In Hollywood someone mentions the words “intellectual property” and managers automatically wag their tails like a dog when they see someone with a stick in their hand. It’s instinctive. They see all the ways in which they can promote that series or movie for the simple fact that a sector of the public knows the fictional universe, the character or even the brand. This, on a personal note, also has its drawbacks. Sometimes it happens that you hear that the adaptation of a video game like Fallout is released and, after going through the first reaction of “what is that”, a “how lazy” escapes from your neural connections, especially when the screeners are they pile on your email.
This introductory paragraph, of course, is only a way of excusing myself for being late to the series that, according to Prime Video (and following opaque metrics cooked up by the platform itself), is being a streaming phenomenon. While critics still admire its originality and the way it approaches the reference material and the platform indicates that it is its best release since the expensive The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (which is why it has already renewed the series for a second season), there are those who discuss the end of the season and what the future plots could be.
But from my reality, in which I live clearly behind Fallout, I feel the need to recognize how brilliant the series by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner is in presenting the starting point. It is almost incredible that a series directed by Jonathan Nolan and produced by both him and Lisa Joy, who signed Westworld, can have so much rhythm and self-confidence, instead of a lethargic and overloaded seriousness. And it is even more so considering that, in 70 minutes, he commits the audacity of making three presentations.
First is Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), who in the 1950s of the Cold War is at a children’s party when a nuclear holocaust hits and turns him into the living dead. Then there is Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), who belongs to a community that has been in a refuge for two centuries and who, with expressions that only survive in tea rooms of former slave country clubs, has to go outside to rescue her father. (Kyle MacLachlan), kidnapped by notorious criminals. And finally, there is Maximus (Aaron Moten), who aspires to become a man of steel in a military unit that preaches order, discipline and hierarchy in a post-apocalyptic society ruled by chaos.
The sense of humor, despite being derived from satire, does not enter into irritating territory. Ella Purnell, who was already fantastic in Yellowjackets (which will possibly be the greatest factory of stars on recent television), knows how to convey with her magnetic gaze three qualities of Lucy that are difficult to marry: naivety, intelligence and strength. The spaces are well used and, from the beginning, it combines the retrofuturistic with the apocalyptic, where monsters, robots and women with the diction of having a cake in the oven at that precise moment fit. It’s fun to see the cynicism of characters not as privileged as Lucy, and, in presenting the origins and triggers of the characters, she has the effectiveness that a dramatic series requires. The violent outbursts, which provoke sardonic laughter, are directly that extra gift that you discover on Three Kings Day under the tree after having opened what you thought were all the presents.
Fallout, at least in the cover letter that most of you will have already left behind days ago, is that waste of originality that conveys that those involved wanted to have fun, to try, to dare, and that on top of that the play turned out well for them. . I even want to buy a console and see what this fictional universe is like in video games until I remember that, when Mario became 3D, the world came crashing down on me.
