‘Fallout’ Season 2 Episode 2 Prime Video Series Review - Boring

It gives me no pleasure to confirm that what I predicted last week, while reviewing Episode 1 of the second season of Fallout, has come true, and it's apparent in this second episode, titled The Golden Rule. The episodic-release format has damaged this new season — it's impossible to stay invested. Somewhere in the middle of watching Episode 2, I realized that I was feeling very bored by this show. I think I can pinpoint the exact moment of this realization. It came while Elder Quintus and the other chapter Elders gathered to plan a civil war against the stronger Commonwealth chapter. I was thoroughly uninvolved, though I did appreciate the sight of two Knights, lost in their own world, giggling like last benchers. This is typical Fallout humor, and it's moments like this that somewhat enliven the show (or at least, this season so far) amid long spells of tedium.

Fallout, as many of you will know, is a video game adaptation. Near the beginning of the episode, it briefly looks like something borrowed directly from that world. I'm referring to the scene where Lucy and the Ghoul hear cries for help coming from a woman. It's a very video game–ish moment: the cries always go "help," and never once "help me," "help please," or "is somebody there," as though they've been programmed. The ever-sweet, ever-kind Lucy decides to help the stranger, while the Ghoul urges her to ignore the woman. Naturally, things unfold according to Lucy's wishes. The characters enter an old, abandoned, dilapidated building and end up fighting a radscorpion. In the process, the Ghoul is injured, but Lucy still chooses to help the woman. She's angry at the Ghoul for his cruelty (though she assures him she'll return later). Perhaps Lucy wants to prove that kindness is the only way forward — that doing good will be rewarded with goodness. Doesn't the Golden Rule, after all, state that you should treat others as you'd want to be treated?

Lucy sends out compassion but receives betrayal in return. By helping a woman in need, she walks straight into a trap. How very cynical of Fallout. I suppose it's all part of her character arc: Lucy, the beacon of optimism, slowly hardening as the series progresses. For now, it's safe to say she's wildly different from her father, Hank. When Episode 2 begins, we learn through a flashback that he was responsible for wiping out the people of Shady Sands, which means he also killed Maximus's parents. In the present timeline, his cruelty escalates further as he moves on from mice to conducting mind-control experiments on Vault-Tec customers. Whether these ultrarich, arrogant-looking people deserve to be exploded into tiny little pieces is up for debate. Still, given how dull the episode is, it feels as though something joyful inside us is violently blown apart instead. The Golden Rule (for television) should be redefined as this: not everything deserves the weekly episode release treatment. 

Final Score- [3/10]