXIC FANS would laugh a lot with it because "HAHA THE BROTHERHOOD IS SO FUNNY." It is also established that the BoS on the west coast is completely Bethesda-ized in its treatment of ghouls, which it considers "abominations" that, according to the Brotherhood's code, must be exterminated at all costs and regardless of circumstances. As the season progresses, we see some other BoS chapters arriving in the west for negotiations (which obviously fail and everyone starts killing each other – WHAT FUN), chapters that of course also behave more like Raiders than BoS soldiers.
The BoS plotline in season 2 is rushed through in the first 3-4 episodes, and then the series stops dealing with it. We return to the Brotherhood in the post-credits scene of the last episode of the season, where we see the chapter leader decide to MAKE HIS OWN LIBERTY PRIME. This development is so retarded that I don't even know where to begin to address it, although I'm sure the NON-TOXIC FANS were thrilled with it because they had such a great time with Liberty Prime in Fallout 3 and 4.
