The Fallout TV Show Has More In Common With The Last Of Us Than Just The Post-Apocalypse

It's not just video game movies that are conquering the world. Video game shows "The Last of Us" and "Twisted Metal" have also taken the streaming landscape by storm, providing unique visions of post-apocalyptic futures that hit uncomfortably close to home to anyone keeping up with the news in this the year of our lord 2023. Now, "Westworld" creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan (no strangers to bleak tales of speculative fiction) aim to keep the bad times going with "Fallout," an adaptation of the Bethesda video games set in a future that's been devasted by nuclear war, leaving only the remnants of a world that had a peculiar affinity for mid-20th century retro-futurism.

As part of its exclusive first look at the show, Vanity Fair has revealed that "Yellowjackets" alum Ella Purnell is starring in "Fallout" as Lucy, a member of an affluent society that's managed to reside in relative prosperity underground while the surface dwellers tear one another to pieces. When a rescue mission forces her to leave her cozy home behind for the first time, Lucy soon finds herself struggling to survive in what Vanity Fair describes as "a hellscape crawling with giant insects, voracious mutant animal 'abominations,' and a human population of sunbaked miscreants who make the manners, morals, and hygiene of the gunslinging Old West look like 'Downton Abbey.'"

You can already see how "Fallout" recalls "The Last of Us" in exploring how class tensions and humanity's sense of morality would have to evolve in a post-apocalyptic setting overrun by honest-to-goodness monsters. ("The games are about the culture of division and haves and have-nots that, unfortunately, have only gotten more and more acute in this country and around the world over the last decades," Nolan told Vanity Fair.) But the parallels don't end there.

While Lucy might be more naive and come from a far more pleasant upbringing than "The Last of Us" co-lead Ellie (Bella Ramsey), they're both young people who have never known a better world. Not only that, their respective TV shows see them thrown out of the pan and into the fire as they journey across the post-apocalyptic wilderness for the first time in their lives. Lucy, in particular, is none too well prepared for the terrors that await her on her adventure, which also offers "Fallout" a chance to engage in a blend of horror-action and social satire resembling that of "The Last of Us" (as well as the original games that inspired it). As Nolan put it:

"We get to talk about that in a wonderful, speculative-fiction way. I think we're all looking at the world and going, 'God, things seem to be heading in a very, very frightening direction.'"

Themes of privilege and thinly veiled social commentary on the status quo of the real world were also fundamental to "Westworld," a show that would often twist itself into a convoluted pretzel trying desperately to stay one step ahead of its viewers but could never be accused of lacking ambition. With "Captain Marvel" writer Geneva Robertson-Dworet and "Portlandia" scribe Graham Wagner acting as showrunners instead of Nolan and Joy (both of whom are executive producers, with Nolan additionally directing the first three episodes), "Fallout" might have better luck hitting that sweet spot between high art storytelling and more accessible genre thrills, like "The Last of Us" has. 

Get ready to take cover: the "Fallout" series unleashes its own video game-inspired post-apocalypse on Prime Video starting April 12, 2024.