MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Fallout S1 E2 Review
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
Fallout Season 1 Episode 2: ‘The Target’
Series created by: Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Graham Wagner
Featuring: Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins
Synopsis: Lucy MacLean (Purnell) is now outside the vault, continuing on a rather hopeless journey to save her father. Maximus (Moten), newly-appointed squire to Knight Titus (Michael Rapaport), leaves the base with his liege to find a man and his dog. The Ghoul (Goggins) is also around, waiting to drop into the mix…
Review: Fallout was obviously going to be one of the many shows where the main characters converge quickly upon each other, with characters having their own reasons for needing a MacGuffin of some kind, and it’s here in episode two, The Target, where this happens. Unfortunately, a lot of set up straight after an episode that already set up the series means it doesn’t really do a lot with each of the characters. Yes, they all do things, but at the end of it none of them have changed beyond how much dirt and blood they each have under their fingernails.
There is a ray of sunshine in the form of Michael Emerson, here playing a Doctor Wilzig (with the state of the world, probably the only Doctor Wilzig). Enigmatic, mysterious, we see him playing against what seems obvious as he helps a dog escape some mad experiment-type shenanigans. Emerson plays him with the right mixture of shadow and light so as not to come off as simply creepy or naive. Instead I found myself hoping he’d be around for the long haul.
Does next to nothing besides plot.
That Lucy happens upon the man who can help her not once, but twice, screams of good luck in place of good narrative sense. This is only one of the unbelievable things in an episode rather full of inconsistencies. These are present only because if they were absent, the plot would not get from A to B.
We are treated to Maximus and his liege Titus on a jaunt in the forest, giving us a neat little rug pull when the knight’s face is finally revealed. However, by the time the episode comes around to doing what it needs to in order to move Maximus into some power armour, the feeling can’t be escaped that Michael Rapaport has frankly been wasted. His character seems dumbly written even by genre standards. Maybe, if you squint your eyes, tilt your head and shove a piece of celery in each ear, maybe the show can get away with the fact that he’s just dumb.
In a similar vein, considering the logic of the show, how Maximus is able to get a hold of the power armour comes off as too easy. The entire exercise seems like an excuse to get him into this position, far too early to be emotionally satisfying. Again, we’re treated to a setup straight after the setup in episode one. A saving grace of this sequence is that Fallout does somehow capture the panic of a gamer running away from something terrifying, Titus repeating the Brotherhood mantra ‘Oh shit, oh shit’ to great comedic effect.
However, as stated, The Target does next to nothing besides plot. All the main characters converge for a shootout that is passable, but hardly spectacular, a real letdown after the tension in the first episode’s atomic strike sequence. Throughout, we are treated to a musical sting for any time The Ghoul does anything halfway cool, like fire his gun or jump out the way or fart, a musical sting that gets more distracting with each passing use. A deadly drinking game in the making.
Overall, this episode moves the pieces along efficiently enough, irregularities aside, but nothing more. That this season is only eight episodes in length only exacerbates the feeling of wasted time. If that was the aim of the episode, then The Target has surely been met.
Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Smith_M_D
