While the streaming era has brought an end to the Golden Age of Television, it’s also come with a few upsides. TV is more convenient and accessible than ever, the shows come in all different shapes and sizes and formats, and for some reason, video game adaptations are much better under the streamers. HBO has turned The Last of Us games into a prestige TV drama, and Netflix’s Arcane — set in the League of Legends universe — might be the single greatest animated series of the 21st century so far.
Amazon Prime has thrown its hat in the ring, too. Not only is Amazon currently in production on a God of War TV show; it’s also got a Fallout TV show on the go. Westworld duo Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have taken the basic premise and worldbuilding of the games and spun them into something much more dramatically satisfying. The games rely a lot on the player’s personal choices, but the TV show has one predetermined narrative path, and it’s proven to be compelling so far.
Fallout has recruited some of the finest actors on the planet to humanize its characters and elevate this post-apocalyptic western to the level of prestige drama. Ella Purnell of Yellowjackets and the aforementioned Arcane brings her usual pathos and magnetic screen presence to the audience surrogate role, and television legend Walton Goggins plays the Man with No Name archetype to perfection as “The Ghoul.”
Fallout’s Season 3 Additions Make The Cast Ever More Perfect
Fallout already has one of the best casts on television — not just Purnell and Goggins, but Aaron Moten and Kyle MacLachlan and Leslie Uggams and Johnny Pemberton and Zach Cherry and Moisés Arias (Rico from Hannah Montana). In season 2, Justin Theroux joined the already-stacked cast as New Vegas big bad Robert House. Home Alone’s Macaulay Culkin appeared as a sadistic tyrant commanding Caesar’s Legion. Kumail Nanjiani played a liaison to the Commonwealth Brotherhood of Steel.
Now, Amazon has announced three new additions to the ensemble for season 3. This star-studded cast is getting three more stars crammed into it: Manny Jacinto, Emily Mortimer, and Thomasin McKenzie have all joined the cast of Fallout for season 3. Jacinto is familiar to TV fans as Jason Mendoza, the breakout character from The Good Place, and as one of the only good things in The Acolyte.
Mortimer is a veteran who can be seen in everything from The Newsroom to Shutter Island to Mary Poppins Returns, and McKenzie is one of the most promising up-and-coming actors working today. Over the past decade or so, McKenzie has given unforgettable turns in Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho, Eileen, The Testament of Ann Lee — and she’s shown off an impressive amount of versatility across a wide range of tones and genres and directions. Even when the thing she’s in isn’t very good, like M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, McKenzie is always fantastic.
What To Expect From Fallout Season 3’s Story
One of the most exciting things about Fallout’s season 2 finale was the story setup for season 3. The Ghoul spent season 2 tracking down his family’s cryo-pods, only to find them empty. After finding a Colorado postcard, he decided to head that way in the hope of finding them elsewhere, so his search for his wife and daughter will continue in season 3.
Lucy has been reunited with Maximus; the Legion is heading to New Vegas; and, in a post-credits scene, Dane brings the Liberty Prime blueprints to Quintus. Fallout has a lot of balls up in the air, and season 3 is primed to escalate the stakes and the spectacle even more than season 2 did (and that’s a tall order).
Fallout
8/10
- Release Date
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April 10, 2024
- Network
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Amazon Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan
- Directors
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Frederick E. O. Toye, Wayne Che Yip, Stephen Williams, Liz Friedlander, Jonathan Nolan, Daniel Gray Longino, Clare Kilner