MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Fallout S1 E8 Review
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
Fallout Season 1 Episode 8: ‘The Beginning’
Series created by: Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Graham Wagner
Featuring: Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins
Synopsis: Lucy (Purnell) is ahead of the game and on the way to get her dad back. Maximus (Moten) heads back to the Brotherhood of Steel. What will Cooper (Goggins) do in the past, and this irradiated future?
Review: Things got a little off track in episode seven. Lucy and Maximus managed to throw away a lifeline in Vault 4, and I managed to spend half a review decrying release schedules. Both equally pressing problems.
This time around, with The Beginning signalling the end of series one (and thankfully not in a twee way, but in a way that is smart and does make sense) we have our three protagonists being pulled apart as much as possible by circumstance, but those same circumstances creating a destiny none of them can avoid.
[There are] negatives some will be able to overcome; others will be turned off by them.
Thankfully, like the title, most of the episode treats the audience as if they’re clever too. We have references to people ‘not wanting to get their hands dirty’, we have a reveal that is hilarious and frightening at the same time and isn’t scared of viewers finding it too weird, and we even have a callback to halfway back through the series, in another language. Startling events that also don’t get in the way of how we feel about these characters.
There are little touches that seem to treat the viewer as an infant. We don’t need to see Maximus’ flashback yet again, unless the studio ran out of money and needed something to put in the gap. Or indeed the insert of Lucy’s pip-boy telling us she ‘has arrived’ at her destination. We can remember these things or figure them out for ourselves because our brains haven’t been treated the same way as in Vault 31. And of course, come the final battle, Maximus somehow survives without explanation.
These are negatives some will be able to overcome; others will be turned off by them. We have some wonderful stuff from Aaron Moten, who has impressed more and more as the series has gone on to become the MVP the show needs to keep us grounded amongst the ghouls and the brains. Little shifts of expression, the way his eyes take in information, betray such complex emotions.
Magnificent stuff.
Maximus, unlike The Ghoul or Lucy, is a character that could be found in almost any other show. He is simply someone who wants better for himself but has started questioning whether what he’d do is right. He seems, deep down in his roots, to be a coward. Is he? For each viewer, this question will have a different answer; I reached the end and still couldn’t decide.
That’s not to say the others don’t have something to do. Ella Purnell handles a particular plot twist well enough, though without too much aplomb. Goggins has the heaviest lifting to do as he, like Moten, needs to ground us not only in outrageous circumstance, but across two timelines as well. His distraught Cooper is a world away from the cocky Ghoul and yet he consistently creates a throughline for us so we know where he is at all times. Magnificent stuff.
Dialogue comes to the fore, especially in the future timeline, showing management as smooth talkers. These characters have committed terrible atrocities (as opposed to nice ones) and yet almost convince. Unfortunately the management characters in the past, disappointingly, are nowhere near as convincing. They should be on TV, animated, on Saturday mornings.
By the finale the show has almost turned into a space opera crossed with a western. Like the wasteland we’re left feeling empty and bleak as only the most savage, unrelenting characters really get anywhere near what they want. It’s almost too bleak and seems to contain more emotion than the previous seven episodes combined. Whether the next season can’t come quickly enough or if you simply can’t be bothered with this nonsense, Fallout has definitely gone all in and rolled the dice.
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
