‘Fallout’ Season Two Review: Bring Back My Ghouls [A-]
Back in April, the new season of an acclaimed television show based on a popular video game series released its second batch of episodes for fans around the world to consume. Of course I’m referring to The Last of Us, HBO’s hit apocalyptic, zombie drama that was one of their most watched shows of 2025. For the review, I was tasked in reviewing a season of television with access to only one new episode of the show (this is how the cookie crumbles sometimes when getting screeners). With my knowledge of the second video game, and the road map the creators had given us with hints in various interviews, I deduced where the sophomore campaign of The Last of Us would take us; given the shocking nature of its second episode and the death of a major character. While the first two episodes were fantastic, layered, heartbreaking hours of television, the rest of the season was a slog, devoid of the dramatic intrigue found in its original artistic form; I’ve regretted the grade since. There was a sense of betrayal by the creators of the show taking us on a journey to nowhere, that never expanded the story of the original source material, and thinly conveyed the themes and humanity of the video game’s story so richly compelling.
It was a maddening, disappointing experience that made me worry for the next batch of episodes from Amazon’s hit post-apocalyptic drama Fallout, a show that is based on the famous video game series from Interplay Entertainment. Unlike The Last of Us, the story and characters of Fallout are not based on a specific arc, thus allowing creators Graham Wagner, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, as well as their executive producers Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, to create something uniquely original within this existing IP forged together for the small screen. So it brings me great joy to say that Fallout season two does what other video game adaptations hasn’t been able to do in that it expands its thematic world with explosive action sequences, new complex dynamics and obstacles for its characters to explore, and settles into place as the premiere video game adaptation of our time by speaking to the moment of our modern fears that everything around us is crumbling, and we must fight like hell to protect our slice of normalcy.
Picking up shortly after the events of season one, we find Lucy (Ella Purnell), the optimistic Vault Dweller from Vault 33, teaming up with The Ghoul (formerly Cooper Howard; Walton Goggins) as they are trying to track down her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), who we discovered was responsible for blowing up Shady Sands, aka New California Republic, the surface location where humanity was getting a fresh start to build America from the ashes of the nuclear wasteland that it’s become. Hank was also part of the management team at Vault-Tec, a powerful mega-corporation who built underground vaults for the rich and powerful before getting rid of unnecessary humans on the surface, turning some into ghouls and other radioactive creatures. It was the kind of revelation that opened up a world of possibilities for season two of Fallout, and for the opening third of the season, it’s a slow build up to the ramifications of Hank’s actions by the hands of his daughter and her new partner. As they make their way to Hank, Lucy and The Ghoul start to build a bond that is still very testy at times due to her innocence of the surface world and wanting to help people and the Ghoul’s violent, harsh approach to the world around them.
The chemistry between Purnell and Goggins continues to shine this season, picking right up from their odd couple pairing in the first outing, making their segments the best and most engaging, as they get closer to Las Vegas where they run into Hank and the mind-blowing work he has been doing to carry on Vault Tec’s mission of controlling the rest of humanity. Purnell’s evolution into her role as Lucy changes a bit as she’s been hardened by the surface world, but yet she is trying her best to stay positive while the Ghoul is blasting bad guys with his six-shooters left and right. She even has a hilarious sequence in one of the first episodes where she gets hooked to some pain killers after she’s been injured, leading to the Ghoul to make fun of her loopy, addictive personality change. It’s a different, welcomed side of Purnell’s pitch perfect performance as Lucy.
As Lucy and The Ghoul are on their way, we see flashbacks to when he was Cooper Howard, a Hollywood movie star who was also Vault-Tec ambassador before the Great War and married to a Vault-Tec executive, Barb (Frances Turner). Using these sequences to add backstory to the Ghoul in season one, these glimpses to the past are part of the second season’s expansion pack of a story that’s showcasing that the end of the world was far more complicated than one simple man pushing a button to set off a nuclear annihilation. Cooper, who had been working as an undercover agent for the NRC, is assigned a mission to assassinate the CEO of RobCo Industries, Robert House (an excellent Justin Theroux). House is centering the world’s attention to the New Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, and bringing together all of the most powerful people in America together to find out what they know about the pending doom everyone will face. He’s a shadowy figure that looms large in the past and present for Cooper/Ghoul, and Theroux is mesmerizing throughout the season, especially when he crosses paths with Goggins’ Cooper, in a conversation that looms as a rally cry for the season’s overall themes; survival of the human race at all costs.
Wagner, Robertson-Dworet, and their writing staff have outdone themselves in creating urgent tension to this season, as the slow build of the first few episodes’ bubbles and bursts into a sci-fi, spy thriller where the weight of the world is on the line with every syllable uttered by those in the position to cause or prevent violence from spending across the Wasteland. Goggins, born to play this role as a cool, gun slinging monster, delivers some of his best television work yet as he brilliantly showcases the inner turmoil of Cooper’s past actions of not killing House, or standing up to his wife’s violent involvement with the bomb going off, catching up to him as Lucy and the Ghoul get closer to their destination of New Vegas.
While their story is going on, at another part of the Wasteland, our other main protagonist, Maximus (Aaron Moten), has returned home to the claim his throne as the head knight of the Brotherhood of Steel, a group of secessionist made up of members of former United States Armed Forces soldiers. After leaving Lucy and finding his confidence as a leader, Max is now found at the center of conflict between the Brotherhood’s various factions, with a possible civil war emerging given that the Brotherhood are now in possession of “Cold Fusion”, an infinite power source, created by Vault-Tec, that could fuel the restart of human civilization if in the right hands. But in the hands of the Brotherhood and Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer), Maximus’s superior, he’s looking at becoming a ruler of the remaining lifeforms on Earth, creating a rift not only in the Brotherhood, but within Max, as he doesn’t want to become a cog in a machine of violence and destruction. Internalized conflict is on the mind within the majority of the storylines in this season of Fallout, between the Brotherhood’s strife, a fight between two factions called Caesar’s Legion that Lucy comes across on her journey to Vegas that involves two brothers fight for the control of their tribes, and the political power plays being played within the different vaults back where Lucy is from. As things ramp up, and truths have been exposed over the course of two seasons, Fallout has begun to tease that the battle for Earth is coming, and sides are being drawn, with our heroes being at the center of the conflict. In the face of dark times in the present and past, Max’s storyline showcases the good spirit of the human race, and alongside his friend Lucy, having a moral backbone is what will rebuild the world than violent chaos of the Ghoul and others revel in.
Season two of Fallout has one major flaw to its sophomore effort and that’s the ongoing events inside the vaults, especially when focused on Norm (Moisés Arias) and Chet (Dave Register) side stories. For Norm, he was left finding a way out of Vault 31 and coming up with a way to expose that there are more members of Vault-Tec executive management on ice, waiting for their chance to thaw out and take over as Overseers of the various vaults. Over the course of the first six episodes we were given access to, his solution of getting out of his trapped position is an interesting one of thawing out the executives and using them to get out of Vault 31, and that’s really all that happens to him. Same goes for Chet, who is mostly trapped in a domestic relationship with the villainous, mysterious Stephanie Harper (Annabel O’Hagan), the Vault 32 Overseer whose plan hasn’t come into full form just yet other than wanting to marry Chet and naming her child Chet Jr. While all the action, suspense, and intrigue are found within Lucy, Max, and The Ghoul’s journeys, Norm, Chet, and the rest of the Vault 33 characters come off rather uneventful, with the most important development coming from a lack of water from the vault, a problem that could see Betty (Leslie Uggams) challenged as Overseer by the end of the season, but in the grand scheme of this season, these moments slow down every episode they are in. It’s a bug in the system that won’t be able to be fixed in just two remaining hours, but could possibly become something more interesting if explored properly in future seasons.
The vault’s issues aside, Howard Cummings’ production design for every location above the surface is elevated to a whole new level from his work in the first season. Between multiple new western locations for the Ghoul to take down bad guys in, to the Legion’s Spartacus inspired sets that feel completely out of time but stand out within episode two, and the look of New Vegas pre and post the bomb going off, it’s immaculate work, alongside the fantastic costume designs from Dayna Pink. But what really stands out from the crafts department this season are the creature designs for the terrifying monsters that Cooper faced off against the Great War and comes across again when entering New Vegas. These minotaur-esque creatures appear in the Fallout 76 video game and are nothing more than featured as a cool creature, but within the show, they look to have a grander purpose as they are a point of fascination for Robert House and his sinister plan. Tip of the hat goes to the visual effects team lead by Jay Worth and Brendon O’Dell, as well as Brad Einhorn and Andy Siegel in the prop department for creating a seamless blend between the practical and special effects found within the world of Fallout. As a show this grand, there is a great feeling of darkness, unpredictability, and twisted beauty found in the world of Fallout that all of these departments understand. It’s what made the games so much fun to play and it’s what makes this show stand out as such an enjoyable roller coaster ride.
Aside from a couple of storylines not being as strong as others, Fallout season two is an expansion pack worth the download, shaping a full season of delightful actions set pieces and impeccable technical work from its artisans around a tale of human survival, growth, regrets, imperfections, terror, and mostly importantly, hope. Unlike The Last of Us, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and IT: Welcome to Derry, this is the type of IP driven television that we should want to see, as Fallout guides the audiences on relevant, introspective look at a version of our world in ruin, and how the fortitude of the human spirit won’t allow humanity to fade in the dust. In doing this, season two cements itself as one of the best shows on television right as 2025 closes out, and one of the best produced television ever created by Amazon Studios.
Grade: A-
Fallout season two begins streaming on Prime Video on December 16. The first episode drops at 6pm PT / 9pm ET with new episodes releasing weekly.
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