Line #41 Series/Fallout2024


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5	[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fallout24_2.png]]
6	[[caption-width-right:349:''[[Music/NatKingCole ♫ I don't want to see tomorrow...\
7	Unless I see it with you... ♫]]'']]
8
9	->''"You are a vault dweller, but if you're going to survive, you need to start acting like a surface dweller. Question is, will you still want the same things when you have become a different animal altogether?"''
10	-->-- '''Dr. Wilzig''', "The Target"
11
12	''Fallout'' is a post-apocalyptic ScienceFiction series based on the popular [[Franchise/{{Fallout}} video game series of the same name]] owned and published by Creator/{{Bethesda}}. It is executive produced by Lisa Joy and Creator/JonathanNolan of ''Series/{{Westworld}}'' fame, along with Creator/ToddHoward (game director of ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout4''). Geneva Robertson-Dworet (''Film/{{Captain Marvel\|2019}}'') and Graham Wagner (''Series/{{Portlandia}}'', ''Series/SiliconValley'') serve as series creators and showrunners. The series is not a direct adaptation of any prior game in the series, but instead an original story [[SharedUniverse set within the universe of the games]] and, according to Howard, part of the official ''Fallout'' canon.
13
14	It's 2296, and Vault 33 is [[RunningGag an okay place to live]]. Built near the coast just outside UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, its inhabitants have lived in relative comfort since their ancestors entered the Vault-Tec bomb shelter 219 years ago to escape a global thermonuclear war between the USA and China, while the less fortunate were -- and still are -- [[AfterTheEnd forced to survive in the desolate wasteland outside]].
15
16	However, all that is about to change. A sudden crisis forces Lucy (Creator/EllaPurnell), the daughter of the vault's overseer, to leave her safe and sheltered community for the wasteland. In the course of her journey, she crosses paths with many of the wasteland's hardened inhabitants, including Maximus (Creator/AaronMoten), a squire in the knightly order known as the Brotherhood of Steel, and a mysterious bounty hunter known only as "The Ghoul" (Creator/WaltonGoggins), an ageless mutant who witnessed the nuclear war with his own eyes.
17
18	The show also stars Creator/KyleMacLachlan, Creator/JohnnyPemberton, Creator/SaritaChoudhury, Creator/LeslieUggams, Creator/ZachCherry, Creator/MoisesArias, Creator/ChrisParnell, Creator/MichaelEmerson and Creator/MattBerry, among others.
19
20	The series was originally set for release on April 11, 2024 on [[Creator/PrimeVideo Amazon Prime Video]], but was instead released a day earlier on April 10. Unlike previous high-profile Prime Video shows that had a weekly episode release, the entire season was released in one go. [[https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/fallout-renewed-season-2-amazon-1235975879/ A second season was ordered the following week.]]
21
22	'''Previews:''' [[https://youtu.be/0kQ8i2FpRDk?si=3RwZaZUJlU5D88If Teaser Trailer]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mugKDQDlg Official Trailer]]
23	----
24
25	[[foldercontrol]]
26
27	!!''Fallout'' contains examples of the following:
28
29	[[folder:Tropes A-C]]
30	* AbortedArc: Vault 33's water chip is revealed to be broken in a nod to the first game's plot but, aside from a short background mention of a water crisis, it plays no further role in the story.
31	* AdaptationalAttractiveness:
32	** Continuing the trend set in ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', "The Ghoul" is easily the best looking of his kind in any ''Fallout'' media. Other than his baldness and lack of nose, he barely has any signs of the radiation-induced decay that most other ghouls have had in the games, with perfectly normal teeth and eyes and skin that looks merely aged and leathery, not outright rotted. According to Nolan, they "hired [[Creator/WaltonGoggins the actor]] for a reason", and as such [[RealLifeWritesThePlot the typical ghoul characteristics were dialed back so the actor could emote properly through the makeup]]. Other ghouls look similar, if only slightly worse. {{Inverted}} in one major case in the Season 1 finale: a far more rotted feral ghoul that is barely more than a one-armed skeleton with (some) skin appears, but barely moves because Moldaver has restrained it to a chair. [[spoiler:The Ghoul in question here is Lucy's mother, Rose]].
33	** A brahmin briefly appears in the second episode, but it looks like a normal cow that just happens to have two heads, losing the pustulated and hairless pink skin, misshaped horns, and grotesquely distended udders they have in the games.
34	* AdaptationalBadass: Ghouls have received a serious power-up in the series when compared to their video game counterparts. In the games, ghouls were simply over-irradiated LongLived humans who were healed by radiation rather than being harmed by it, but they had to contend with slowly rotting away and losing their mental faculties. In the series, while they are still LivingOnBorrowedTime, ghouls now possess an absurdly powerful HealingFactor, seemingly FeelNoPain, and seem to only be killable by RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain.
35	* AdaptationalExplanation: The reasoning behind Vault-Tec's experiments is finally explained: [[spoiler:The experiments acted as tests to [[TheSocialDarwinist create new societal templates that would allow humanity to best survive the Wasteland and form a functioning civilization]], as the current one was viewed as a failure. All this had the eventual end goal of re-conquering the surface, eliminating all other factions, and uniting the world under Vault-Tec so as to create "a world without war"]].
36	* AdaptationalHeroism: The New California Republic (aka the NCR) in contrast to the Brotherhood (who get AdaptationalVillainy) are largely treated as unambiguously good and heroic in their efforts to get [[spoiler:the Cold Fusion reactor online to restore power to the Wastes and ultimately succeed — at the cost of their lives]] in contrast to [[ALighterShadeOfGrey their comparative corruption and shadiness]] in ''Fallout 2'' and ''New Vegas''. Arguably justified, in that both [[spoiler:the NCR remnant forces led by Moldaver seem to consist only of "true believers" in the NCR's ideals]], and the major NCR-related characters (i.e., [[spoiler:Moldaver, Maximus and the Shady Sands survivors living inside of Vault 4]]) all clearly have a [[spoiler:NostalgiaFilter for their homeland]].
37	* AdaptationalVillainy:
38	** Downplayed concerning the Brotherhood of Steel. They are morally grey and self-serving in the first two games (along with both ''4'' and ''76'') with only WhiteSheep Elder Lyons and Nolan [=McNamara=]'s brotherhoods from ''3'' and ''New Vegas'' being more overtly heroic, especially the former. However, even in the earlier games, the Brotherhood avoided killing civilians when they could help it, whilst in this series they have no qualms about slaughtering locals if they refuse to get out of their way. It's noted in-universe, however, that they've lost their way [[spoiler:and Maximus becoming a Knight officially by the end along with being tasked by both Moldaver & Elder Quintus to become an InternalReformist hints [[RayOfHopeEnding that they might improve]]. On the flip-side, Quintus' more ambitious schemes to [[TheStarscream usurp his fellow elders]] and start a "new Brotherhood" has ominous echoes of Father Elijah from ''New Vegas''.]]
39	** [[spoiler:Frederick Sinclair and Robert House were certainly morally dubious in ''VideoGames/FalloutNewVegas'', and though their efforts to protect the Sierra Madre and Las Vegas, respectively, were largely self-serving, there was potential that their innovations could protect people during and after the Great War. This series reveals that Frederick Sinclair and Robert House were in on Vault-Tec's plot to ''cause'' the Great War as part of a scheme to TakeOverTheWorld, so their seeming foresight is actually foreknowledge of the coming apocalypse. House's complicity, however, [[AmbiguouslyEvil is left vague]] as he never expresses agreement with Vault-Tec's methods or proposes any ideas for Vault experiments.]]
40	** [[spoiler:Vault-Tec as a whole are subject to this. While they were certainly evil in the games (how evil depends on the game, they range anywhere from corner-cutting but non-malicious to cartoonish sadists) they were ultimately "just" government contractors in it for the money and the experiments were set up at the behest of the government, with President Richardson stating that the experiments were designed to help the Enclave survive on their oil rig in some unspecified fashion (the original concept was that the experiments were studying the effects of multi-generational space travel, but this never actually made it into the games). Here it's revealed that Vault-Tec started the entire nuclear war themselves (or were at least planning to do so) in order to remake the world in their image (which is [[{{Expy}} remarkably similar]] to what happened to the Umbrella Corporation in [[Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter that series' movie adaptation]]), and the experiments were instead set up by them and other {{Mega Corp}}s with the goal of creating the ideal society via [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinism]].]]
41	* AdvertisedExtra:
42	** Xelia Mendes-Jones is credited as a main character; despite this, their character, Squire Dane, has very limited screen time and is overall less plot-crucial than others, such as Chet, Betty, Stephanie, Barb, or Thaddeus.
43	** Creator/KyleMacLachlan also features heavily in marketing and participated in multiple press interviews before the show's release; in the series proper he only appears in the first and last episodes of the first season.
44	* AdvertisingByAssociation: Parodied. The teaser mentions the series is from the studio behind ''Series/{{The Boys\|2019}}'' and [[BitingTheHandHumor Free 2-Day Shipping]].[[note]]The gag is "Fast Delivery*" on the British and Irish version of the trailer, as two days would be slow for Amazon there. Hilariously, the show actually arrived '''''early'''''![[/note]]
45	* AfterTheEnd: Naturally. The teaser presents several shots of the ruined world and even has a long shot of the moment the bombs destroyed Los Angeles and wiped out civilization. [[spoiler:It turns out to be a double case of this, with Shady Sands, one of New California's major settlements, being nuked, though it remains unclear if the other four known states comprising the NCR were also destroyed or they just abandoned southern California.]]
46	* AgonyOfTheFeet:
47	** When Aspirant Dane is chosen to be a squire, a razor blade hidden in a boot leads to them being medically disqualified and replaced, with the elder suspecting Maximus though he's ultimately absolved and given Dane's position. In the finale, it's revealed [[spoiler:that Dane hid the blade personally to deliberately get maimed and disqualified due to a fear of dying in the wasteland while on duty.]]
48	** Upon catching up with Lucy and Wilzig in Filly, the Ghoul shoots one of the scientist's feet off to slow him down. Wilzig ends up having to get a prosthetic through MeatgrinderSurgery to regain some of his mobility (though it ends up contributing to his death later).
49	** [[spoiler:Maximus accidentally steps on Thaddeus's foot while wearing power armor, with an [[SickeningCrunch audible crunch sound]]. Thaddeus is shown in a later episode removing a bloody, sticky sock to reveal ''bones'' perforating his skin and his big toe hanging loosely. In another later episode, Thaddeus consumes a "healing elixir" he bought from the Snake Oil Salesman that actually causes his foot to heal itself; Maximus believes that whatever he took turned Thaddeus into a ghoul, leading to him gaining a HealingFactor.]]
50	* AllForNothing:
51	** Lucy becomes deeply suspicious of Vault 4's intentions in taking in surface dwellers and investigates Level 12, throwing a vial of acid on a doctor who's [[spoiler:seemingly trapping women in test tubes and impregnating them with mutated horrors. It's then immediately revealed that the doctor was trying to administer genuine aid to the women and the price for attacking him is... Being exiled to the surface with two weeks of supplies, which she simply could have asked for without burning a bridge with the Vault.]]
52	** [[spoiler:Lucy's entire quest to save her dad becomes this when she learns the truth: her father was not a good man captured by cruel raiders, but a CorruptCorporateExecutive who murdered thousands of innocents out of spite and whose captors are the vengeful victims of his greed. He expresses no remorse for what he did, even saying that Lucy's mother (who is now a horrifically mutated ghoul) deserved everything that she got because she defied Vault-Tec's plans for a "perfect" society. Lucy is left teetering on the DespairEventHorizon as she realizes all the things she did to survive the Wasteland, all the times she was forced to be pragmatic or paranoid about (such as the aforementioned incident with Vault 4, were done on false pretenses]].
53	** [[spoiler:[[TheStinger The final shot of the seemingly-destroyed New Vegas]] seems to imply this of the efforts of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' players, especially those who chose to side with the NCR or Yes Man. No matter what the Courier did, New Vegas ends up being destroyed anyway.]]
54	* AmbiguousSituation:
55	** The Enclave is shown to [[JokerImmunity still exist]] despite all their setbacks with their wars against both the NCR in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' and the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', and is clearly far more than a vestige of its former self like they were implied to be in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' (of which an add-on suggests there is another outpost in Chicago, Illinois). In the TV series, it is shown that they have a fully dedicated research facility and are clearly up to ''something'' with fusion technology and canine behavioral engineering, but the extent of their resources, personnel, and overall role in the current timeline (beyond Wilzig defecting from them) is glossed over in the first season. Likewise, their connection to [[spoiler:the Vault-Tec Corporation]] is unclear, since while Wilzig displays intimate knowledge of [[spoiler:the Vault experiments and knows who Lucy is, it is just as likely that he may have learned that from Moldaver]].
56	** [[spoiler:While Vault-Tec is revealed to be a GreaterScopeVillain by not only conspiring to profit from the Great War but even planning on ''firing the first nukes'', it's left vague whether they actually ''did'' or if someone else jumped the gun ahead of them, since while Mr. House was in on Vault-Tec's "strike first" plan, he still ended up being off on the exact time the Great War started, making it ambiguous if this was because America and/or China acted before Vault-Tec could or because Vault-Tec left House out of the loop on when ''they'' intended to start it.]]
57	** [[spoiler:While the New California Republic is seemingly wiped out in the region around Shady Sands, it remains unclear to what extent the damage to it is, given that there still remain NCR territories further north.]]
58	* AmbiguousTimePeriod: [[spoiler:It's left vague when the meeting of the corporate executives where they discussed kickstarting the Great War actually took place. Among the only main hints the viewers have is that Cooper Howard was still at the top of his game and married to Barb. By the time the Great War happened, [[RewatchBonus it's clear on later viewings]] that enough time had passed for Cooper to have both separated from his wife and seen his career prospects go down the drain as a result of his falling out with Vault-Tec. Eagle-eyed fans have pointed out a newspaper in a flashback in Episode 6, but it's too blurry to tell if it's from January 2075 or 2077.]]
59	* ArcWords: The ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' franchise's arc words "war... war never changes" are said by [[spoiler:Vault-Tec employee Barb Howard while discussing Vault-Tec's CorporateConspiracy to TakeOverTheWorld, and given a MeaningfulEcho over 200 years later by her husband, The Ghoul.]]
60	* AscendedExtra: SeriesMascot Vault Boy is given a backstory to his creation before the bombs fell. [[spoiler:The Ghoul was his body model and the inspiration for his "thumbs-up" pose back when he was a normal human actor named Cooper Howard.]]
61	* AuthoritySoundsDeep: Likely to invoke this trope, along with BadassBaritone, the Brotherhood's T-60c power armor has a vocal modulator installed in the helmet that produces a deep, booming voice when they speak.
62	* AwfulTruth: Not one, but ''multiple'' awful truths revealed over the course of the first season:
63	** As far as the denizens know, Vaults 31, 32, and 33 all work together to thrive. [[spoiler:What the latter two don't realize is that Vault 31's sole purpose is to serve as a repository for Vault-Tec's hand-picked Overseers to maintain control over the populations of the other two Vaults, all comprised of pre-war Vault-Tec upper brass kept in cryogenic stasis until needed. Vaults 32 and 33 serve as a breeding pool for the former, selected to create a new generation of super-managers for Vault-Tec's new world. When the denizens of Vault 32 discovered the truth, they descended into chaos, murdering their Overseer before turning on each other and themselves. Betty Pearson and Lucy [=MacLean=]'s father, Hank all came into their positions as Overseer this way and are actually over 200 years old.]]
64	** Lucy and the other residents of Vault 33 have long been taught that they must wait for Reclamation Day, when they can leave the Vault and start a new civilization above ground in the world post-apocalypse. Upon reaching the surface and interacting with its inhabitants, she discovers that not only had a civilization completely outside of the Vault dwellers' plans already formed and was close to returning to pre-War standards [[spoiler:but that the NCR had already collapsed years before she entered the wasteland]].
65	** [[spoiler:To crush their competition, Vault-Tec acquired the rights to cold fusion, a form of limitless energy that would've solved the resource shortages plaguing the pre-War world overnight. They also made certain that if anyone took the cold fusion catalyst prototype they kept in storage, it could not be activated unless specifically given an employee ID and password from a Vault-Tec executive.]]
66	** [[spoiler:Perhaps worst of all, as Cooper learned after placing a bug on his wife's Pip-Boy and listening in on the meetings between corporate executives, Vault-Tec ''encouraged'' the inhumane experiments conducted within their Vaults by divvying up control over the Vaults among their subsidiaries as a competition to see who can create the best post-Great War civilization. To further incentivize investment in their Vaults, Vault-Tec also conspired to '''''[[GreaterScopeVillain drop the nukes that kickstarted the Great War, themselves]]'''''.]]
67	* BackFromTheBrink: In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel was in bad shape, having just lost a war with the NCR and, in most endings, wiped out by whichever faction The Courier chooses, or becoming petty raiders. The only good ending they get is if they ally with the NCR in their ending. Here, thanks to backup from the Commonwealth chapter and [[spoiler:the former NCR capital Shady Sands having been decimated in the interim]], the Brotherhood is at the very least the largest military force in the region.
68	* BigCreepyCrawlies: Radroaches (cockroaches that have mutated to the size of a small dog) feature prominently in the series. Dr. Wilzig uses them to emphasize that Lucy isn't in a Vault anymore and will have to adapt just as they did.
69	* BlackComedy: In grand ''Fallout'' tradition:
70	** Dr. Wilzig's dog happily brings his master a ''severed human hand'' like a bone or chew toy.
71	** An Enclave turret firing at Dr. Wilzig and [=CX404=] while flashing a bright display that reads "PLEASE REMAIN CALM" on it.
72	** After commandeering Knight Titus's armor, Maximus comes across a tough-looking man threatening someone who appears weaker, and intercedes, forcing the tough guy to let his victim go. Once the victim has left, the tough guy informs Maximus that he was going after him because he caught him [[BestialityIsDepraved fucking his chickens]].
73	** When Doctor Wilzig [[spoiler:commits suicide by Vault-Tec branded CyanidePill]], he describes them as the most humane product Vault-Tec ever produced. He is not exaggerating.
74	*** He then urges Lucy to continue her EscortMission by bringing his head with her, and promptly hands her a Ripper to decapitate him.
75	** A Mr. Handy medical robot calmly informs Lucy that she's not going to be a sex slave, instead he's going to harvest her organs before shooting her with a tranquilizer and letting her fall back onto a gurney.
76	** At one point, Lucy is tried for breaking Vault 4's rules and is sentenced to death... [[spoiler:by banishment to the surface. She's even given a two-week care package of supplies... which then gets wrecked when Maximus, thinking she's in danger, charges to the "rescue." He has to awkwardly apologize for knocking a guard out once the situation has calmed down enough for Lucy to explain things.]]
77	** An ad for Vault-Tec features a real California phone number. Dial it and [[spoiler:you're treated to the sound of a man screaming for a quarter of a minute before the phone hangs up.]]
78	** The "remembrance ceremony" for the refugee surface dwellers gets progressively more unhinged and culty as it goes on. This is played for laughs as Lucy gets increasingly more uncomfortable with it all. [[spoiler:Up until it suddenly ''isn't'' with TheReveal.]]
79	** The MacGuffin for most of the first season being [[spoiler:Wilzig's severed head. Which ''Wilzig'' himself proposed as an idea. The head bounces between multiple characters, gets eaten by a giant salamander at one point, and when finally brought to Moldaver, Lucy unceremoniously drops it directly on Moldaver's plate while she's eating.]]
80	* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Relatively common for people who get shot with the Ghoul's pistol. The fact that it appears to shoot tiny fin-stabilized grenades goes a long way in explaining this.
81	* BlueIsHeroic: Played With. Cooper's heroic cowboy character wears a blue suit with yellow fringe, and [[spoiler:when he is selected to be the Vault Pitchman, Vault-Tec models the iconic suits on his color scheme to solidify the connection.]]
82	* BombproofAppliance: The flashbacks to Maximus as a kid surviving the nuclear bombing [[spoiler:of Shady Sands]] in a fridge.
83	* BrandX: Most notably Nuka-Cola, the setting's version of Coca-Cola.
84	* BreakTheCutie: Lucy. She's chipper and ''hopelessly'' naive when she starts exploring the surface, and just goes through one horrible thing after another.
85	* BrickJoke: After the Ghoul [[spoiler:shoots off Dr. Wilzig's leg in Filly, a Snake Oil Salesman offers him a miracle cure for missing limbs, which he and Lucy naturally ignore. Several episodes later, that same salesman encounters the wounded Thaddeus and sells him the same cure which, as it turns out, actually works - albeit with a slight side effect of ghoulification.]]
86	* CallBack: When the Ghoul [[spoiler:is pursuing Moldaver to the Griffith Observatory, he and Dogmeat camp outside the same Hollywood Forever mausoleum where he met her prior to the war.]]
87	* CallForward: Cooper's actor friend Sebastian reveals that the character he played and the one [=RobCo=] based the Mr Handy robots off of was named "Bartholomew [[Characters/Fallout4MainStoryCompanions Codsworth]]".
88	* TheCameo: The show is chock-a-block with them.
89	** Creator/MykeltiWilliamson turns up in the first episode as a bounty hunter who tries to recruit the Ghoul to track down Dr. Wilzig. This cameo was engineered by Walton Goggins, who wanted to work with his ''Series/{{Justified}}'' co-star again.
90	** Creator/ErikEstrada appears as an ex-NCR Ranger who now farms lead (i.e., spent bullets).
91	** Creator/MattBerry briefly appears in a pre-war flashback as one of Cooper's Hollywood friends, commenting on how he's sold the rights to his distinctive voice to [=RobCo=] and musing on the nature of corporate sponsorships.
92	** Creator/FredArmisen pops up as a slightly offbeat DJ who lets Maximus borrow his radio to call the Brotherhood.
93	* CapitalismIsBad: [[spoiler:It's revealed that the main villains of the series, and by extension the ''Fallout'' franchise as a whole, are Vault-Tec and similarly aligned conglomerates who engineered [[WorldWarIII the Great War]] and systemically stamp out any attempts to rebuild civilization outside their control so that they can rule the world according to their own whims, without pesky regulations or governments getting in their way]].
94	* CastingGag:
95	** As Dr. Wilzig, Creator/MichaelEmerson plays a mysteriously knowledgeable glasses-wearing character who delivers exposition; walks with a limp; and has a very protective big dog. All of those are traits shared with his character of Harold Finch in ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' (which Jonathan Nolan also produced).
96	** In the Japanese dub, Creator/MiyukiSawashiro, as Lucy, previously voiced [[spoiler:Xsana]] in ''VideoGame/FistOfTheNorthStarLostParadise'', a videogame based in the post-apocalyptic manga [[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar of similar name]], who, just like Lucy, [[spoiler:is the daughter of a very powerful man in charge of the organization responsible for the state of things in their respective settings (Vault-Tec and Eden respectively)]]. The sole difference, however is that [[spoiler:while Xsana is the current leader of Eden and a UniversallyBelovedLeader to boot, Lucy, on the other hand, is the daughter of the man responsible for basically destroying civilization, and she starts to hate him when she finds out the truth]].
97	** In a pre-war flashback, Cooper Howard expresses discomfort at playing a cowboy "hero" who ruthlessly shoots an unarmed villain. In real life, Howard's actor -- Walton Goggins -- voiced his discomfort with playing a shamelessly bigoted police officer on ''Series/TheShield''.
98	* CentralTheme: The Wasteland is a harsh, horrific place where [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished naivety is snuffed out and altruism is punished]]. Additionally, [[NotQuiteTheRightThing actions that seemed good at the time may have complicated and unforeseen consequences]].
99	* {{Cliffhanger}}: Lots of story points are still not solved after the end of the season. [[spoiler:The Ghoul, Lucy, and Dogmeat start traveling looking for the admin Vault. Maximus is in charge of the ruins of Los Angeles that have gotten endless energy. Norm is left contemplating whether to enter cryogenic sleep indefinitely in Vault 31. Hank is going to New Vegas for reasons unknown, but likely for reasons connected to Robert House.]]
100	* ClusterFBomb: A contrasting juxtaposition, between two characters wearing the same suit of Brotherhood power armor.
101	** Knight Titus is dropping cluster F-bombs as he runs away from a Yao Guai that is thrashing him, leaving his squire Maximus behind, signifying his [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere cowardice]].
102	** Maximus (while [[DeadPersonImpersonation impersonating]] Titus in the armor) starts dropping them as he starts running ''towards'' the gulper trying to eat Thaddeus, indicating far more stalwart courage, and instead exclaiming it due to the [[OhCrap emergency of the situation]].
103	* ConservationOfNinjutsu: In episode 2, the Ghoul goes through a lot of effort and is knocked around with relative ease until he figures out a weakness when up against Maximus in his PoweredArmor. In episode 8, when he encounters a group of multiple Brotherhood Knights wearing armor too, he barely breaks a sweat while killing them with single well-placed shots and explosives.
104	* TheConspiracy: [[spoiler:The "Great Game" referenced in previous titles turns out to be this, the so-called "great game of capitalism" winding down to its inevitable end: the largest companies in America divvying up what will remain of humanity after the apocalypse and then kickstarting that apocalypse themselves.]]
105	* ContinuityCameo: [[spoiler:Robert House and Frederick Sinclair, two major characters from ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', appear during the Vault-Tec meeting, revealing them to have at least been aware of Vault-Tec's plan to [[NukeEm orchestrate the Great War to cleanse the Old World]] so they can [[OneNationUnderCopyright monopolize the future under corporate rule]], if not actively involved.]]
106	* ContinuityNod:
107	** The countdown livestream repeatedly references [[ShowWithinAShow an in-universe film]] called "The Man From Dead Horse". Dead Horse Point, in addition to being a real state park in Utah that housed a horse corral during the WildWest, has [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas previously appeared in the series]] as the homeland and namesake of the Dead Horses tribe residing in Zion Canyon.
108	** [[spoiler:The ''Prydwen'']] makes a dynamic entry at the unknown Brotherhood base, escorted by vertibirds, bringing with it Knights in PoweredArmor and a mission based on intel from [[spoiler:"the highest clerics in the Commonwealth"]]. The Commonwealth is the main setting of ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' (known pre-war as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), and [[spoiler:the ''Prydwen'' was the Brotherhood's headquarters in the game, where it ''also'' made a dynamic entry]].
109	** Like [[VideoGame/Fallout3 Elliott Tercorien]] and [[Characters/Fallout4ProtagonistAndFamily Nate]], the Ghoul is a veteran of the Alaskan campaign; specifically, he was one of the power armor troopers who first deployed in the T-45d.
110	** In episode 8, [[spoiler:after Barb and Bud explain that each of the corporate leaders are being given creative control of their chosen Vaults, most of them lay out some ideas for Vault experiments, some of which allude to Vaults found in the games. To wit, they talk about a deliberately overcrowded Vault (Vault 27 from the ''Fallout Bible''), a Vault governed by an AI (Vault 51 from ''Fallout 76''), a Vault aimed at developing "super soldiers" (Vault 87 from ''Fallout 3''), a Vault where psychotropic drugs are pumped into the air supply (Vault 106 from ''3''), and a Vault where children are separated from their parents and forced into a eugenics program (Vault 75 from ''4'').]]
111	* ContinuitySnarl:
112	** The show makes at least one rather significant retcon to established lore by [[spoiler:placing Shady Sands within the Los Angeles Boneyard, rather than up near Death Valley as it was in the original games. Not only does this retroactively introduce some puzzling issues to the story of ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' regarding the settlement's proximity to the Cathedral and the locations of Vaults 13 and 15 possibly being shifted into the city as well, but it raises equally many questions about the NCR's five states as established in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' and referenced occasionally in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' -- namely, the fact that Shady Sands is meant to be the capital of the "state of Shady" as well as the nation overall, with "the state of Los Angeles", comprising the city's ruins, as a separate political entity within the Republic whose capital is New Adytum.]]
113	** The fact of there being three Vaults constructed around Los Angeles and that all seem perfectly intact by the late 2200s raises concerns over how they could have possibly evaded discovery by the Master in ''VideoGame/Fallout1''. The Master and his Unity were raiding and collecting Vault Dwellers to make into Super Mutants in California for years. The interconnected Vaults starting with Vault 33 are in a major urban center, with the blast door entrance out in the open for anyone to see, unlike Vaults 13 and 15. One would think that made them easily discoverable by super mutant scouts hunting for repositories of pure human DNA. That they all seem to have survived without incident up to the present day implies either The Master never investigated them, gave up trying when he couldn't break into 33 like he did the demonstration Vault, or just by sheer luck the Unity never discovered them.
114	** The show also states that [[spoiler:the "Fall of Shady Sands" happened in 2277, the same year as the First Battle for Hoover Dam and four years before the events of ''New Vegas.'' This at first glance seems to contradict the game's year 2281 events, as numerous characters in that game directly reference Shady Sands as the current, thriving political core of the nation from which Congress and the President operate. However, [[WordOfGod Both Emil Pagliarulo and Todd Howard]] would later state that ''New Vegas'' remains canon, with Shady Sands being destroyed shortly ''after'' the events of the game, with "Fall" instead being a separate, as of yet unexplained event. This still creates uncertainties given President Kimball flies from Shady Sands to New Vegas for a speech during 2281. This "Fall" cannot be an extremely loud catastrophe nor even noticeable for the population who has access to radio, word of mouth, and travelers to and from Shady Sands, but it's not certain if this is referring to an economic or cultural fall, if it happened all at once or over the course of several years.]]
115	* ConvulsiveSeizures: A telltale symptom of a ghoul starting to go feral is repeated seizures combined with frantic snarling. [[spoiler:The Ghoul suffers a non-convulsive full body seizure while waiting for his drugs outside the Super Duper Mart, and is left paralyzed on the dirt until Lucy delivers some to him.]]
116	* CouchGag: The ''Fallout'' title card in each episode is reflective of the scene just prior: charred from bomb blasts, shot full of holes from a turret, and so forth.
117	* CuttingOffTheBranches: In the first episode, the combination of [[spoiler:the ''Prydwen'']] bringing Knights to the West Coast and the order to find Wilzig stated by Elder Cleric Quintus to have come from [[spoiler:"the highest clerics in the Commonwealth" serves as an indication that the East Coast Brotherhood survived the events of ''Fallout 4'']], which potentially means that [[spoiler:either the Brotherhood or the Minutemen endings to the game]] are considered canon. This further means that [[spoiler:the Institute is in all likelihood destroyed, but, hand-in-hand with the Minutemen ending possibly occurring, there stands a possibility that the Railroad is still around.]]
118	* CyanidePill: Vault-Tec sold flavored suicide pills for people who couldn't make it into a vault. Lucy stumbles upon the remains of a family who took that option. Wilzig quips it's probably the most humane thing they ever sold. [[spoiler:Wilzig kills himself via one of these pills and tasks Lucy with delivering just his head to their destination since it contains the MacGuffin he intends to deliver.]]
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder:Tropes D-H]]
122	* DecompositeCharacter: The show cleverly splits up the possible branches the PlayerCharacter can take into multiple characters:
123	** Lucy the Vault Dweller represents a good karma protagonist, who grows tougher and more cynical over the course of the story, but still always ''tries'' to do the right thing, even if this sometimes results in NotQuiteTheRightThing.
124	** Maximus represents a neutral karma protagonist and is the one who gets PoweredArmour and becomes a Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel. Most of his actions are motivated by selfishness or survival, but he pragmatically repays both [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe kindness]] and [[PayEvilUntoEvil harm]] that others visit on him.
125	** The Ghoul represents a bad/evil karma protagonist, being cruel and merciless ([[spoiler:though he used to be a good man]]), but is the one who gets the CanineCompanion.
126	** Norm, Lucy's brother, fulfills the AmateurSleuth and puzzle-solving aspect of the player character.
127	* DemotedToExtra:
128	** The various robots common to the wasteland are largely absent. We meet a single Mr. Handy, the [=RoboBrain=]-like [[spoiler:overseer of Vault 31]], and Lucy sees a deactivated Assaultron shortly after leaving Vault 33, and that's it.
129	** Despite being some of, if not ''the'' most iconic ''Fallout'' monsters, Deathclaws and Super Mutants only get cameos as corpses--a giant, green-skinned corpse covered in a sheet is seen at the Enclave stronghold at the beginning of Episode 2, as well as a wanted poster in Sorrel Booker's headquarters, and a horned, reptilian skull is seen [[spoiler:at the outskirts of New Vegas]] in the Finale.
130	* DesertPunk: The plot is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that used to be Los Angeles.
131	* DespairEventHorizon: [[spoiler:Lucy]] gets hit ''hard'' with it when [[spoiler:she]] learns, in quick succession, that [[spoiler:a) her father wasn't born in a vault, but is actually [[CorruptCorporateExecutive a Vault-Tec executive]] who was [[HumanPopsicle cryogenically frozen]] as part of [[LongGame Vault-Tec's ploy to take over post-war]], b) he's the one who [[NukeEm destroyed Shady Sands and, by extension, the NCR by nuking it]], and c) in the process [[TilMurderDoUsPart killed her mom]], since she ended up [[ZombieInfectee becoming a feral ghoul from the radiation]]. Lucy ends up completely devastated at realizing that [[AllForNothing that her dad was never worthy of being rescued]].]]
132	* DismembermentIsCheap: Zig-zagged depending on the medical technology available.
133	** Dr. Wilzig gets his foot shot off by the Ghoul and gets a prosthetic leg attached that attaches itself with an integral meat grinder. It doesn't work very well, and he keeps bleeding, [[spoiler:committing suicide shortly after]].
134	** Lucy bites off the Ghoul's finger and he simply sews it back on a day later, justified in that he's a [[HealingFactor ghoul.]]
135	** The Ghoul cuts off one of Lucy's fingers in reprisal but she has a new one surgically attached by a Mr. Handy robot (who keeps a drawer full of detached human fingers).
136	* TheDogBitesBack: There are two known cases of Vault dwellers violently rebelling against their Overseers for turning them into {{Unwitting Test Subject}}s:
137	** [[spoiler:The residents of Vault 32 all killed each other when they found out that they were being controlled by Vault 31 transfers who [[EngineeredHeroics manufactured crises to solve]] so they can stay in power.]]
138	** [[spoiler:Vault 4 was run by scientists who conducted horrific genetic experimentation on the lower-ranked residents. They ended up being murdered by the {{Humanoid Abomination}}s they created, and the former test subjects took over.]]
139	* EiffelTowerEffect: Virtually every moderately well-known Los Angeles landmark makes an appearance. Vault 33's exit is at the base of the Santa Monica pier, [[spoiler:Dr. Wilzig dies and is decapitated between the ruins of LAX and Randy's Donuts, the NCR's new headquarters is in the Griffith Observatory, and Lucy and the Ghoul conclude the season in the shadow of the Hollywood Sign.]]
140	* EngineeredHeroics: [[spoiler:In order to make sure someone from Vault 31 ends up leading Vault 33, there's always a crisis around Overseer election time that conveniently appears for them to swoop in and solve, winning the support of the Vault 33 residents. They may or may not also rig the elections, given a 200-year streak is rather improbable, but it ties into the social conditioning that Vault 31 transplants are reliable problem-solvers ("If things look glum, vote 31.").]]
141	* EqualOpportunityEvil:
142	** Vault-Tec, the GreaterScopeVillain of the entire franchise, is shown to have several women of color in high positions, like Barb Howard and [[spoiler:Overseer Pearson]].
143	** The Brotherhood is a xenophobic technocratic order that enforces strict hierarchies among its members. That doesn't stop them from seemingly being perfectly accepting of the non-binary Squire Dane, even using their pronouns correctly. Meanwhile, the black Maximus is bullied by Thaddeus and other recruits, but it's explicitly because Maximus was NewMeat than because of his race.
144	* FantasticRacism:
145	** Just about everyone on the surface has this towards ghouls, considering them liabilities likely to turn [[TechnicallyLivingZombie feral]] at any moment. The Brotherhood takes this to another level, considering exterminating ghouls to be one of their duties. [[spoiler:The one place we see ghouls being treated like people is with the NCR remnants, serving as another good reminder of just what was lost with Shady Sands.]]
146	** Hank [=MacLean=], a Vault Overseer, doesn't consider wastelander lives to be worth anything. [[spoiler:When his wife leaves him (and Vault 33) to live in Shady Sands, he nukes the town out of spite, not caring that this annihilated tens of thousands of surface dwellers, as he didn't even consider them ''people'' for daring to exist outside Vault-Tec's control, even if the city was founded by the former residents of Vault 15.]]
147	* FlashbackBPlot: A good chunk of the first season follows Cooper Howard's acting career in the midst of a RedScare and leading up to the bombs falling, [[spoiler:culminating in TheReveal that his wife was a Vault-Tec employee involved in a CorporateConspiracy to cause TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and TakeOverTheWorld following the apocalypse.]]
148	* FleshEatingZombie: Feral ghouls are this, as they have lost the power of reason and will immediately attack (and eat) any human they spot.
149	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Has its [[Foreshadowing/Fallout2024 own page]].
150	* {{Gaslighting}}: In hindsight, Cooper was being gaslit by his wife to thwart his suspicions about the vaults. When he brings up valid concerns about what freedoms people will have in the vaults, she guilts him by bringing up how hard it was for her when he was at war and accuses him of being insane for putting "trivial" concerns over survival. With the reveal that she ''wants'' the bombs to drop, it's clear that this was all a way to manipulate Cooper.
151	* TheGoldenRule: Lucy name-drops the Golden Rule extensively as part of her aversion to unnecessary violence and it remains a positive part of her character even as it's [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] by the harshness of the wasteland and its inhabitants bearing down on her. Most notably, [[spoiler:even after having been sold to have her organs harvested by the Ghoul, she still does right by him and saves his life when she finds him face down in the dirt from withdrawal.]]
152	* {{Gorn}}: Seeing as this is ''Fallout'', there's gore in spades, from mangled flesh, severed limbs and exploding heads. Special mention goes to the terrifying strength of Power Armor on full display, as human heads are squashed like grapes in the palms of the armor's hands.
153	* GoshDangItToHeck: Most of the Vault Dwellers are as saccharine as to be expected from this franchise, Lucy included. She keeps it up for the first half of the season, but after The Ghoul puts her through hell to get his chem fix, she proves that she's still better than him despite her InnocenceLost by giving him the chems:
154	-->'''Lucy:''' Golden rule, [[PrecisionFStrike motherfucker]].
155	* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler:The cabal of corporate representatives, including Vault-Tec, RobCo, REPCONN, and Big MT, are shown to be the main antagonist of not just the show, but the whole ''Fallout'' setting as they are revealed to be the masterminds of the Great War in their gambit to TakeOverTheWorld after cleaning the slate of the Old World and their politics. However, it's left ambiguous if they actually ''did'' fire the nukes, or just discussed that they could, and even if they did, the head of Vault-Tec overseeing it all is unrevealed, implicitly being a shadowed figure seen briefly during the meeting of the corporate heads. On a more personal level, the series goes through a whole BigBadDuumvirate before settling on Lucy's father as the BigBad, Hank [=MacLean=], who is revealed to be a massive BitchInSheepsClothing who is directly responsible for the current state of California by obliterating Shady Sands, effectively signing the NCR's death warrant, as well as pushing Vault-Tec's agenda forward.]]
156	* HandCannon:
157	** The Ghoul's preferred weapon is a four-shot revolver chambered for tiny fin-stabilized explosive rounds that have more in common with artillery than conventional bullets. It's extremely overpowered for squishier targets, routinely leaving baseball-sized holes in unarmored humans… even without exploding.
158	** The standard sidearm for Brotherhood squires is the classic 10mm pistol from the first two games. Maximus is able to put down a Yao Guai with only two rounds from it.
159	* HappierHomeMovie: Played with. The official trailer features a melancholy scene of the Ghoul watching a pre-war movie he filmed back when he was human actor Cooper Howard.
160	* HappyEndingOverride: [[spoiler:Shady Sands developed into a borderline pre-war city, with modern buildings, bountiful crops, and running trolleys, but was blasted into a crater by Hank [=MacLean=].]]
161	* HealingPotion: Stimpaks are a standard means for characters to almost instantly heal up in the video games, but their healing properties aren't really explored as anything more than a game mechanic. The show takes this approach to how Stimpaks work by making it induce hyper regeneration inside the body to heal them enough from mortal wounds.
162	* {{Homage}}:
163	** Cooper has a large movie poster in his home for one of his previous films, ''A Man and His Dog.'' This not only fits with Cooper's status as a dog-lover, it's also a reference to the classic post-apocalyptic film ''Film/ABoyAndHisDog'', which provided a lot of inspiration for the ''Fallout'' video game series, including Dogmeat's name.
164	** The Ghoul is a gunslinger who is never addressed by name in the wasteland, referencing Clint Eastwood's iconic "[[Film/DollarsTrilogy man with no name]]."
165	* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: [[spoiler:The New California Republic, once a genuine nation-state with fully functioning infrastructure and a thousands strong army strong enough to wipe the California and Mojave Brotherhood of Steel off the map, has been reduced to scattered survivor settlements and a single armed outpost. By the end of the series, the last official vestiges of their government, at least in the NCR heartland, are gone.]]
166	[[/folder]]
167
168	[[folder:Tropes I-O]]
169	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: All episodes of season 1 follow the pattern "the" + noun.
170	* ImAHumanitarian:
171	** The Ghoul carves up a fresh, dead, ''ghoul'' body so he can make [[BlackComedyCannibalism "ass jerky"]].
172	** Cannibalism is a staple of the raider lifestyle due to the scarcity of working farms making crops.
173	* InferredSurvival: [[spoiler:Season 1 ends with large gaps in the Ghoul's backstory, but he seems to think his daughter Janey made it into a control Vault safely. She was last seen with her dad galloping on horseback as Los Angeles is bombed. It's unclear how Cooper was separated from Janey and why he was left out in the cold.]]
174	* InstantSedation: All tranquilizer guns and drug injections instantly knock out their targets, although the drug-addled Ghoul can NoSell them.
175	--> '''The Ghoul''': Well, now, that is a very small drop in a very, very large bucket of drugs.
176	* InterfaceSpoiler: A non-video game example, funnily enough in a TV series based on a video game. Watching the series on Prime Video brings up a list of all cast members currently on screen whenever one pauses the video. This can be used to learn some characters' names even if they are never stated but it also tends to give away a few important plot points with some characters' identities before they are revealed, such as the fact that the severely rotted ghoul Moldaver keeps in her lair at Griffith Observatory [[spoiler:used to be Lucy's mother]], as it is identified in the list as [[spoiler:"Ghoul Rose [=MacLean=]"]].
177	* InUniverseMarketing: At one point, a phone number comes up during the ad for Vault-Tec. The number is a real California number, and dialing it connects you to [[spoiler:a man screaming for fifteen seconds before the phone hangs up.]]
178	* KissingCousins: Having sex with your cousin is taboo in Vault 33... after adulthood. Lucy's dialogue with Chet indicates that it's actually pretty typical for cousins to have sex for the sake of both education and fun while they're growing up through adolescence.
179	* LateToTheTragedy: Much of the appeal of the series comes from the gradual discovery of the things that happened on Earth since the nuclear apocalypse that Lucy (and the audience) is only catching up with 219 years later.
180	* LiveActionAdaptation: The series serves as the first live-action adaptation of the ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' franchise, which has largely lived in the VideoGames medium until then.[[note]]There were previous plans for a [[VideoGameMovies film treatment]] of ''Fallout'' but those fell through. It wasn't until the success of ''Series/TheLastOfUs'' that Creator/PrimeVideo decided to greenlight this project.[[/note]] Notably, the series is ''not'' a direct adaptation of any of the various games, instead being an original story set within the universe of the games.
181	* LoveInterestTraitor:
182	** In Episode 1, [[spoiler:Lucy's new Vault 32 "husband" Monty tries to kill her after they consummate their "marriage", revealing that he and the other residents of Vault 32 are actually hostile raiders]].
183	** [[spoiler:Cooper Howard's wife Barb is revealed to be in on the conspiracy of not only Vault-Tec's unethical (and sometimes lethal) experiments, but also proposed dropping the bomb in the first place. It's implied that he divorced her after discovering her plans.]]
184	* LudicrousGibs: In good old ''Fallout'' tradition, the violence settings are turned to maximum.
185	* MachineWorship: The Brotherhood of Steel has far more fanatical religious overtones in their search for pre-war relics compared to games, featuring robed clerics chanting Latin, rituals with incense and holy water, and the desire to hoard even simple technology like toasters.
186	* MadnessMantra: Ghouls who are turning feral will spend their final moments of lucidity repeating what their name is in a last ditch effort to hang on.
187	* MidSeasonUpgrade: At the end of her story segment in the fourth episode, Lucy finally gets ahold of a lethal weapon, a semi-auto 10mm pistol. [[spoiler:And she also has her first big BreakTheCutie moment, where she has to kill an old lady ghoul desperately clinging to lucidity right as the ghoul finally loses it and goes feral.]]
188	* MonumentalDamage: Naturally. The pre-war segment of the first episode caps off with the Los Angeles skyline getting lit up by the nuclear devastation of the Great War. When Lucy leaves Vault 33 in the third episode, one of her first sights is the far-off ruins of the Santa Monica pier. The seasonal climax of the eighth episode occurs with a battle between the Brotherhood of Steel and [[spoiler:remnants of the New California Republic]] held at the partially collapsed Griffith Observatory.
189	* MythologyGag:
190	** Every episode is filled to the brim with a myriad of recognizable sounds from the games, including the Pip-Boy's whirring and Geiger-clicking, guns firing, bullets hitting, the clanking of Power Armor, even punches and hits.
191	** Lucy's introduction has her describe some of her skills in a way that mirrors character creation in most of the games, with Repair, Science and Speech clearly being her Tag skills.
192	** During the second episode, as the Ghoul is having a shootout with the Filly inhabitants and mercenaries, we're treated to an ArrowCam view of a bullet scoring a [[BoomHeadshot headshot]], passing through, and then making the building behind the shooter explode. It's practically a shot-by-shot recreation, complete with slow motion, of [[BulletTime V.A.T.S.]].
193	** The Ghoul reunites with [=CX404=]/Dogmeat at an old Red Rocket gas station, like how the Sole Survivor met their own Dogmeat in ''VideoGame/Fallout4''.
194	** At one point, Cooper talks with Barb about retiring to a ranch around Bakersfield, an idea that she shoots down. Bakersfield was previously shown in ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' as the location of Vault 12 which was designed so that its blast door wouldn't shut properly, leading to the ghoulification of its residents and the creation of Necropolis.
195	** Vault 33's water chip failing, creating a crisis for the dwellers alludes to the main plot of the original ''Fallout'' where the water chip for Vault 13 failed and the Vault Dweller was forced to enter the wasteland to find another one.
196	** In the Brotherhood, Squires are assigned to carry massive packs holding guns and supplies for their knights, evoking the meta trope of the average ''Fallout'' player using companions as pack mules.
197	** All three variants of the [=10mm=] pistol across the franchise appear, with the Colt 6520 version from ''Fallout 1''/''2'' used as the standard sidearm for Brotherhood squires, the N99 version from ''Fallout 3''/''New Vegas'' appearing on weapon racks in the Brotherhood's HQ, and Lucy acquiring the unspecified ''Fallout 4'' version as a weapon from the Super Duper Mart.
198	** In the final episode, the code used to unlock [[spoiler:cold fusion]], "101097", is the release date of the original Fallout game.
199	* NameAmnesia: A telltale sign that a ghoul is on the verge of fully going feral is when they're desperately trying (and failing) to remind themselves of their own name.
200	* NewOldWest: Trailers show that, as in the games (particularly ''[[Videogame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]''), the nuclear apocalypse has turned back the clock for most of the United States, with the wasteland being filled with gunslingers and outlaws and no clear rule of law. Of particular note is "[[TheGunslinger The Ghoul]]", a mysterious mutated BountyHunter who looks like he walked straight out of ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly.''
201	* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
202	** Maximus is very prone to taking action before knowing the whole story. His very first heroic act after donning power armor is to save a man from getting beaten up, only to afterward find out the man was an animal molester. Later he trashes the Vault 4 atrium after they had already agreed to let Lucy go, and in the final episode, he frees her father from his cage [[spoiler:right before he could find out that Hank is actually a fascist Vault-Tec executive responsible for destroying his hometown.]]
203	** Dane's [[spoiler:SelfHarm ended up getting Maximus in trouble when the other aspirants blamed him for the razor trap and could have ended with Maximus being punished or even executed if he hadn't been able to talk his way out; as Dane admits, they didn't expect Maximus to get the blame.]]
204	* NiceMeanAndInBetween: Of the three main characters, Lucy, The Ghoul and Maximus respectively.
205	* NostalgiaFilter: Lucy notes that she has a case of this regarding her mother, as she had faint memories of playing in Vault 33's projected field and it feeling like it was bathed in genuine sunlight, but she realized after her mother was gone that it only felt like that because she was there. [[spoiler:Subverted when she learns that those were genuine memories of the surface city of Shady Sands before her father [[NukeEm nuked the city]].]]
206	* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: The series shakes up ''Fallout'' canon in a big way. [[spoiler:The New California Republic, a major power player in the west since ''Fallout 2'', was violently dismantled and its remnants wiped out by a resurgent Brotherhood of Steel, and Vault-Tec is confirmed to have been pulling the strings on everything since ''before'' the Great War, firmly cementing themselves as the true BigBad of the entire franchise]].
207	* NoZombieCannibals:
208	** Just like the rest of the ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' franchise, feral ghouls do not attack other ghouls, feral or otherwise. When Lucy ignorantly releases an entire pack of them locked up at the clinic, they attack the normal humans and no one else.
209	** Although, amusingly, this is ''technically'' averted by the Ghoul, who carves up a ghoul friend of his, Roger, for 'ass jerky'. Of course, the Ghoul isn't feral, so he's consciously choosing to cannibalize his departed friend for supplies rather than simply mindlessly preying on a potential meal.
210	* NuclearMutant: Given the 200+ years since the nuclear war, its radiation has created a range of monsters like the SeaMonster Gulper or the bear-like Yao Guai who roam the Earth and threaten the protagonists' lives. Ghouls as well are humans that were mutated by extended exposure to radiation and other chemicals, though their morality and danger level is just as varied as any non-mutant Wastelander.
211	* OneNationUnderCopyright: [[spoiler:The whole reason for the Great War was in hopes of accomplishing this for Vault-Tec and the various other corporations across the globes, hopeful that they can monopolize without penalization now that the politics of the Old World had been obliterated. Unfortunately for them, outliers like the Enclave, the New California Republic, the Brotherhood of Steel, and so on managed to persevere elements of the Old World they despised so much as they recolonized the remains of the world left behind—[[KillEmAll they are working on correcting that]][[note]]With a headstart already on the obliteration of the New California Republic before the show started[[/note]].]]
212	* OurDoorsAreDifferent: The heavy vault doors are shaped like giant gear cogs that rotate sideways.
213	* OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture: The handguns in the year 2296 are quite boxy.
214	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: In keeping with the world of ''Fallout'', ghouls are different from traditional zombies. They are created when a person is exposed to massive amounts of radiation but somehow manages to survive, then become zombie-like and attack non-ghouls on sight if they are unable to stave off going feral.
215	* OutOfFocus: China’s status as the other major belligerent in the war is completely unmentioned in the show, despite the presence of flashbacks where this information would still be relevant. It avoids being a RetCon since the show skirts the topic completely, but there are some signs that imply the war was against the Soviet Union (which does exist in Fallout but was on friendly terms with the US according to [[VideoGame/Fallout1 the first game]]) and the WhamEpisode suggests that [[spoiler: America was nuked by ''its own corporations'']].
216	** Caesar’s Legion was a major player in the region, but a couple years later they’re apparently long gone and not worth a mention.
217	[[/folder]]
218
219	[[folder:Tropes P-Z]]
220	* PoorCommunicationKills:
221	** [[spoiler:A lot of heartache could've been avoided had Moldaver taken a more diplomatic approach to kidnapping Hank (who clearly didn't recognize her) and not gotten vicious Raiders involved. If anything, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard had she not been so brutal and clouded by revenge, she probably could've gotten the cold fusion device sooner and avoided the Brotherhood destroying her base and killing her]].]]
222	** If Ben had simply told Lucy about the [[spoiler: rebellion of Vault 4's test subjects in Level 12]] instead of treating any mention of it like TheConspiracy and dismissing her, Lucy probably would've been less-inclined to [[spoiler: assume the worst of him and injure one of his scientists by going down there]].
223	* PoweredArmor: The Brotherhood of Steel has access to suits of T-60c powered armor that give them a giant and intimidating stature as they march through the wasteland, and in most cases makes them borderline unstoppable as they're essentially walking tanks. As demonstrated when Titus is on the losing end of a fight with a Yao Guai, however, there are threats in the wasteland that can overcome that advantage.
224	* PreviouslyOn: Each episode opens with a recap of previous events relevant to the episode ahead. Each episode closes with an OnTheNext teasing events of the upcoming episode.
225	* RaceLift: [[spoiler:Robert House]], at least according to the photo on his screen, is a Caucasian man in the games. In the show, he is played by Rafi Silver, who is of Arab descent.
226	* RayOfHopeEnding: [[spoiler:Nearly every member of the main cast is worse off from where they began at the end of Season 1 - [[BreakTheCutie Lucy is heartbroken]] after learning that her father was a [[EvilAllAlong genocidal monster]] who had a direct hand in ending the world, murdered ''thousands'' by nuking Shady Sands, and subjected her mother to a FateWorseThanDeath, rendering every (sometimes reprehensible) single thing she did to save him pointless; Maximus, after finding something that makes him happier than his pursuit of glory in the Brotherhood of Steel and wanting to live peacefully with Lucy in her Vault, misses his chance to follow her after nearly getting killed by Hank and then unwillingly becomes a FakeUltimateHero after he's falsely credited with killing Moldaver; and Norman is caught in a MortonsFork after being trapped in Vault 31 by Bud, forced to choose between either dying of starvation or going into [[HumanPopsicle cryo-sleep]] with no way of telling his fellow VaultDwellers about the AwfulTruth behind who Vault 31's residents really are and the role they played in the nuclear apocalypse. The only silver linings are that the wasteland now has an infinite source of power due to Moldaver successfully activating her cold fusion reactor before her death, even if it is in the Brotherhood's control (though Moldaver entrusts Maximus with serving as an InternalReformist to prevent the reactor from being misused), and that Lucy and the Ghoul are on track to finding the ones responsible for bringing about the end of the world as they pursue Hank across the wasteland.]]
227	* RedScare: [[spoiler:Fear of communism was used during the pre-war years to demonize anyone who understood that the big companies were planning to instigate the Great War and control the rebuilding of civilization with the Vaults.]]
228	* TheRemnant:
229	** [[spoiler:Lee Moldaver leads the last remnants of the New California Republic army, stationed out of Griffith Observatory.]]
230	** The Enclave is still clinging on, despite the defeats they suffered in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout3''; however, their overall impact is fairly minor.
231	* TheReveal: The series reveals [[spoiler:one of the possible truths behind the Great War: the first nuke might not have been launched by either the American or Chinese governments, but instead by '''Vault-Tec''', who deliberately instigated the war with the end goal of [[TakeOverTheWorld conquering whatever's left of the surface]] in the aftermath and being free to [[OneNationUnderCopyright establish a corporate monopoly]] over the remnants of humanity]]. It is also revealed that [[spoiler:the New California Republic has been devastated by a nuclear assault on their first capital, leaving southern California in a worse state than it was in even the original ''Fallout'' game.]]
232	* RewatchBonus:
233	** In the first episode, when the Vault 32 residents arrive to send a resident to marry Lucy, her father, Vault 33 Overseer Hank [=MacLean=], is suspicious when he meets the Overseer of 32, [[spoiler:Lee Moldaver]]. Initially, it's assumed this is because [[spoiler:Moldaver and the Vault 32 residents are actually raiders in disguise]] and Hank seemingly senses something off about them. However, later it's revealed [[spoiler:during the last episode that all Vault 32 and 33 Overseers, including Hank, are cryogenically frozen Vault-Tec assistants from ''before'' the Great War]]. It's easy to infer that Hank was suspicious because [[spoiler:he doesn't recognize Moldaver as one of his fellow employees, who would have been frozen with him in Vault 31]].
234	** Rewatching the first episode after finishing the series gives a better understanding of Cooper's situation and behavior in the opening scene. Once an A-list Hollywood actor and socialite, he is shown performing at a birthday party in a cowboy costume to make a living. One of the guests questions why a star like him is doing this, and the party's host speculates it's for alimony payments. He also refuses to do the famous thumbs-up pose that he made famous in ads for Vault-Tec "given the state of everything," as he puts it. That same guest calls Cooper a pinko, a derogatory term for communists, implying he may have been blacklisted for dissident beliefs. [[spoiler:Cooper, after getting involved with those supposed "commies", eventually ends up learning that Vault-Tec was planning to start the Great War and his wife was part of that conspiracy, which suggests that Cooper separated from his wife after learning the truth and his career paid the price for it. It also explains his hostility toward Vault-Tec and Vault dwellers in general.]]
235	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: In a pre-war segment, Sebastian Leslie has a discussion with Cooper about selling his voice away for $186,000 ([[AmbiguousSyntax or possibly $186]]), much to his regret. At the time of the series' release, AI-generated voicework presented a similar threat to screen and voice actors who would be at risk of accidentally selling away their likenesses for a pitiful amount of money.
236	* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler:Shady Sands and the whole NCR]] play this role in order to show how truly powerful (and monstrous) [[spoiler:Vault-Tec and Lucy's father]] are. In the games, they are [[spoiler:one of the major forces in the Wasteland and usually the closest to restoring a semblance of order from the pre-war world]], yet they are devastated with little difficulty [[spoiler:by a single nuke dropped on their capital]].
237	* SchizoTech: The West Coast Brotherhood has a flying fortress of an airship, VTOL dropships, and multiple suits of PoweredArmor, but their only means of transmitting images is by having radio operators tell the receiver where to mark lines on graph paper with a pencil. {{Justified\|Trope}} since the ''Fallout'' universe's AlternateHistory includes the transistor never becoming widespread before the Great War, making electrical and digital transmission impractical.
238	* SearchingForTheLostRelative:
239	** Lucy's mission after the series premiere is to find and rescue her father after he's kidnapped by Lee Moldaver.
240	** [[spoiler:The Ghoul's ultimate goal is tracking down the Vault-Tec control vault where his wife and daughter went.]]
241	* ShaggyDogStory: It turns out that whoever won The Second Battle of Hoover Dam doesn't particularly matter because they were unable to maintain control of the region for any length of time, with the NCR collapsing, the Legion presumably pulling out, and Vegas falling into ruin. This renders the main story of ''Fallout: New Vegas'' and much of ''Fallout 2'' pointless, but it [[HollywoodProvincialism conveniently lets the show runners set the story in their home city of Los Angeles]] without having to deal with any baggage from previous stories (LA is also Interplay Entertainments’ home city, so naturally that’s where they set all of their games too).
242	* ShiningCity: [[spoiler:Shady Sands is presented as having formerly been this, being an idyllic community home to tens of thousands who lived in comfort and safety without the dictatorial restrictions of the vaults or the Brotherhood. Lucy sees it as having been everything the vaults promised to one day be, and is devastated to learn that it's been destroyed, by her own father no less.]]
243	* ShoutOut:
244	** During one of the Pre-War flashbacks in "The Trap," a poster for the film "A Man And His Dog" can be seen hanging in Cooper Howard's house, implying it was one of his previous roles. This is an allusion to the famous Creator/HarlanEllison 1969 novella "Literature/ABoyAndHisDog," which (along with its 1975 film adaptation) was a major source of inspiration for the ''Fallout'' franchise as a whole.
245	** The shadowed, circular board room where the corporate oligarchs meet in the Season 1 finale is more than a little evocative of the War Room in ''Film/DrStrangelove''.
246	** Speaking of the Season 1 finale, a shot of Brotherhood Vertibirds flying through an orange sunset references a shot of chopper silhouettes on an orange sky from ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
247	* ShownTheirWork: ''Fallout'' fans have noticed that the series is full of small details that even some of the most ardent players would likely not notice or think about when playing the games:
248	** The various sets of armor (including the iconic T-60c Power Armor) and weapons used by the Brotherhood of Steel are consistent with those found in the games.
249	** What's shown of Vaults 33, 32, and 4 is consistent with the designs & layouts from the Vaults found in ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout76''.
250	** The medical supplies used by Snip Snip, the Mister Handy surgeon look like the various chem and drug containers and jars found in-game.
251	** In one flashback scene, Cooper Howard (a former marine that served in Alaska) criticizes the T-45 Power Armor's faults as an early model that got a lot of his comrades killed. Later, when encountering Knights in suits of T-60 Power Armor, he notes how, despite being more advanced, the T-60 still shares the same crucial flaw as the T-45. ''Fallout 4'' revealed that the T-60 model was made as a SuperPrototype to the T-45.
252	** The Pip-Boys used by Lucy and other Vault Dwellers, while styled differently, are shown to be detachable from the wrist and have a UI similar to the Pip-Boy 3000 Mark IV used by the Sole Survivor and other Vault Dwellers in ''Fallout 4''.
253	* ShowWithinAShow: The [[https://youtu.be/o1YhcviJ7IU?si=b9QhVxRczEHpQr9z countdown livestream]] for the reveal trailer repeatedly references an in-universe [[TheWestern Western]] movie called ''The Man From Dead Horse'' and its lead actor, Cooper Howard.
254	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The work makes a point about how different environments shape characters differently. Lucy is a sheltered idealist from the vaults who lives by TheGoldenRule and believes that HumansAreGood and RousseauWasRight. The Ghoul has seen a different reality in the resource-scarce wastelands of Earth's surface and strongly believes in HobbesWasRight.
255	* SoundtrackDissonance: The series has a penchant for pairing brutal scenes with cheery, upbeat, or smooth-sounding midcentury tunes.
256	** Music/NatKingCole's soothing love song "I Don't Want to See Tomorrow" plays throughout the teaser trailer...all while the audience goes through [[BlackComedy one violent shot after another]] such as bloody gunfights, disturbing mutated creatures, [[StuffBlowingUp things blowing up]], a grisly riot in a Vault, and finally the detonation of nuclear warheads in the heart of Los Angeles that brought about the destruction of civilization. That same song is played in the series proper during a bloody and brutal battle.
257	** Another trailer does the same with a perennial mainstay of the series, Music/TheInkSpots' "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire".
258	** The Castells version of "Some Enchanted Evening" plays over the fight with the raiders in Vault 33 in the very first episode.
259	** Bing Crosby' version of "Don't Fence Me In" plays over a shot of Lucy wandering the wasteland.
260	** Glenn Miller's "In The Mood" is the soundtrack of a fight between Maximus and Thaddeus with the gulper.
261	** "Theme From A Summer Place" plays in the Super-Duper Mart that's been turned into a drug den/organ harvesting operation.
262	* StatusQuoIsGod: [[spoiler:Horrifically enforced, as Vault-Tec, the true BigBad of the setting, sees any civilization outside of one they'll create in the post-apocalypse America as an anathema to "[[OneNationUnderCopyright the Great Game of Capitalism]]" and thus seek to eliminate any competition to that. Hank [=MacLean=] winds up having done exactly that with [[BackForTheDead the NCR]], one of the biggest players in the entire setting as a possible sign of hope that civilization is returning to the Wasteland, by nuking their capital Shady Sands to kingdom come and [[OmnicidalManiac won't stop until all life that doesn't belong to Vault-Tec is purged from the Earth]].]]
263	* StealthSequel: The series is revealed to be [[spoiler:connected more to the classic setting of the series on the West Coast, following the events of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' more than [[VideoGame/Fallout3 the East]] [[VideoGame/Fallout4 Coast]] [[VideoGame/Fallout76 games]] with some continuation of about the fate of the NCR, New Vegas, and so on beyond the games they were focused in.]]
264	* SuperWristGadget: The Pip-Boy 3000. It's a GPS system, communications device, video game console, personal computer, flashlight and Geiger counter all in one. Its presence in the plot makes it more than understandable why no Vault dweller should leave home without it.
265	* TitleThemeDrop: In the case of the ''Fallout 4'' theme:
266	** It first plays when Lucy discovers [[spoiler:an NCR flag in a classroom in Vault 4.]]
267	** A [[DarkReprise mournful version]] plays later at the start of Episode 7, as we're shown [[spoiler:a father and son pair of scavengers wearing the signature armor and helmet of the NCR Veteran Rangers (implied to be the father's and that he was once a Ranger), indicating just how far the once-great civilization has fallen]].
268	* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Titus is critically injured and bleeding out, but decides to keep insulting and berating Maximus, who is the only person who can save him. Unsurprisingly, Max sits back and lets him die.]]
269	* TorsoWithAView: One of the gunmen the Ghoul shoots during the gunfight in Filly is blown back against a fence and has a grisly hole in his upper left shoulder.
270	* VisionaryVillain: [[spoiler:Vault-Tec's management are revealed as the GreaterScopeVillain of the series, with their leadership [[HumanPopsicle waiting in cryostasis]] for the opportunity to TakeOverTheWorld and shape society as they see fit AfterTheEnd.]]
271	* WantedPoster: Both the Brotherhood of Steel and the various bounty hunter agencies put out a wanted poster of Siggi Wilzig... and humorously enough, one of [[AndYourLittleDogToo CX404/Dogmeat]]. In Episode 6, several are seen at Sorrel Booker's headquarters, including [[spoiler:Lee Moldaver, whom the Ghoul recognizes from before the war]].
272	* WarForFunAndProfit: It's made apparent that Vault-Tec and the other [[MegaCorp Mega Corps]] of the [=Pre-War=] world are perpetuating the ongoing conflicts between America and her rivals to line their pockets, from stalling peace talks to smothering a cold-fusion project that could resolve the Resource Wars in an instant. [[spoiler:Then comes [[WhamEpisode Episode 8]], when it's revealed they may have had a direct hand in the nuclear apocalypse itself in order to create a world completely free of political regulations that they could endlessly control and profit off of]].
273	* WeirdCurrency: Just like in the games, bottle caps are the main currency.
274	* WeWillUseWikiWordsInTheFuture: This applies to the meds used in the future like the [[HealingPotion Stimpak]] or [[AntiRadiationDrug RadAway]].
275	* WhamEpisode: [[spoiler:The entire series is one for the ''Fallout'' franchise as a whole. At least one major faction on the West Coast (the NCR) has been effectively wiped off the map. Vault-Tec is revealed to be (one of) the true mastermind(s) behind the Great War and have actually survived said apocalypse, with them having been secretly campaigning against ''anything'' resembling civilization in the Wasteland so their chosen subjects can inherit the earth. NothingIsTheSameAnymore doesn't even begin to describe the ramifications of this series]].
276	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Despite that ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' is referenced [[spoiler:when Hank flees to the ruins of New Vegas, with the Lucky 38 clearly visible]], Caesar's Legion is never seen or even mentioned, despite that their faction still existed in every ending of ''New Vegas'' [[spoiler:and doubtless would have taken a hostile interest in the territory of their now-destroyed rival, the NCR]].
277	* WrongSideAllAlong: [[spoiler:Lucy, after discovering the extent to Vault-Tec's evil, teams up with her former enemy the Ghoul to track her father to New Vegas.]]
278	* ZeerustCanon: Deliberately invoked. When it comes to the pre-collapse world (and its artifacts), the [[RaygunGothic "1950's space age"]] look from the video games is faithfully depicted.
279	* ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld: [[spoiler:The ''Prydwen'', the massive airship constructed and used by the Brotherhood during ''Fallout 4'' in the Commonwealth]], reappears in the first episode, now under the command of Elder Cleric Quintus and reinforcing the New California chapter of the Brotherhood on the West Coast.
280	[[/folder]]
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Context Series / Fallout2024