'Fallout' Season Two Epideos Six Review: The show is getting better

It feels like it was literally yesterday that the fifth episode of Fallout's second season aired, but perhaps I was a little late to the party. Though last night I saw a post from Goggins himself mentioning the sixth episode and how it was now out, so I happily jumped into it needing something to watch. Another day where getting out into the cold isn't all that appealing, after all! So, I made some tea and read through my own review of the fifth episode again to refresh the memory a little and see how this one pairs up against it and the rest of the season. The last episode was definitely one of the stronger ones, where it felt like it finally had found the direction it had been needing for the longest time. Typically the directing and cinematography had been Fallout's greatest strength alongside Goggins, and not much has changed there I must admit, but the story is slowly starting to come together.

Finally we saw the ways in which the characters had grown. Lucy finally coming to terms with murder within the wasteland as a means of survival, where sometimes even an accident can cause death. Though in such moments where attempting to just harm someone without killing them, that too can be a threat to your own survival. This was something that the show took a long time to get through, it did feel like it was overdone, but this final acceptance of violence played quite a huge part in the ending of the previous episode, where betrayal unfolded: the Ghoul choosing to sell her off to find his own family, and Lucy finally more than happy to cause harm by any means necessary. And going as far as punching the Ghoul out of a window and impaling him. Under usual circumstances this would immediate death, but for Fallout lore Ghouls are known for being a bit harder to kill, having regenerative powers. So the Ghoul's unfortunate circumstance of near death serves more as a bit of shock beyond a loss of an actual main character.

There's not much room left for this season though, and this was the largest event to have taken place within it. So I was curious as to whether this next episode would manage to maintain the pacing a bit and keep the ball rolling. The trend continues within the show of its backstory being the most interesting part of it all, where actually the wasteland and its action aren't all that engaging, to no surprise. Some of the elements of its present hold interest, but the many intricate details that explore how the bombs ended up dropping in the first place creates a world in which many stories connect, through corporate greed, fear, and downright insanity. This episode has a good amount of that context within it, and it's slowly making its way into the present as Lucy finds her father finally and he attempts to justify his own insanity to her. As we see the realisation of Barb's actions as she comes to terms with the destruction of what was to come as a result of corporate greed and the disconnect between suits and the common person.

I think this is where Fallout really can shine, where the directing and world building comes together to really display the texture and atmosphere of the Fallout world before the bombs dropped. I really like how well it manages to add additional context in that sense, utilising the props that look very real and authentic to the era, authentic to Fallout. And how the show doesn't do it in a way where it feels forced or causes you to roll your eyes due to overdone references to its games. And when it comes to humour, for the most part it handles it with the odd context of its world rather than quirky behaviour within its characters. Sometimes it mixes things up, which was the case here. I think what helped this episode was some contrast to show the regular lifestyles of people within the wasteland, the other side characters we haven't really seen much of since the first season. They're down their own routes, but we still see the ways in which they struggle.

With Fallout there is only so much you can really say about the wasteland itself, and only so many 'raids' that the characters can go on within certain environments before it grows too tiresome. I think that's why the strength comes from the drama more, where the snippets of the present are usually feeling a bit empty as it desperately waits for the rest of the story to catch up so that it has more to say and reveal to us. And with this episode, while still chugging along a bit, it does display some of that coming into fruition. Though I also would like to see more of the side characters, I feel they are forgotten mostly and it would be a shame for them to be used purely as plot devices when only necessary. Generally though, these two episodes have improved a lot. There's more humanity in the characters, more consideration of its world, and where it's heading.