By the time Fallout Season 2 reaches its finale, several characters are forced to confront the consequences of their choices, particularly in Episode 208 of the Prime Video series.
A line that echoes through the season is “Perfect is the enemy of good.” For Fallout co-creator Jonathan Nolan and executive producer Todd Howard, that idea reflects the core of the series.
‘Fallout’ lives in the gray area — by design
“For me, this is where the games and the show have always lived, is in the gray area,” Nolan said. “And I think it’s what’s so fascinating for me about the games — all of the games that Todd makes allow the player to follow their own moral compass, chart their own course.”
Season 2 continues that approach, particularly in the finale, as motivations become clearer and characters grapple with the fallout of earlier decisions.
“It’s such a huge pillar of the games,” Nolan continued, “that I think to capture that moral ambiguity, to capture that essential question — the world’s over, the new world is being formed from it, which side are you going to align with and what decisions are you going to make, and what are the consequences of those decisions?”
Nolan said the show focuses on watching characters attempt to navigate that uncertainty.
“I think this is right where the show lives,” he said. “It’s in watching these characters try to chart their course through the wasteland, fail, pick themselves up, try again, try a different strategy. We see Lucy trying several different strategies. Her choices test her. Her goodness, her central goodness, gets tested again and again.”
‘What would you have done?’ and the Season 2 finale
Howard said those questions are central to the Fallout franchise overall.
“I think it’s one of the core themes of Fallout — what would you do to survive?” Howard said. “We ask those questions in the games, and it’s great to do that to a player.”
He explained that players often experiment with chaos before reconsidering their actions when the world reacts.
“Usually they start a game by just being a chaos agent, just creating chaos because it’s a game,” Howard said. “And then when they see characters react to that, they sort of, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t.’ Having that reflected in the show through different characters — you look at Maximus, even from the beginning of Season 1 — is he making the right choices? Would you have made the same ones in that situation?”
The Season 2 finale centers on Lucy’s confrontation with Hank. When asked how that moment will inform her moving forward, Nolan was coy before offering a bit of detail.
“You’ve got to stay tuned for Season 3,” he said with a laugh.
He then elaborated on what makes the finale so consequential.
“That conundrum at the end where he’s going to try to change her into the daughter he wanted her to be, and she winds up having to make this terrible decision to change him, which he then co-opts and cleans the slate — I think it’s quite tragic,” Nolan said. “To me, there’s all kinds of dark, rich stuff in there about families and relationships and parents and children. It’s very rich stuff.”
Fallout Season 2 is streaming in full on Prime Video.