Darkmeter 9 🖤

Fallout showed us an excellent video game adaptation in season 1, now in season 2 it delivers something much better, an expansion of the world, the mythology and significant progress in the characters, the villains and the understanding that the world is much bigger than we think. It gives us that feeling that we grow with Lucy, our vault dweller, who like a small child, little by little realizes that the world goes beyond your room, beyond your house, then beyond your town, beyond your city and far beyond your understanding... because growth is not only physical, but also mental, ideological, spiritual, and of course you understand that the world is neither bad nor good, it's simply a coming and going of decisions made by all the people who inhabit it and that affect others, for better or worse, you are part of that circle and sometimes you have to take action to survive, even though you would always like to remain noble, you understand that there are decisions and sacrifices that are not personal, they are simply necessary.

Lucy And The Price Of Growing In The Wasteland

The story continues with Lucy's journey to understand the world, to understand what did so much harm, how the world was really destroyed and what her role is no longer even in the main story, but her role in her own mind. Who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here? But without becoming super philosophical, everything is staged and dialogued in such a natural way that at no time do you feel the need to pause, or even go back to the first season. Ella Purnell becomes more than an icon of gamer culture, she becomes an endearing character, with whom you can even see yourself reflected, because although of course there is much malice in humanity, the truth is that there are many people who, like her, do not understand why the world works this way... why do I have to lie? why do I have to hurt? why if I helped you do you hurt me? These are innocent questions, but at the same time very valid, and we see her character evolution, going from being a girl who questions everything to soon being a girl who acts on everything, although she doesn't always understand it, she prefers to face it even when that doesn't feel so natural to her.

Lucy's innocence is not weakness, it is a mirror where many of us see ourselves reflected, trying to maintain principles in a world that punishes you for having them, where goodness is not decorative but an act of constant resistance, a reminder that there is something beyond immediate survival, something worth protecting even if the cost is your own comfort, your own safety... and that hurts, it hurts to see how the world molds her without breaking her completely, how each decision leaves a mark that doesn't fade but makes her stronger, more aware of what really matters when everything else crumbles.

Maximus Is No Longer An NPC

From here we have one of the best surprises of the second season, although in the review of the first season I said that Aaron Moten as Maximus was one of the least remarkable, here it feels different, not only did his performance improve, the script and direction helped him a lot, he stopped being that character who doesn't matter and who in fact can be skipped and eliminated and nothing would change to a character who wins your heart, his decisions feel more organic, his interpretation feels more in line with what the actor is capable of delivering and of course his increase in screen time is spectacular, let's say that the narrative helps him a lot, but he as an actor also shows that he is making an even greater effort, and that is appreciated, because we are watching stories that form a universe, not stories of an NPC who with one line of dialogue tell you their whole life.

Maximus now has weight, he has real conflicts that are not resolved with a forgettable line of dialogue, he has doubts that haunt him, ambitions that embarrass him and loyalties that tear him apart inside, he is a character who finally breathes, who finally matters not only as a chess piece on the narrative board but as a human being trapped between what he was taught to be and what he really wants to be, between the armor that protects him and the identity that defines him beyond the metal.

The Ghoul Is The Radioactive Heart

But once again, we cannot talk about this series without Walton Goggins as the ghoul, we can no longer just take him as the surprise, the producers understood something, the ghoul is a protagonist, he is not just the talent support of the series or the emotional and maturity counterbalance to Lucy, no no, he is the reason why many watch the series, a massive increase in screen time combined with a brutal origin story, this season talks not only about why he is the way he is, but who he could have been, who he was and what role he had in the history of the world, because although sometimes we are a small stain in the passage of time, there are some stains that remain stuck forever.

The ghoul is not just a survivor, he is a witness, a walking reminder that the past never dies completely, that decisions made decades ago continue to resonate in the present with consequences that no one anticipated, that History with a capital H is made of small stories, of personal betrayals, of lost loves, of dreams that rotted along with the skin... Walton Goggins delivers a performance that breaks you, that makes you laugh with the bitterness of someone who has nothing left to lose but also breaks you when he drops the mask and you see the man he was, the man who is still in there, fighting against radiation, against time, against oblivion.

A World That No Longer Fits On One Screen

Now let's talk about the expansion of the world, the first season a bit shy although with sense left us only a trace of what was happening, a post-apocalyptic world, created by humanity itself where only the elite was allowed to survive, if we see that summary the truth is that it is a story that we have seen repeated countless times in the industry, but it is here where the second season arrives to slap us and show us why it is a story that deserves to be highlighted. Throughout the season they introduce us in an easy but not overwhelming way to something more, politics, society, plots from the past, plots to come, ideas, concepts, places and an unparalleled expansion of the world. The monkey trick repeated 100 times simply becomes a routine not worth watching, and this is repeated in series or sagas where everything is exactly the same over and over again, where they even stretch for seasons and seasons with the same villain, where there is never a real conclusion to the plots.

Here it is appreciated that there is, every plot that was pending in the first season is taken and closed, simply to give way to other plots that although they can be complemented by knowing the previous story, it is not necessary to understand everything that happened before to understand the new problems and the characters that are arriving. We also see an expansion of the political world no longer just of the current time, but also of before the nuclear apocalypse, we see how the factions acted, how they moved, what they thought and mainly what their role was in the already so acclaimed destiny of global radiation, and in the present, they introduce us in a glorious way to how life continues, how new towns grow, old towns fall and new ideas emerge, as for the theme of world history 200 years is not much, but 200 years after an apocalypse make things forgotten, reinterpreted or even rewritten, because the passage of time when your main concern is not to write about them but to survive ideas can be changed by personal perception rather than social perception.

Every Action Leaves A Scar

And within all this of the factions they introduce us we will only mention the arrival of Macaulay Culkin, who with just 1 episode appearance lets us see that the story will extend no longer just to the main characters, but to everything they leave in their path and how they directly affect the worldview of other people with their decisions, it is fascinating to see how a secondary character can carry so much narrative weight, how a brief appearance can leave a permanent scar on the fabric of the series, reminding us that every action, every word, every encounter has the potential to change not only the fate of the protagonists but that of people we barely know, people who will continue living their lives long after the camera stops following them.

Every Decision Resonates In Eternity

Just like a Fallout video game, season 2 leaves us with the teaching that no matter what we do, no matter what we decide, what matters is how we face ourselves, although in the end every skill point we level up, every person we save or every person we defeat, everything has a consequence, that although many times it is not immediate or even does not directly affect us, it does change the course of the world, not because we are the protagonists of other people's lives, because even if we put ourselves in other people's shoes we may possibly be just a person who passed through a moment and was forgotten as the days went by, but that our actions resonate in eternity even when they are not accompanied by a name is fascinating.

It tells us about how society believes something simply out of convenience, out of ignorance or by the decision of a few, that the truth can always come to light, but that the truth itself has a cost that is sometimes too high, but that is worth paying if you are willing to live with it, Fallout reminds us that humanity changes, evolves, adapts and that we are capable of destroying ourselves but also of saving ourselves, that from time to time in the desolate wasteland of life we can find a light that guides, that warms the heart and gives us hope, that a person's past does not define them, they can be good and now be bad, or they could be bad and now good, what we are is the sum of all our past actions, from them we learn either to be better or worse, but always with the decision in our hands, even when it seems that we are controlled from above.

An Ode To Practical Effects

In terms of direction, you notice that it maintains the same rhythm, an ode to practical effects and makeup, the universe no matter how expanded it is or how apocalyptic it is maintains an order and an origin, you feel the 50's and 60's frozen in the apocalypse without any doubt but at the same time you feel them modern, you feel them current to your reality, corrupt governments, controlling companies, dreaming people with a better world but so naive that they are incapable of making a real change, people armed with the pain of decades and people with the innocence of a comfortable life, everything converges in such a spectacular way that you appreciate it as a viewer.

The Wasteland Expands, So Do We

The desolate wasteland of Fallout amplifies, gives us hope, gives us doubts, teaches us that not everything is always what it seems and that even the winner is often really losing, life takes silent, dark and intricate turns that we cannot solve, but we can always count on the people we meet along the way to be able to understand something better, or perhaps do something better.

I've said it, yes it is a video game adaptation, but it is more an adaptation of real life, it is an adaptation of what the system is, was and will be, changes are often for ourselves, and fighting for a cause greater than ourselves sometimes means not seeing the results but being part of a change to the future, life itself is like that, fight, learn, care, love, understand, empathize but also defend yourself, the world is chaos, not because life is, but because we make it so.