The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Amazon's Fallout | Character Review and Critique (SPOILERS) 

Apologies for me mixing up scribes and initiates 😂 thank you for watching! Let me know what you thought of the Fallout show!

for me Lucy was a breath of fresh air in terms of female main characters. She's sexually open (weird take but it was so good to see a sexually okay woman on screen xd) She's smart and resilient, but she has yet to toughen up. She has principles that she doesn't lose over time, they just evolve. (from the naive view of her golden rule, to the "I'm saving your ass fucker"-golden rule)

He was done with vault tech when they said no dogs allowed and that’s why he’s my favorite

Honestly, Vault 4 was a nice bait and switch. It is "the good that came from the evil" that sometimes emerges in such apocalyptic scenarios was a good thing. It's messy and reflects a lot of "presumptions" that people have and expect things to go. It was good times :) when it's about Maximus, he is a survivor, he isn't the brightest lightbulb, but he IS SURVIVING in an almost no matter the cost. Again, the Elder is seeing what he WANTS from Maximus and not really seeing what he is about. He is dark, he has hatred, he has grief, he is hungry for SAFETY and some sort of peace. He is scared. He always had those "bad traits" and his ending is what comes the closest thing of a "coming into power despite your wants being almost opposite". I loved his arc too with Lucy and Cooper. They have positives and negatives and those kinda take front stage depending on the situation and the emotional context. I love it! It's so refreshing. They obey rules of their character traits but it shifts and responds to the present situation with the cumulated experience. For such a "simple" outline, they've built really good characters. One thing I don't understand though is Thadius doing regeneration from the neck arrow shot. Todd Howard is probably going to start selling more toys and gadgets from the Fallout verse :P

Your chanel is one of the rare finds, a true gem from the "old era" of the Internet, before when forums and videos had sustenance and meaning, not just clickbaits and views. I am so grateful and happy it got recommend to me and now I can enjoy good food for thought and proper reviews!

Shaped By Stories, You're amazing! I hit the like button as soon as I saw it!

Typically in shows like this, everyone in the writers' room works on every episode of the show. One or more writers are later given credit for an episode, due to the rules of the Writers Guild of America (WGA). If you feel like the story took a bad turn at a specific point, that was most likely a group effort and not due to a single writer taking over.

I love your take on Maximus I felt the same way he could have had such a good villain arc (still can on season 2). But I think you should know the show has many different directors and writers for each episode that’s why it feels so close to perfect but yet a little choppy, communication between directors must be hard.

I love the show, but I also don't get too caught up in the lore, despite having played all the games. Sometimes you need to just enjoy something, even if it is not perfect

The way I saw it, episodes 5 and 6 served to address our main characters' flaws. Lucy's prejudices are exposed (she's accepting of surface dwellers on the surface, but when she realizes that a Vault is inhabited by mutants she is instantly suspicious and regards the things she doesn't understand as sinister) and Maximus's character is tested by luxuries he couldn't even have imagined ("when you say hot shower...?"). Both of them learned a lesson about rash action, though Maximus had to be persuaded not to doom an entire vault-full of people who treated him exceptionally well just because it would be convenient for him. There's still room for him to grow. Maximus was an interesting character. I was on the fence about whether he put the razor in Dane's boot right until that shot in episode 1 of him stepping out of the refrigerator as a child. At that point it clicked for me that Maximus is still a child in a lot of ways (a child soldier, no less) and that made pretty much everything he did in the rest of the series make sense. He's not calculating and he doesn't really understand people, so when he thought that he and Thaddeus bonded over saving each other's life it made sense that he thought it was the right time to come clean. It's hard to tell exactly how much he has grown (from a certain point of view, his intention to give up on the Brotherhood is trading his fantasy of being a knight for a new fantasy of living a life of peaceful luxury with Lucy in a Vault) but it will be interesting to see how responds to getting exactly what he used to want right as he stopped wanting it. Also: Dane is the one to watch--they have shown themselves to be extremely calculating. The only questions are whether they are sincere towards Maximus and the extent of their feelings. A few quibbles about the Ghoul. The character that Cooper Howard played for almost his entire career was a white hat sheriff, pretty much the opposite of the character of the Ghoul. I believe that we see all of his character growth (and any future growth) as Cooper Howard from the past, because as the Ghoul he is little more than a revenant (albeit very charismatic thanks to Walton Goggins) driven by the purpose that has sustained him for over 2 centuries ("Where's my f-cking family?") I have a theory about where this goes, but it is something I wish I never considered (just in case it turns out to be correct.)

Another banger video! Also great to see someone else fall in love with how the show handled Power Armor. It just looks so darn good!, would've loved to see so T-45 tho in the show, but I get why they just used T-60. Anyway thanks again for the amazing vid and I hope you have a lovely day.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been waiting to hear a review I actually trusted to be even handed before I watched Fallout and when yours came out I knew I found it. Thanks!

In episode 4. Why would that Mr. Handy bot go through the trouble of finding, and attaching a new finger on Lucy. When he's just gonna kill her and harvest her organs anyways?

I'm a newbie writer, and if I'm going to critique my writing, the most glaring flaw would probably be that it is super obvious who my favorite character is. Like the chapters dedicated to my favorite character can reach 6k words, while the chapters for other characters only have 2-3k. I think with much more experienced, well-established writers, it can be harder to identify who their favorite characters are. I think that's kinda what happened in this show. It's super obvious that the showrunners' favorite is the Ghoul. While the writing for Maximus and Lucy fell quite short. I think Lucy is their second favorite though, because her writing was much better than Maximus'. I really agree with you that they could have made Maximus much more interesting. I was so hyped during that episode when Maximus and Thaddeus got the head and they were cheering so happily. I thought they had amazing on-screen chemistry and was really looking forward to their duo. Idk but outside of anime, it feels like we've been missing fun and pure friendships in shows. So I was disappointed that the show didnt go that route. I think the show had a lot of strong moments, but there were also many moments that I'm like, huh? and there were also moments that felt cheap. Not just cheap in a convenience type of way, but cheap like marvel-comedy cheap. It's definitely one of the better shows that came out this year, but I dont think it's up there with the best of all time like breaking bad, early seasons of prison break, early seasons of game of thrones, etc.

I never thought Maximus was ever meant to be my favored character. He was always written at maximum cringe, but I do agree, the how of that definitely changed after episode 4. If anything, I feel like he is an exercise (at least for me) of learning to love a character I hate after some time. Maybe they think they'll have a season 3 as well to give me more development over time. I do kinda hope he and Thaddeus reunite in some way, but also resolve in the end amicably. I also want more of Barbara Howard and to see how she steeled herself to be as loyal to vaut-tec as possible in order to save her family her way. At least, that's how I read her. I feel like she was conflicted for a while longer than Cooper was because she knew so much more. There's no doubt in my mind she had to be some kind of ruthless to get into her position over boring men in suits. I also want to know if she had any kind of plan to install herself as overseer to "the good vault" to keep things civil or something like that. I just think there's so much to her we didn't get to see. I really am invested in the family story around Cooper because I found their family unit to be quite endearing. If the world wasn't the way it was, they'd be the perfect picture of the American family. New Vegas is gonna be a disappointment for the people who think the show will "get good" once they're there and will be even more disappointed than they were when they got mad about Shady Sands being blown up. My biggest gain for them getting to New Vegas is figuring out which ending ended up canon. (The longest of shots is seeing Yes Man anywhere at all, but I would love to see it.) I think no matter how New Vegas ended, it would look like some stuff went down on the strip. As for episode 5, I felt it was the necessary mundane episode, which yes feels like filler, but I think it needed to happen to put characters in the places they needed to be to fulfill the outline. 6 I enjoyed because it was like any of the super weird one off missions that just left you kinda stunned that such a weird thing happened. Did it need to be connected to Moldaver? No, and that part kinda sucked cuz it went nowhere. As for the end of the season, I felt it ended in such a way that signified that we weren't coming back to California. In fact, my crackpot theory is that each season, should they get to continue into the future beyond season 2, is to take a tour of the major places Fallout has ever been and give us, the players, the little shiny thing to hem and haw at. I'm not complaining about that, though. I've already seen the show as a DiCaprio meme pointing at the references, which is still very enjoyable. I just hope that whatever they decide to canonize, they stick to their guns about it. Making stuff wishy washy will only make people trail off. Dane's confession was kind of a bummer, but I think it happened to keep them in the show and maybe develop into something more. A knight maybe, or someone who tries to Arthur Maxson that chapter of the Brotherhood (more than it is). My one complaint for the whole show is the lack of Captain Kells (Tim Russ) making an appearance since we've confirmed the airship is the Prydwyn (and not another Prydwyn class airship). He could have done the breifing in ep1 and I wouldn't have said a damned thing about it again lol. Sorry for the wall of text, but I do love the show very much.

This is the first video of yours that I've watched. I'm glad it popped up in my algo. Subbed! I enjoy your take on the characters. I didn't even realize the show had a number of writers between episodes, which does explain quite a few things. Lucy shooting Cooper-- foreshadowing there. I like that theory!

IM SO GLAD MY BOYFRIEND SHOWED THIS VIDEO TO ME. i 100% agree with the finn from starwars thing ive been saying that since the trailer. and the duo of thad and max. and just a LOT of things. You should do another video on the lore inconsistencies. Theres a ton of issues with that and it kills me. Still enjoyed the show a lot tho. Love your vid

Why would she assume that max would know who moldaver is? What guarantee is there that Max would believe her?

Great video. I've never played the game but enjoyed the series. Hopefully there will a season 2

Great stuff, I actually really love hearing people explain how to fix the problems with media as opposed to just pointing out problems and leave it at that. Also, if it's okay to ask, did this video manage to avoid being copyright claimed? There are a couple horror movies I'd really love to make vids on, but I've avoided them bc of that

I'm just gonna say this right now- I disliked the first line of this review. Mainly because it sounds like a brain-dead tacky Twitter take, but also as a fan of this franchise I think it represents a really silly viewpoint of this series legacy. I love New Vegas, I think it's the best in the series, but I think a lot of people are under the impression that Obsidian can do no wrong and Bethesda can do no right. New Vegas only exists because of how amazing Fallout 3 was. It was one of those games that was considered defining for its generation, and it single-handedly revived a niche series and brought it to the forefront of gaming. I don't like how all of it is written, and I think some areas desperately need more attention. But a lot of new Vegas fans take for granted how insanely difficult it must have been to start from square one and turn a very isolating and difficult game into something that was almost universally enjoyed. That first line would have been fine if this were a good review, but it isn't. I was disappointed with it. I disagree entirely with your problems with Maximus and with Vault 4. I’d go so far as to say you are misreading the entire point of them in the story. Maximus’s struggle with being blamed for his friend’s decision honestly says more to me about everyone involved, than if he had done it. Because it tells you how scared recruits are of defying the brotherhood orders. His friend would rather ruin his foot than tell the brotherhood he was scared, that’s the level of loyalty that they had. When Max is interrogated, he feels so conflicted about what happened that he tells the elder “I kinda wanted it to happen, is that wrong?” He’s honest, he’s looking for validation and he’d rather be tortured and be honest than lie to the brotherhood. This is so much more powerful as a piece of characterization than Max doing something so cruel to his friend. Max is kinda a subversion of the typical male wasteland you’d expect. He’s not the ghoul, he’s not some overpowering force who uses cruelty and wit to get what he wants. He’s scared like anyone else would be, and is still naive to the horrors outside of the brotherhood, just a lot less so than Lucy. But Max isn't some good guy either, he does kill one guy by letting him bleed out in power armour and WATCHES. He's still a manipulative character, but a sympathetic and guilty one. I think the real way you are misreading the text is that you were expecting Max to be something the Ghoul was supposed to be, and honestly does way better than Max could. The Ghoul corrupts, tortures and dismantles Lucy, as far as anyone can without killing her. He's also way more entertaining and interesting as that person than Max could have ever been- because of his relationship with Vault-Tec and the Vault Boy. If Max slowly made Lucy more and more of your typical wasteland, that would be the most boring and straightforward way they could have done that. It wouldn't have challenged Max as a character, it would only challenge Lucy. Max having to scramble to deal with his mistakes was way more entertaining and true to the games and the world, watching him get attached to his bully, make a stupid mistake and then rely on Lucy made the meeting of Lucy and Max so much more tense and interesting because she had just escaped the super duper mart, and max’ decision to lie about his name also says a lot about how guilty and vulnerable he feels. Your take on Vault 4 makes no sense because the fact that they aren't participating in experimenting strengthens the overall point of the story. Not only does Lucy learn that vault tec is experimenting on its inhabitants, but she's also completely invalidated for pushing past the boundaries of its inhabitants to learn that. At first, she's entirely trusting of the vault inhabitants, then she's convinced they are a cult after seeing one scary ritual and immediately jumps to thinking they are monsters. When she finds evidence of that it only strengthens her resolve. She tries to make the wasteland fit within a binary, good and bad- and she's rightly punished for trying to simplify her view of people down to that for the sake of her safety. I think it's important that Vault 4 be morally complicated- because that's the reality of the games and the real world. Every other person she'd met in the wasteland had either been stupid, cruel or tried to harvest her organs. Vault 4 is the only place where people didn't try to kill her on the spot or threaten her directly. It went far to show just how paranoid she’d become. It was important, and it was good writing. Overall, this review reads less like an actual account of what the show failed and succeeded in delivering by its merit. It instead reads more like a fan who is frustrated that the fanfiction she wrote about the story halfway through the series wasn't made canon, and that frustrates me because this generally seems to be the consensus of a lot of people in the fandom. I don't like Bethesda as a game studio nowadays. but this fanbase needs to stop pretending like Todd Howard personally hates the franchise origins because he made a series of different writing choices. Tim Cain, one of the original creators of Fallout has gone out on record to say that Obsidian and Bethesda had a great relationship and that he dislikes seeing that kind of bitterness. The show is nearly perfect. It's clear that whatever storytelling issues that the games in 3 and 4 didn't creep into the show. But some fans are never going to see it as the great work of storytelling it is, because it had a Bethesda logo at the beginning. They will ignore when the creators state that The New Vegas is still canon because they want to victimize themselves, and will ignore that the final shot of the show is New Vegas. They will pretend like the NCR capital being nuked is so unfair and unheard of- when Lonesome Road literally gives you the option of nuking the NCR. Every single story change you would have made sounds less interesting than the ones in the show for blatant reasons. It just sounds so predictable, I would have still liked the show but a lot less. The version we have had kept me on the edge of my seat. I'm gonna end my review with my favour statement from the showrunner: “I don't believe in making a show for the fans, I don't think they know what they want” He's on the money. You guys have old-world blues.

Great review. Interesting point about Vault 4 having been a lost opportunity to escalate 'Goosy's arc of maturation - instead of regressing it. Although, who really needs more moral relativism (haven't watched episode 8, but patricide is already close to 'patriarchy' in our 'vault' dictionaries) ? Epic pitch for an alternate 'Dark Maximus' arc (I think, I remember wiping a Brotherhood chapter for their moral ambiguity... and their high-tech gear...). Completely agree, about the comparison with Disney's 'space Janitor Finn' who performs every emotional nuance of the plot and circumstance so that a viewer can identify with him, but then appears to be written merely as a tokenistic 'Black Parcival' - hence half the European Union backing the production, including a diversity hire stamp of approval... It is the same issue of 'Committee Writing' and splitting screen time across a demographic, proportionally - instead of boldly settling either for a migrant hero, a female hero ('Lucy'), or a 'baby boomer' hero ('Cooper') - and possibly dedicating another season on another, diverse perspective - akin 'play-throughs' of the same game with a different character, deliberately exploring different choices and outcomes... [Willie Ricks and Stokely Carmichael advocating not for legalistic 'civil rights', but for realistic 'Black Power', a black nationalism - loathed by established corporate power as 'populist'...] ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A_py0RHhPag.htmlsi=_vqbvLk-vkK3-0Ov To someone who's been homeless during the winter months, taking a single warm shower and then shift character is _totally_ plausible - but it's well observed that after watching a man bleed out and taking a fierce beating in order to claim the power armor, Maximus' character remains written as mostly goofy, indeed - but so is 'Goosy' - and virtually all others, and one could wonder whether it is meant to be an impression of Bethesda non-player characters (epic cast of Xelia Mendes-Jones as Dane and Johnny Pemberton as Thaddeus)... Then... there is all-consuming time, indeed - and here it is: streaming services will never use their theoretically unlimited screen time, frugally - it is not in their interest to craft 'neat', masterful stories when 'miracle boxes' and 'red herrings' will pay for the service, one show at a time... Look ! There is women in leadership in most factions - what else do You want ?... Guess, after sifting through political waste and episode 8, I'll look into 'Shogun without Richard Chamberlain'...

The way I see Maximus and Lucy is that both have ideals going into the story. Lucy is obvious, but Maximum idealizes the bravery and "goodness" of the knights. Then Titus ends up just being another scared bully. Yeah, his vault experience felt off. As if he should have been the one to be suspicious and been the one to do the investigation. Perhaps saving Lucy from becoming a new test subject. But that sort of makes Lucy the old timey "girl in distress" just there to be saved over and over. I could have done without the entire vault 4 arc but overall I loved the show. It felt very "Fallout" in every way.

V--------- Give us more button!!

I would love to hear more about the show from ya!

I actually really liked Maximus' arc being about innocence and indoctrination. Kind of mirrors the other two protagonists, showing that indoctrination isn't unique to any one society or culture. All 3 protagonists are at some point in unlearning their cultish mindsets. Cooper is long past his ideological break with the cult of capital. He had totally bought into the 1950s American exceptionalism, to the point that he was literally an actor that represented the mythological "honorable cowboy", a fabrication that works hand in hand with the illusion of benevolent capitalism. Maximus and Lucy are both at the start of their disenfranchisement, and both represent echoes of the america that was. Lucy represents the corporate eugenicist facet of 1950s america, and elements of early US colonialism, manifest destiny style. Maximus adheres to an ideology in line with American military supremacy. The Brotherhood is the Military Industrial Complex of America, and its religious affiliations. The Cult of Capital, the Cult of In-Group purity, and the Cult of military might. These ideological suppositions breaking down and being challenged is very central to the characters arcs, and considering that their most obvious Ideology/Cult connection is communism, with Moldaver running Socialist meetings (framed as religious which im dubious about), and then later being worshiped as a saint by wastelanders. I'm really hoping they expand on the cultish and religious mindsets that the three protagonists are having challenged, because right now its mostly in subtext, and portraying their three ideological systems as less inherently cultish than what moldaver had going on is...suspicious at best and a direct result of Amazon being the backer at worst.

Can't wait for Amazon to put Preston Garvey in the show. But before that, there's a settlement that needs Amazon's help...

Ghoul was overpowered AF and inconsistent. Struggling to defeat maximums in episode 2 but slaughtering BOS knights left and right later. I agree with you that first four episodes and Bridge encounter scene were written much better than ep5 and beyond. It really felt like modern starwars during ep5 and beyond. And not the good kind.

You just got yourself a new subscriber

Ehh. A lot of you misjudge the show because you don’t understand the lore and/or have never played the games….a big part of Fallout is the aloofness of different personalities and characters. The context matters. The creators want people to play the games and experience the IP deeper than the show. Fallout isn’t just some basic IP being made into a show. It’s been around since the 90s. The show was awesome.

I’m mad they didn’t add me in this show, Bethesda, Bethesda never changes.

I agree with most of what you said but the whole thing about max i disagree SO much i was so annoyed when he was first introduced because it would be so predictable if he did it he was either A. Gonna learn that was bad or B. Become a vallain/betray the MC its something thats been done 100 times before. Him not doing it was great cause it shows he was super jealous bit that other recruits had other virwpoints way better development from both a character and world perspective.

I disagree. I think the characters are great, especially Maximus.

"DId it again." Wha? They haven't "done it" since.... Skyrim? Fallout New Vegas?

I want me one of them pipboys

Bethesdaslop

Here comes the toxic fans. If you say anything negative about the show, they insult you. 😂

There's no good or bad here. Only ugly. The show has no characters. It was written by a teenager. Anyone who finds good in Fallout: Rings Of Power, has discredited themselves as a critic.

Please dont say the fallout show is 2 woke