After the entertainment goodness that was The Last of Us comes another TV series—based on a video game I’ve never played—that I’ve greatly enjoyed, much to my surprise.
The great Walton Goggins is terrific as Cooper “The Ghoul” Howard—which just might be my favorite new TV character of this century. A former Western movie star, Cooper is now 200 years old, and he’s traversing a post-apocalyptic countryside as a real-life gunslinger, facially scarred and missing his nose. During the eight-episode season, we see his character’s origins, giving Goggins a chance to act without prosthetics and providing The Ghoul a certain amount of soul. He’s a fantastic creation—the highlight of the series.
But The Ghoul is not the only thing worth watching here. Fallout is bonkers fun, a stranger-than-all-hell take on a popular video game.
In a futuristic society after nuclear war, some “vault dwellers” live in an idealistic society that, of course, gets disrupted by raiders. Circumstances arise for Lucy (Ella Purnell) to leave her vault in search of her father (Kyle MacLachlan), meaning she has to deal with The Ghoul, zombie-like creatures, radioactive mutant animals and much more.
Every episode pops, making the whole thing quite bingeable. Took me two days to ingest all of it. Great special effects, a surprising amount of sticky gore and a wonderful sense of humor keep Fallout constantly intriguing.
I have no doubt that the show (which ends with some major cliffhangers) will go on. Amazon has themselves a winner here, and it’s always good to see the likes of Goggins getting a worthy vehicle.
Fallout is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
