To say that Fallout was a surprise hit when it premiered in April of last year feels like an understatement. There was a fair amount of buzz going into the Prime Video show, for sure; the Bethesda video game franchise which inspired it has a huge following, Westworld creator Jonathan Nolan was steering the ship, and beloved character actor Walton Goggins was front and center of the series. But its wackier tone and relatively unknown main cast felt like Fallout was being set up to be a niche hit, at best. Certainly it wouldn’t hold a candle to HBO’s golden child, the prestige TV power player The Last of Us.
But, just a few weeks after its release, Fallout was a runaway success. It quickly became one of Amazon’s biggest original hits, and was hailed critically as one of the best video game adaptations ever. By the time the internet had labeled that a “Hot Ghoul Summer” in response to the lusty fervor that Goggins’ tortured Ghoul had inspired in viewers, it was clear that Fallout had ascended to a true phenomenon.
