{"id":20761,"date":"2025-12-17T16:58:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T08:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=20761"},"modified":"2025-12-17T16:58:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T08:58:36","slug":"fallout-season-2-premiere-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=20761","title":{"rendered":"Fallout Season 2 Premiere Review"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This review contains <\/em>spoilers<\/strong><\/em> for Fallout Season 2\u2019s premiere episode, \u201cThe Innovator\u201d, which is available to stream now on Prime Video. For a spoiler-free look at what’s to come, check out our <\/em>Fallout Season 2 Episodes 1-6 review<\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n

We may have only known them for just under eight hours in total, but it feels really good to be back in the company of Lucy MacLean and The Ghoul. Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins have breathed exceptional life into this odd couple pairing, and their first season triumphs are effortlessly picked up in this second season premiere \u2013 Purnell never less than completely charming, even when guzzling flea soup, and Goggins always ready with a sharp blade or sharper word. The strength of this duo is emblematic of Fallout\u2019s strength as a whole \u2013 a project that completely understands the often contradictory tone required of this eccentric world, where the goofy walks side-by-side with the terrifying. That deep understanding is vital for this season\u2019s new challenge: the gargantuan task of working within the lore of Fallout: New Vegas, one of the most beloved RPGs of all time. And while the most interesting and iconic stuff is still beyond the horizon of this episode, the authenticity of the show is still plain to see, and it helps this enjoyable premiere rise above a few noticeable blemishes.<\/p>\n

While Fallout\u2019s Season 2 premiere never fails to be entertaining, the first half is too preoccupied with reminding you what Fallout is and who all of its characters are to truly get this season\u2019s storyline going with earnestness. The sequence at the Dino Dee-lite Motel, one of Fallout: New Vegas\u2019 most famous landmarks, is an enjoyably silly showcase of just how much The Ghoul takes pleasure in turning humans into bits of pie-filling, and how Lucy will always look for the non-lethal way out of sticky situations. But the entire event is a reiteration of character traits we already know, and so is essentially homework for those arriving late to the party. It\u2019s a revision exercise that feels slightly unnecessary following almost six minutes of \u201cpreviously on Fallout\u201d montage, and one we\u2019ll likely have to go through again soon considering the show\u2019s third lead, Maximus (Aaron Moten), has yet to show his face. <\/p>\n

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While Lucy and Ghoul\u2019s journey does eventually stumble into more interesting territory (more on that later), it\u2019s by visiting the past that this premiere episode is able to establish more compelling stories for the show\u2019s future. The pre-war flashbacks return, picking up just seconds after The Ghoul\u2019s former self, Hollywood actor Cooper Howard, eavesdropped on Vault-Tec\u2019s diabolical plans in the Season 1 finale. I\u2019m pleased to see that Sarita Choudhury\u2019s Moldaver is back as part of all this, and that her first task is pressuring Howard into becoming a cold-blooded killer. While it seems like she\u2019ll be no more than a shadowy figure on the sidelines, at least she gets to be the person that kickstarts Cooper\u2019s descent into becoming a frequent creator of bloody messes. <\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s involvement with Moldaver, Vault-Tec, and attempting to prevent armageddon puts him in the fascinating position of being on the frontlines of what has previously only ever been Fallout\u2019s distant backstory. Season 1 used Cooper as a lens through which to truly live the kind of pre-apocalypse existence that the games have only hinted at through shattered retrofuturistic kitchens and rusted robot butlers, but we\u2019re going somewhere very different now: right into the middle of the events that caused<\/em> Fallout. It\u2019s sacred territory, the stuff I\u2019d usually say should be kept perpetually beyond our reach, only ever learned about through notes and audio logs hidden behind a hacking puzzle. But I can\u2019t deny that I\u2019m excited to see where this more hands-on approach takes both Cooper and Fallout as a whole. <\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s attempt to prevent armageddon puts him in the fascinating position of being on the frontlines of Fallout\u2019s distant backstory.<\/div>\n

Much of that excitement is generated by Moldaver and Howard\u2019s target: Justin Theroux\u2019s Robert House. Or, as the episode\u2019s ominous intertitle credits him as, \u201cThe Man Who Knew.\u201d A cold opening provides an impressive look at Theroux\u2019s take on New Vegas\u2019 most important character, who combines immaculate grooming, unbreakable confidence, and a trademark breathy \u201chw\u201d sound at the start of his \u201cwhen\u201d, \u201cwhere\u201d, and \u201cwhy\u201ds to create a delightfully insufferable upper-class intellectual. His deal with the striking construction worker is a neat demonstration of how he\u2019s able to use that intellect to orchestrate scenarios to optimum outcomes; he uses money to lure the man into becoming his test subject, and then a mind control chip to take total control. He\u2019s a master manipulator who\u2019ll do anything to bend you to his will. If last season\u2019s finale didn\u2019t make it abundantly clear, billionaires are the problem. <\/p>\n

The splattery back-alley experiment is a fantastic introduction to House, but one minorly stained by the show\u2019s attempt to create an in-universe explanation for the character\u2019s re-casting. Rafi Silver, who played House for a single scene last season, returns in a retconned role that appears to be the industrialist\u2019s \u201cpublic face.\u201d In the strikers\u2019 local bar, workers decry the sight of Silver\u2019s face on the TV, but have absolutely no idea who Justin Theroux is. Perhaps this is supposed to be some kind of twist in the making \u2013 \u201cSurprise, this guy was House all the long!\u201d But if that\u2019s the case, perhaps they shouldn\u2019t have given Theroux the exact same hair, make-up, and smoking habit that Silver has. The whole sequence had me confused as to if the person who looked like House was actually House, rather than genuinely hoodwinked by a red herring. While the character does admittedly need to sport his iconic moustache, that could always have been added in a later reveal. And, more importantly, if Amazon was shooting for a twist, they shouldn\u2019t have confirmed Theroux was playing House in both trailers and interviews that landed months ahead of this episode. <\/p>\n

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Despite this rough edge, I\u2019m excited about House\u2019s position in the show and can\u2019t wait to see him butt heads with Cooper. I\u2019m less enthusiastic about the ongoing tale of interconnected vaults 31, 32, and 33, which so far still needs to prove it was worth continuing into this second season. I\u2019ll admit that I was unoptimistic about this storyline in the first season and was eventually proved wrong by the finale, but what we seem to have this time is multiple <\/em>vault dweller storylines, rather than just the one spearheaded by Mois\u00e9s Arias\u2019s Norm. His journey is thankfully off to a reasonably strong start that instantly builds on his discovery of the now-thawing 200-year-old battalion of frozen Vault-Tec managers, and I expect things will heat up as soon as they\u2019ve wiped the frost from their eyes next week. But the other vault-based plots already threaten to be inconsequential, such as the broken water chip (which reared its head last season for little more than a single line of dialogue), Steph\u2019s ascent to overseer, and especially the in-breeding social club started by a very bored Reg. While it\u2019s true that these jumpsuited idiots do provide a few good laughs, I think gags are better delivered within the main narrative and not as comedy sideshows. There may be three vaults, but I don\u2019t think there needs to be three stories\u2026 although, like with last season, a good final twist may justify the time spent with these vault boys and girls. <\/p>\n

Some of the vault-based plots already threaten to be inconsequential.<\/div>\n

When you can see the exciting sparks of disparate plot threads being welded together, though, it really does feel like the best of Fallout is back. The first season eventually wrought many of its ideas into one satisfying, coherent whole, and it feels like this second season is getting started with that process even earlier. Stories from across both the timeline and breadth of the wasteland are stitched together in this episode\u2019s more propulsive second half, as Lucy and The Ghoul discover the abandoned vault that was once used to trial the mind-control chips we saw Robert House testing in the opening sequence. The \u201cturn Americans into communists\u201d theme of the vault\u2019s experiment is a good laugh \u2013 not sharp enough to be genuine satire, but enough to colourfully evoke the idea of a mad Vault-Tec scientist creating \u201cmonsters,\u201d Clockwork Orange-style. It further enriches Fallout\u2019s shadowy corners, demonstrates that aforementioned understanding of the games\u2019 tone, and hopefully points towards even more messed up experiments in the future. Anyone up for a trip to the \u201cGary\u201d vault?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in the metal bowels of yet another underground bunker, we\u2019re treated to a precious few minutes with Kyle MacLachlan to round the episode out on a high. Hank MacLean initially appears to be a dedicated Vault-Tec company man, getting ready to complete his employer\u2019s plans in a fantastically upbeat sequence set to Roy Orbison\u2019s \u201cWorking for the Man,\u201d which is only made better by the involvement of a hot cup of coffee and a damn good smile. But that final radio call really threw me for a loop. Hank may be working for the man, but that man certainly ain\u2019t Vault-Tec. Fallout veterans will recognise that all signs point to Robert House, but how are these men connected? What does Hank\u2019s promotion entail? And is House even still alive? There well may be nobody listening to Hank\u2019s report, after all. Whatever the answers, there\u2019s now a clearly defined web of intrigue that links Hank, Lucy, The Ghoul, Cooper Howard, and Robert House all together. And there\u2019s our central throughline established. While this premiere certainly has its struggles, it gets to exactly where it needs to be before everything fades to black. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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This review contains spoilers for Fallout Season 2\u2019s premiere episode, \u201cThe Innovator\u201d, which is available to stream now on Prime Video. For a spoiler-free look…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3122,669,28,668],"class_list":["post-20761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-fallout","tag-premiere","tag-review","tag-season","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}