And then we have the Legion. The Legion may well win the coveted award for the MOST retarded faction in the entire series. So what do we see in season 2? Caesar is dead (a logical development given what happens in FNV – let's assume that in the series' universe, the Courier did not choose to remove the tumor from Caesar's head), and his army has split into two camps, each of which has elected its own Caesar. The two camps are engaged in open hostilities with each other. The reason: between the two camps lies Caesar's corpse, on top of which is a piece of paper supposedly bearing the name of his successor. So, the two factions are fighting each other over who will get Caesar's corpse so they can read the piece of paper.
But the mental retardation doesn't stop there. In the context of this dispute, we see the MOST comical shot of season 2: the distance between the two camps and Caesar's corpse is literally 5 meters!
-“But the Legion was just a bunch of stupid savages in Fallout New Vegas anyway, you TOXIC FAN, why are you looking for a reason to complain again?”
NOT EVEN CLOSE. Apart from the highly educated and eloquent Caesar, the Legion in FNV had many worthy and intelligent current and former members who could have appeared in the series and led with slightly more conviction and intelligence as Edward Sallow's successors. Severus. Lucius. The formidable Vulpes Inculta. The formidable AND TERRIFYING Legate Lanius. Even Ulysses or Joshua Graham would be a plausible choice to somehow return to the forefront. Instead, as a result of the above travesty, Kevin McCallister emerges as the leading figure, who manages in the last episode to grab Caesar's corpse and recover the coveted piece of paper that reads more or less "CAESAR IS ONLY ME AND THE LEGION DIES WITH ME" (which goes COMPLETELY against Caesar's in-game temperament, as in FNV he literally says that he wants to conquer New Vegas precisely so that the Legion can acquire its "Rome" and continue to exist even after him, but whatever). Kevin then proceeds to eat the note (for Christ's sake, brother, you could have just burned it), emerges as the new Caesar, and leads the Legion to New Vegas where he will face off against the NCR in season 3.
-Yes, but in MY PLAYTHROUGH of New Vegas, I killed Severus, Lucius, Vulpes, and Lanius, so it makes sense that they are absent from the series, you TOXIC FAN.
And in my playthrough, I died from Cazadores outside Goodsprings at the beginning of the game, so by the same logic, the events of Fallout New Vegas never happened. You arseclown.
–QUESTIONS:Why are the weakened NCR and the Legion suddenly marching to face off in New Vegas instead of Hoover Dam? Why is there no mention of Hoover Dam and its strategic importance, things that are literally at the core of the Fallout New Vegas plot? Why is the Legion fighting amongst themselves and why don't the factions simply agree to read the cursed piece of paper together and see who will lead? Couldn't the creators at least have placed the two Legion camps further apart from each other and from Caesar's corpse to avoid the visual travesty?
-SHHH, DONT ASK QUESTIONS LIKE SOME SORT OF TOXIC FAN, JUST CONSUME THIS AMAZING PRODUCT.
However, even if we overlook all of the above, which objectively only a TOXIC FAN would point out, season 2 presents fundamental flaws in the very way the storytelling is done. The most significant of these flaws is that it deals with too many plot threads within an excessively limited number of episodes, with the result that all these threads do not have enough room to "breathe." due to the abrupt switching from scene to scene, progressing very little from episode to episode due to a lack of time to deal with them all adequately, or in the worst case, not even being resolved by the last episode.
I mentioned above Norm's interesting plotline (he manages to discover information about FEV and a mysterious "Phase 2" in the works for the Vaults), to which plotline a mere 2-3 minutes per episode are devoted until we reach its hasty resolution in the finale. Other plotlines, such as the one concerning the water shortage in Vault 33 and the "inbreeding club" started by whatshisface in the same Vault, are given disproportionately excessive time per episode but in the end remain largely unresolved or have no particular impact beyond portraying the vault dwellers as mentally retarded (which again goes against the spirit of the games, but whatever). Also, the whole plotline involving the BoS ends up being a bit pointless in the grand scheme of things and could easily have been "wrapped up" in 1-2 episodes instead of dragging on so long, allowing the action to focus on other, more critical and interesting fronts (yes, but then we wouldn't have seen the dudebros killing each other or Maximus fighting a robot while shouting "HOT DAWG," which I suppose is very important).
Another narrative flaw that is largely combined with the above is that the series completely fails to convey the sense of time correctly. The rapid transfer of the action from plot to plot and to locations that are miles apart makes it difficult, if not impossible, for viewers to understand exactly how much time has passed between episodes, or even whether the events of each plotline are taking place simultaneously or there is a time gap between them. Obviously, it doesn't help that the characters are depicted crossing entire swathes of wasteland at lightning speed, travelling from Novac to New Vegas in two minutes of screen time, for example. Be that as it may, all of the above contribute precisely to the "mess" I refer to in the title.
-The characters simply use FAST TRAVEL, you TOXIC FAN. It exists in the games, so it is justified to be a feature in the series as well.
[Perception 7/9] I honestly can't even tell if you're joking or not anymore.
There are other minor, secondary, and highly TOXIC questions that I have formed after watching the series. For example, the warehouse where Cooper and Maximus find the NCR Power Armor and tons of weapons—how did it survive intact in the middle of the Wasteland? It has been established even in Bethesda games that all open-world locations that are not guarded by sentries or security systems are completely looted or become bases for Raiders/Ghouls/whatever, so how is it possible that a ruined warehouse filled to the brim with TOP TIER WEAPONS has remained so conveniently intact in the middle of nowhere? Another question is... where the hell did the STEALTH BOYS disappear to? Really, most of the series' plot threads could have been resolved immediately if one of the protagonists had activated a Stealth Boy and simply sneaked towards their objective. But at this point, there's no point in dwelling on these things—after all, TOXIC FANS only know how to complain.
Anyway, the world state at the end of the season is as follows: somehow the Enclave has returned, somehow the NCR has returned, somehow the Legion has returned, somehow Super-Mutants have returned, somehow Mr House has returned. The NCR and Legion are preparing to battle it out for New Vegas. Lucy and Maximus reunite at Lucky 38, observing the two factions above, with Mr. House lurking at his terminal nearby. The Super-Mutants appear to be preparing for some unspecified future war (with the Enclave? It remains unclear). The Enclave has mysteriously survived EVERY disaster that has befallen it throughout the Fallout franchise, and it is revealed that it has ANOTHER SECRET SUPER-BASE somewhere in Colorado (from which Ben Linus of Lost probably stole cold fusion in the first episodes of season 1 before fast-traveling to California), which is where Cooper is headed in search of his family. Hank also used a mind-control chip to erase his memory when Lucy thwarted his plans (but he managed to send his sleeper agents to the Wasteland), and Steph in Vault 31 has used a special Enclave pip-boy to call the Colorado SUPER-BASE and request the initiation of "Phase 2"... whatever that may be.
So, onwards to Colorado I guess. Colorado is also the location where part of the Fallout Tactics plot takes place, so those interested can look to it for inspiration for any locations they might see in season 3. We also know that, at least until 2281, much of the area was under Legion control, while part of the area would also have been the setting for Black Isle's Van Buren project, which was unfortunately cancelled.
However, despite the mess and my TOXIC comments, in the aftermath of season 2, a rather entertaining realization emerges. The Fallout series script is written by two writers, one of whom has no contact whatsoever with the Fallout games and one who has only played the Bethesda games. So these two decided that out of Bethesda's ENTIRE Fallout franchise endeavors, the main feature they should take into account in the story they wrote for the series was... Fallout New Vegas.
What does this mean? It means that even people who are unfamiliar with the Fallout universe or latecomers to Bethesda's games can see that Fallout 3 and 4, despite their financial success, ultimately never contributed anything significant to the franchise compared to New Vegas. And, to be honest, I will sleep happily and peacefully tonight thinking about how much butthurt this fact might be causing to certain Bethesda bigshots.
