Brews N' Reviews - Fallout Season 1, Nuka-Cola Quantum

0:04 We ride together we die together. We bear force for life get busy living or get busy dying. Gang first, last, are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Welcome to Brews and Reviews with Mick and Pat. I'm Mick and I'm Pat, and each week we sit down with you degenerates to pretend we're certified Cicerones and Cinephiles. That is right. So grab a cold one and join us as we review Jones Sodauka, Cola Quantum and a season review of Fallout.

0:48 That's right, and if you've been with us before, you know what time it is. Release the Kraken. That was synchronicity right there. Yeah, I was like I think I heard yours through the mic more than I heard mine. Did your nose just get that blast Dude? Did you see mine? yeah, mine smoke came out of this bottle, mine smoked and I oh god, I'm so scared. what if it sucks? For those of you who don't know, nuka cola quantum is a soda that exists in fallout and was a limited run by a soda company. So, unlike usual, we're doing a soda review to match the theme of the show today and the reason this review is so late.

1:30 I'm just going to blame it on this soda. It's out of print. I had to order it off of Amazon. It took weeks to get here, so I'm just happy that showed up without being broken. But, pat, while you explain, uh, you know just what is nuka cola quantum is what is it? I'm gonna take a sip. Sounds good. So what we have, what we're looking at here, is a you know glass soda bottle with some iridescent blue glowing liquid in it. Um, even not sure if you should even put it in your body or not, and you might not be so sure after I read to you what it is.

2:10 But so Jones Soda Company. They were created in Vancouver, bc 1995. They had a vision to you know, just make soda and they wanted to do stuff with fans and fan involvement. And they have quite the fanatical following. So I've heard and their sodas feature bottle art or pictures submitted by fans people that they send in just random photos and that's what they throw on for their pictures of their sodas. That's sick. And they also do stuff like there's. Do you still have your lid? Yeah, there's fortunes under the lid, under your cap. So what's, uh?

2:50 What do you have over there, mick? uh, it says willpower can take you far. That feels like something that I'd hear, yeah, like something the brotherhood of steel would say and mine says life is short, eat the cookie that sounds. Both of those sound like things that could be in fallout. I agree I agree. And so, um, these caps you're holding in your hand have monetary value. They can be traded in to the jones soda company for gear. How much monetary value are we talking? Well, I think you might have to get quite a bit of them, but much like I mean these sodas, since they're out of print, were each 17 bucks, 20 bucks with shipping, exactly, but the um so caps with value makes me think of, you know, the world of fallout dude the currency in fallout is soda bottle caps, because they're rather endurable.

3:47 You know what I mean Like. Think about this. What's one of the one things you still see at a campfire pit when you roll up, there's always a soda cap. Or beer bottle cap, right, and so it kind of makes sense that they could be used as a form of currency, for sure. And they're really hard I feel like to make in an apocalypse. You know what I mean. Right, like who's going to waste the resources to make more bottle caps? Right, I agree. And so that's Jones Soda Company, a real-life soda company, mm-hmm. But I've got more facts from a fictional world of Fallout of the Nuka-Cola Company. Freaking stoked. Yeah. So, introduced in 2044, nuka-cola founded by an amateur chemist and future military R&D contractor, john Caleb Bradburton.

4:39 What a guy Sounds Canadian. Yeah, just like the guys who started the jones company. There's peter van stolk and john victor, john printer. Anyways, john caleb brad burton started, uh, the nuka cola company, and it rapidly dominated the soft drink market, eventually becoming the most popular soda on the market and a staple of american culture. Um, you know their, their logos and their branding. It's mostly red, red stuff with with some thick cursive writing. Yeah, you know, nuka cola. Nuka cola, exactly. Um, and the popularity of its variants strongly depended on the region.

5:25 Western states strongly liked Nuka Cola, quartz and Victory and root beer flavored Wild. More urbanized eastern states liked Nuka Grape and Nuka Orange. What's so funny here, Ben? I find this fascinating. I think that that is that's realistic. Yeah, it's so funny here. This is I find this fascinating. I think that that is that's realistic. Yeah, it's just funny to me, tell me tell me like hey, who like which region of america prefers cherry vanilla coke more than plain coke? yeah, I guarantee you, diet coke is more popular in california and cherry vanilla coke is more popular in connecticut, oh yeah, but in the yeah, so in the uh.

6:07 Anyways, in the urban areas gotta get your nuka grape and the that's what it says, that's what, that's what. That's what the history was. But anyways, the latest nuka cola taste variant was created on october 2076 as they created an isotope of strontium-90 that could be reliably weaponized what I know right. So, like I said, he was an amateur chemist who created a soda and then, from his success, became a military R&D contractor, um, and kind of big, big wig.

6:48 And so, anyways, they, they took this isotope and they weaponized it, they put it in suits, they put it in armor, they put it in this, all sorts of crazy stuff. But then, being a soda fanatic, you know, he had to get back to his roots and he was like what if we just put this in our cola? And it was born nuka cola quantum, wow, wow. So nuka cola quantum. They have read the og. Nuka cola, kind of a cola color, orangey, you know, dark, or like. They had all different flavors, you know kind of had, you know standard soda colors. Yeah, the quantum, it's wild, and it was.

7:31 The quantum was fast-tracked through the approval process. Focus groups were used to test the various variants of the quantum isotope. After numerous casualties, at least 62 test subjects died as a result of organ failure, with many more hospitalized with radiation burns, but they're not all bad. These big corporations. Families were provided with NUCCA condolences, fruit and cheese packages that contained liability waivers NUCCA condolences, dude. Can you imagine that, like sorry, your spouse died during this signed waiver test group? Here's our NUCCA condolences. If your company is so big and has so many bad things happen, you have a condolences department.

8:13 It's true it's kind of whack, but nothing that a little fruit and cheese can't fix. But eventually a safe isotope was finally created and NU-Cola quantum hit the markets in select cities right around that time. But a big old bomb happened in 19 in 2077, right that's the day. I think that's what it was in the book October 23rd 2077, yep went down. And so now, in the aftermath of these, of the bombs of the Great War, nuka-cola bottles can still be found in the wastelands in large quantities, and they became like, as you said, the de facto currency in most post-war societies.

9:00 But what the heck is? Even in Anuka Polo, quantum. I know I'm looking forward to the thumbnail art that we generate for this episode. I think I'm going to use that picture you took and then use that with the generations. Yeah, but we've got your standard. We've got carbonated water, sugar or aspartame if you're trying to watch the weight caffeine, phosphoric acid, citric acid, caramel color, potassium, benzonate, natural flavorings, but of course, strontium-90. In the real world, strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope, as well as in this world and that we're uh discussing today, and it's uh produced by nuclear fission.

9:48 it has a half-life of 28.8 years that shit's gonna be in you fora, while it's gonna be for a while which is relatively short compared to like like uranium. Uranium has like multi-billion year half-life oh yeah but then things like um, things like radon gas only have a 32, 36-hour half-life, and so you can inhale it, but you can't eat it, because once it's in the body, it acts like a calcium and it incorporates into the bones and teeth, causing cancers in your bone, bone marrow and soft tissues around the bone. What are we putting in our body tonight, mick? This is wild stuff. You can already feel my teeth getting shoved historical uses of strontium 90 um in uh in medicine.

10:33 They use it as a radioactive tracer and um to to con. It's as easy as controlled treatments for bone tumors geez, so you can attack a tumor with it. That's wild stuff. Agriculture they put it in our crops, you know, replace the calcium. That's pretty dope. And they use it in like beacons for navigating in space. They use it to power space vehicles. I love it. They use it to treat eye diseases. They're using it as a thickness gauge too, like what can you not do with strontium 90 um aerospace? They use it um to inspect uh helicopter blades.

11:16 Uh, the ruskies, they're big fans of it, they like the stuff, they like to play with it and use it um uh. Strontium 90 is widely dispersed in the environment and in the food chain from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and other sources include waste from nuclear reactors, like the accident in chernobyl so like strontium 90, yeah, main ingredient to give it that blue nuka cola hue, that quantum hue. you know, this really is kind of the color I think of when I think of like the most tempting thing to put in your mouth near a radioactive site, right, like if something's glowing, this blue color you're like I kind of want to, I kind of want to taste that.

11:58 Um, strong TM90 is like a real world thing and like it's actually like in all of our environments and like it's in our ecosystem. Yeah, it's really around there. Wow. Great, there you have it, nuka Cola. Just like the Fiestaware. You mentioned that before we started, just like how Fiestaware got that nice orange and green color from the uranium paint or whatever was on it. Yep, it is People used to do it. I was telling my realtor actually about that. Oh yeah, Just as a side note tangent, I told him that you and I had done the math and the amount of radiation you get from holding one of those plates is well over a year's worth of what you might be exposed to doing radon testing.

12:41 Oh yeah, Sorry. No, it was worse than that. It wasn't. It was like it was over a year's worth of like lethal levels of radon gas yeah, and that's what you get in, like one minute of holding the plate yeah, it was, it was, it was. It was a lot of radiation coming off there just crazy people just ate off that. Um, all right. Well, um, hey, you know, let's do, uh, let's do the swish test dog. All right, I will say first impressions All right, pretty damn good soda. It is a good soda, it's like a really good soda. All right, I'm trying to figure out where it's taking me back to. Yeah, it's like got a flavor that is like it's really good Bored and Wine. To me I think it's like the carbonation of the blue raspberry flavor from Jolly Ranchers.

13:26 Yeah, yeah, it's like that, and an airhead. Yeah, all right, switch test here. I'll explain it for the folks. While Pat does it, You're going to take a little bit of the drink tablespoon amount, put it in your mouth, let it roll over your tongue down the sides, switch it from side to side between your molars and then let it get in front of your tongue, put your tongue against the roof of your mouth and push it through your front of your teeth those big old, what are they? Incisors, those over our front teeth? Yeah, push it through those and that's going to really aerate. It make it bubbly and like. Honestly, it also makes your teeth blue.

14:07 Yeah, your teeth are definitely blue dog or bluer. My teeth hurt after doing that a little bit, Did they. That's just a sugar pounding, it's probably just the sugar. Yeah, all right, instant cavity. Pat, tell them what you taste while I do the swish test. Yeah, no, I think I really am. I hear the Jolly Rancher but I think I'm tasting the blue airhead. The blue airhead's coming through strong. You know just that blue raspberry, that fake blue raspberry candy flavor, but it's not overpowering. Like Jones Soda in general. I like a lot of Jones Sodas. I think they're good and like it really. If a you know, what do you think Are? My teeth blue, it really if a? um, you know what, do you think it's blue?

14:47 Yeah, a little crazy now she did that. Um, I think that you know, uh, joan, soda does make like some dialed back sodas, meaning like they don't put all the everything, all the nasty stuff in there right you're right and like and like. You know, the ingredients list on this is really short, you know, and uh, they use cane sugar and things like that, and so the I think that, if a I don't know like ester gum blue one. Yeah, I love that if, if a different soda company came out with this, it would be like wildly overpowering.

15:29 It'd be too sweet for me yeah, I think so. Like this is like, honestly, like the perfect level of sweetness. I think because, like the idea that I'm gonna drink this whole thing doesn't make me like think I'm gonna have a stomachache. Yeah, it makes it, whereas, bro, like when you have a whole sprite nowadays, I think that's too much sugar for my body to handle. I think, just because I I go so long and I only drink like diet sodas usually, and so like a whole thing of like sugar like from a normal soda is usually too much and it gives me a stomach ache, right and this this has 33 grams of sugar, but that's a lot. That is way less than most sodas. Way less than a lot of sodas, yeah, most sodas are like 45.

16:11 And this is sugar from cane sugar yeah, natural sugars. So, it's a little different from natural and I feel like I'm drinking in a good way. I feel like it's the summertime and I'm in a bathing suit and I'm a child and it's just, there's no school, there's actually nothing to do, but but there's so much to do. It kind of tastes like the red and white and blue rocket. That's popsicle. This is what I was. What I was having to do with this was as I'm a shirtless child in my bathing suit in summertime, I find on the side of the road a melted bomb pop.

16:53 It's unopened, and if something compels me to open it and pour it into my mouth, that's what I was getting to. It's like drinking a bomb pop yeah, no, it really is In a good way. I love how sudsy it is's like drinking a bomb pop yeah, no, it really is in a good way. Yeah, so I'm just. I love how sudsy, it is Dude, it's really good. It's like the right. It's kind of like almost like you know, like the good burn of sudsiness, like ginger ale. Yeah, it's a little ginger ale, yep, yeah. Dude, yep, yeah, dude. I wish that we Boreline want to learn figure out how to make a cocktail with it, because it's so good.

17:33 Yeah, you just pour some vodka in it. Yeah, I guess that's pretty much it, I bet. Yep, yep, I'm sticking with Bomb Pop. Bomb Pop was what this tastes like. Part of me thought maybe there was a hint of cotton candy, but I don't really think it is. I hate the taste of cotton candy, but I was kind of like, what else is it? But yeah, I think the Bomb Pop's it. Well, dude, we got a lot to get into, but I think, like that was an excellent intro. Hey, if you want a Nuka-Cola Quantum, save up, like. I'll put the link on our store page and if you want one, go through Amazon and order it and you can have one yourself. It's worth it. Treat it, treat yourself, put it in the fridge. Save it for you know what to save it for.

18:15 Save it for when the bombs fall. If you live in a metro area and you see bombs start falling, you know what to do. Power's about to go out, turn. And you see bombs start falling, you know what to do. Power's about to go out, turn. Grab that sweaty, cold, uh, nuka cola quantum out of the fridge, twist the cap off and just put on the sunglasses, because you're about to get your raise baby. And while you know it may not last like in your prepper bin. It does last a long time. This, this, mine's last, until 2026. We got two more years on this sucker. That's crazy, and they're out of production. Ooh yeah, that's why it was so hard. Jones doesn't produce it anymore. Oh man, which they do have. They've come out with a new Nuka-Cola just for this show.

19:00 I think it's the Nuka-Cola Quartz. Yeah, but it's not this one. This one is yeah, like you said, yeah. I think this came out like. I think they released this for one of the games that came out yeah, which has been a few years since the last game came out, because this is a oh it says on the bottom berry lemonade soda. Well, I think that's isn't the white part of Rocket Pops lime or lemon. That's a description. It's like I was eating the white part of the rocket Dude it's so good. This might be like the best like soda outside of. Like a diet Pepsi to me.

19:41 I love diet Pepsi. I love Pepsi, but like dude diet Pepsi is so good. Pepsi Zero is soi to me. I love diet pepsi. I love pepsi, but like dude diet pepsi is so good. Pepsi zero is so good to me, dude. It's one of those things. Don't just think you're joking right now they get a joke. Dude, no man, here we go, here we go. It's like for me, once you get on, once you get on the diet, or zero, train your taste buds, acclimate and you can't go back. Yeah, like normal soda is just too sweet. So, like dude, top three sodas. Right now, for me, top three Diet Pepsi, mountain Blast Sorry, mountain Dew, baja Blast Zero, oh my goodness. Zero. Sugar, it's just, it's not even diet, it's just zero.

20:23 And it's so good, dude, a Nuka-Cola con that's not ranked in one, two, three, that's ranked like. Those are the best ones, in my opinion and depending on how I feel. I'm just going to get them. Dude just imagine. Just like a Pepsi logo icon. Got a mount dew logo at this what a big gold chain that spins. Yeah, that you wear you have insulin, you have like an insulin pack um showing like you can see the insulin pack through your life. Yeah, yeah exactly that chain. Oh man, dude, that's funny.

21:04 Uh, it's really good. Um, I'm ready to give it some thumbs. What about you, pat? I'm ready too I'm gonna give it two thumbs up. This is a two thumbs up soda to me. It's a craft soda. I couldn't agree more, really, oh yeah that's such a relief to me, bro, because of how fucking expensive it was it was a gamble, it was such a gamble. Here's one thing I want people to know. I'm really not trying to shill. I want you all to know like, yeah, we love it. If you buy something at the store, we get a kickback right, but be careful. Buying this Like this is a gamble. It's like, like I said, 16 to 18 bucks a soda bottle and I've seen reviews where they showed up broken from bad packaging and they had just leaked all over.

21:48 I'm going to put blue food coloring and water back in this and ship it back out. So meaning this could be. that's what you could end up. Getting something like that from somebody who's just a savage, yeah, I guess you could twist the top back on, just cramp it on and Send it out there. That's funny. Anyways, yeah, it's delicious. Recommend you get one if you're willing to take the gamble, if you have disposable income to risk it. The biscuit, if you're someone like us who enjoys, you know, just finely crafted beverages and kind of saves the cans and bottles from those, you probably already have a bottle of this, so glad you like it.

22:29 Moving on though, moving on to the show, the Fallout TV show, eight episodes. We did first takes of episode one and gave our thoughts of if we thought it was worth watching and sticking with it or not, and I hope you're enjoying the music playing in the background. It's going to be a lot of oldies, and those oldies come from the actual soundtracks of the Fallout game. Fun thing is that game licensing and licensing for music and TV shows is very expensive, and, if I remember correctly, to license music in a game is more expensive usually, and a lot of old classic music just is free Creative Commons now, and so there's no like a copyright on it or anything like that.

23:17 So it's usually pretty affordable. The Fallout games have, like this, you know, culture around like the golden age of america in the 50s and 60s, right after world war ii, during like the warming period of the cold war and, uh, a lot of this music is from that you know era in our time, and so I figured it'd be fitting to play a soundtrack in the background of like the most common popular songs from the game series while we review the show. So yeah, the show. The leads are Ella Pernell, who plays Lucy McLean, aaron Moten, who plays Maximus, and of course, my man, walen Goggins, who I loved, absolutely fell in love with from watching him in Justified as Boyd Crowder.

24:11 Ava, that's the way he says his wife's name, ava Puts like three extra syllables on Ava. But I love him, he's great and I think he's a phenomenal actor. I think he's really good's great and I think he's a phenomenal actor. I think he's really good at being funny, I think he's really good at being spooky and I was happy to see him here playing Cooper Howard or the ghoul, depending on if it was a flashback or not. And the show had a lot of the Nolan Jonathan Nolan directing it for quite a bit, but the creators are being billed as a Geneva Robertson Doret and a Graham Wagner.

24:57 Never heard of them before, but they were the creators, I guess, and Nolan did most of the directing Jonathan Nolan, not Christopher Christopher's brother, who he's also done. They were the creators, I guess, and Nolan did most of the directing Jonathan Nolan, not Christopher Christopher's brother, who he's also done, like Westworld, a couple other stuff. I can't remember what else Jonathan Nolan's done, but he's done some pretty big projects Supporting cast. We have Moises Arias who played Norm McLean, lucy's brother, which if you watch Hannah Montana he was the little kid in that show, the like really annoying little kid in that show. I can't remember his name. My wife, billie Jean, immediately recognized him. I knew I recognized him.

25:37 I couldn't figure out who he was. Yeah, I can't remember his name in Hannah Montana, but he's that kid. Johnny Pemberton played Thaddeus, kind of another comic relief character, and then Kyle McLaughlin of Dune and Twin Peaks played Hank Mackley and Lucy in Norm's father. The plot summary, you know we kind of already gone over it a little bit, but just to evolve, you know it's in a post-apocalypse California that has been brought on by nuclear decimation. The reason of the bombs falling isn't just quite known. However, vault dwellers must survive in underground bunkers in order to protect themselves from the threats of the outside world.

26:20 In a post-apocalypse Lucy, though, must leave the vault. Why? To rescue her father, played by Kyle MacLachlan. In doing so, she crosses paths with a wasteland outlaw bounty hunter known as the Ghoul and a wannabe knight in shining armor known as Maximus. And so we're going to kind of just jump around as we hit our talking points here, going over the like eight episodes, and, like we said, we already covered episode one in the first takes. So we'll be just giving our thoughts on, like the acting, the plot, story setting, set, design, themes, you know, believability, and is it a successful IP show?

27:04 Um, and it's been announced there's a season two, shared their beer season two. You know what I mean. Um, so, all that said, pat, let's uh, let's kind of get into it from the top here, and you know you just finished it more recently than I did, so I feel like it's a little bit fresher in your mind. But tell me, you know, what are you? What were your thoughts, kind of, as the story progressed? You know, and you know, episode two is where the mcguffin gets revealed, this cold fusion blue pill. That really is like whatever, but it's the plot, right, it's this, it's this the thing. You know, yeah, um, without really any explanation, it's just the thing you know, without really any explanation.

27:47 It's just the thing, and the real story is like everything that happens outside of that. Yeah, and I thought that's a good use of storytelling to just have, especially when you're dealing with multiple storylines. Uh, especially when you're dealing with multiple story lines, so in order to have a plot driver that doesn't um overshadow the individual story lines, just something, an ominous thing that's out there or like, or a vague thing that's out there that everybody's trying to find, or whatever it is, is the way to, you know, have um to tell a story and eventually bring all the stories together.

28:30 Um, and so the it's a good use of storytelling is. I think that used it well in this case too, because we knew enough about it just to know that it's something powerful. You know it's. We don't know what it does, but we know that it, um, we know that it's something powerful. You know, we don't know what it does, but we know that all these factions, different groups of people want to have it because it's going to change the course of their history, if not the history of the world. Yeah, and it'll probably restart civilization. I had to look up Cold Fusion, though, because even in my big brain there was no files on cold fusion, so I had to make some, and apparently cold fusion is just the hypothetical concept that you could have a nuclear reaction at room temperature, making it very much safer and sustainable and basically limitless.

29:22 You know what I mean. So I guess that's the idea. One thing I didn't understand a whole montage in episode two in the intro, where Ben from Lost is like he has his dog and then he sneaks it into his lab. I don't get what the dog has to do with cold fusion, right, and why the dog was worth the risk. I just didn't follow that. Right. He like he spared the dog from the chopping block, right, because they were like, oh, there's a defect in it, right, but I was like what the hell has the dog got to do with cold fusion?

30:03 I never understood. And then the dog's in every episode, yeah, without any, like it doesn't do anything to help. It doesn't help them find stuff. I think the dog is supposed to kind of serve. Hear me out on this how you feel about this concept and I'm not arguing against any of your reasons of how the dog is basically pointless Right One. The dog as a companion in the games is always awesome. It's a German Shepherd or Malloy. Oh, wow. Yeah, but I think it's supposed to kind of be like the hand of God in the show, like the dog is always kind of helping us understand where the people need to go or do the thing.

30:50 I guess I don't know. Like it just seems, and it seems like the dog also is kind of picking people to be like now it's your turn to carry this. Now it's your turn to carry this, because the dog which is funny, they try to give it a name like cnx, xl44404 or whatever and the dog in the video games, across every video game, whenever you find the dog, wherever you find them, you just call it dog meat. That's the name of every dog in fallout is just dog meat. It doesn't matter what it is and it's not the same dog, because dog meat can die. So the idea is and I'm the community reacted because, like the community was like oh, look the dog, what's your name?

31:31 And then, like it showed the dog being like cnx 404 and everyone was like your name's dog meat. Yeah, I just thought that was like so on brand and they and the. That does help you stay away from rage of the community like, like people. People just couldn't handle a dog being called dog meat. Yeah, in the in the popular world true, true the yeah, I guess that's true. I think maybe the the dog just kind of serves as the constant. You know, yeah, just think through. It is just kind of serves as the constant. You know, yeah, just think through, it is just following the head around. I try to remember there really was no any like not very any big like lassie moments with it, like you were like meaning like just like the dog saving the day or stepping into hell, yeah.

32:19 Just kind of it's all right, it's just but and maybe it's just to show some. To go back to the maybe okay, here answers your question why would, why'd they show all this thing about the dog? Because his owner didn't abandon him, didn't leave him, took him in and like I think maybe they overthought it, but like this, like I think maybe they overthought it, but like this, like they, and then when his owners, you know, be headed, is like the dog sticking with him the whole time, like it's like this, like was it showing the loyalty there? Was it like I don't know what the point of? Like I thought that the dog thing, that dog montage, was gonna have some big bearing on, like the research he discovered, or like you know, the dog was like the chosen one, something he's going to figure, used to figure out something or whatever.

33:05 But maybe it was just just to show that he won that dog's loyalty and then the dog just stuck with him. I don't know, I have no idea either. I don't. I don't know but the dog was around I don't know what I don't know what the dog had to do with the mGuffin, but it was there Anyways. Yeah, so that's stuff that gets intro'd in episode two and all that. But I'm just curious overall, how do you feel the plot progressed and stuff? Is there anything in particular you want to touch on or talk about? Yeah, in that episode two I think that we weren't sure.

33:47 We mentioned in episode one that Maximus might be like kind of the villain, the villain or the bad guy. Yeah, um, he's got some ego and maybe he maybe argument could be made at the end that he was a bit of an anti-hero or something, but or like a you know, at least very least like conflicted person trying to find himself. But this is where we did kind of see him. He kept progressing towards being something villainous, like you know, where he just lets his night die. He just lets it happen. To be honest, if I found out the guy I had to protect was Michael Rapaport and it was the apocalypse I might let him die, I'd take his suit. I'm not condoning killing anyone just because you don't like them, or anything like that, but in those dire circumstances I'm certainly not going to sit around and listen to Michael Rapaport berate me.

34:34 I'm not going to claim Michael Rapaport's crotch armor. Yeah, his cock piece. Yeah, they kept making him polish their cup, yeah, and I, I guess too like to to like defend him a little bit, like he didn't execute him, he just let him die, yep, while he was berating him, and then he was like all right, well, armor is mine, and we don't even see him like pull his body out, it's just like just shows him walking around wearing the armor Right. And are the? What are those suits called? I don't remember? Power armor, power armor. So is our knights revered in the game or is power armor revered in the game?

35:14 Well, because, both. Because for this one thing, this did, it did break the like. In episode one, we see these knights walking shoulder to shoulder, coming off their awesome gunships. You're like, whoa, like these guys are going to be like the thing. And then episode two was just like. This knight is unlikable. He's a tool. He's a tool, he's just out for himself Doesn't seem like he's got any real training. Exactly any real training, exactly, and then like. So it did immediately break the veil of like these, just like cog soldiers you say cog from like gears of war like that, just like like a cog in the wheel, oh just like, like, like the the stone cold, steadfast, duty-driven soldier, knight figure.

36:04 Yeah, no, the Brotherhood of Steel is like a very you know, powerful, imposing faction in the game and when you find them I remember, like in Fallout 3, when you're first playing it and you find them, you're like holy shit, like these guys are the real deal, because you're used to like, you know, you're used to like a misstep and you have a sprained ankle. And you're used to like a misstep and you have a sprained ankle and you're tripping on a wire and a hunk of meat is falling off of a hook on the ceiling, smashing against the wall. Like you're just paper, right, you're paper in the apocalypse. And like one shitty pipe gun that fires one nine millimeter round a second, you know, just splatters your brains on the walls. And you're just like, gosh, like this sucks, this is so hard.

36:45 And then you see your first brotherhood of steel and power armor. He's walking around. He's like, get behind me, wastelander. And he's just like mowing fiends and raiders and super mutants down and you're like, oh, wow, I want to be on their team. I don't care if they're the bad guys, and they aren't the bad guys, they're objectively good guys or more of the. I mean there's definitely bad people in their ranks, but debatably probably the best option for the wasteland in some of the games. So all that said like I saw that and I also was like what the hell? yeah, like these guys are supposed to. Yeah, it's a big deal to be like. You know, it takes a long time in the game to convince them, to train you how to use power armor, and by the time you convince them, you yourself is kind of a badass in the game.

37:35 Right. And so, like in the show, I was like I wish, I just really wish they would have let it like, rather than it, he gets knocked over and bit and chest crushed from this. Uh, the bear thing is a yaoguai, that's what they call them. It's chinese for a bear or something. You should look it up. I can't remember. A lot of people thought it was a meme, as in. It's what the chinese called yogi, because there's yogi bear right and in the game all the mutant bears are called Yao guise and people are like, is that just a play on Yogi? Um, but, uh, yeah, I just expected that bear to just maul him and eat him and like that's how he dies in, like that, in a big fight.

38:17 But it was kind of anticlimactic and he was kind of a wuss. He just like ran away right and got knocked over and died. So I just was wondering like, yeah, I don't know, because no other, the other brotherhood steals. You see them in the end battle, you know, and they fight pretty good, but they also get clapped real easy, yeah, so it's kind of one of those things. I was like it's just show plot, you know right, I'll just subject it to show plot right. Yeah, I feel like they could have had that guy go down valiantly in a wild way. Yeah, like, instead of just being like, yeah, kind of a prick. So that was. That was kind of the main thing there. I just like it. Yeah, it kind of did. I was unenchanted of the these knights I'm sorry.

38:59 At the moment I was like you should be enchanted. I know they should be super cool when I saw them walking on the tarmac, though, yeah, I'll hold that I did have like a moment where I was like, oh my god, I can't tell that cgi are real. Yeah, and there was a lot of that in the show where, like it was very hard. I'd never. I'll say this. There's only a couple times where I knew the power armor was cgi. This one is flying around on its jetpack boosters. Other than that, I was like I don't know, dude, this looks so good. I think that they did those visual effects really well and that first kind of big fight scene it's in episode two All three of our characters find themselves together, which I was surprised they came together so fast, yeah, but then they did also all split apart, and I think part of the way they did this story too is kind of how a video game does work of like you will run into somebody and then something crazy happens and now you're on, like you gotta go play two more levels and then you're back with this.

40:03 You find them again like. They're that kind of like they find you, yeah, or like how, in lots of video games, especially old video games, like, even for no good reason, just once again they show up at the beginning of the level. Or like they're just like standing in the doorway, yeah, like for you to enter to the next, but whatever. So, um, true, the I will say I had beef with the shootout in philly. It felt a little too hokey, mm-hmm. And there was a couple things where I was like, okay, that prop gun that Maximus just pulled off his suit and tried shooting and immediately broke. That thing looked like it was made out of aluminum foil. Yeah, that was like a prop. And then there was clearly a scene where Walton Goggins is like I'm pulling a bullet out of his bandolier and going to load it in the side gate of his repeater.

40:51 But it's clearly not a functional repeater, it's a prop gun and that bullet is way too effing big to be loaded into that. And you could just see him like fiddling with the hand motions, which I thought like, oh, he's doing that as a good actor does, because they're supposed to crop it, so we don't see him fiddling his hands, looking like he's loading stuff Right when there's nothing to load Right, cause it's their, their props. So that kind of took me out of it. Um, and then I just thought it was goofy as hell when I don't know, just seems silly. When he flew off with his thrusters it was like I expected a banana peel slip sound, you know, like, like, it was just like it was just like don't get me wrong, fallout was really goofy, but like that fight scene felt like too much whiplash between childish, like pg-13, pg, and then like our blow people in half right and I was just like I'm confused, like because I can't, this doesn't feel like fallout I think I I felt that same way throughout the whole show because it was just like there's these extremely like gory, violent, dark things uh, going on and then.

42:05 And then there's like like a random half-assed joke thrown in or almost like breaking the fourth wall, in that like Lucy would say stuff that was out of character just because it would be funny, or just drop an F-bomb, just cut, I don't know. It was like that's not what the Vault 33 dweller girl does. I don't like they did, like it was like that's not what the vault 33 like dweller girl does, or said like yeah, I don't know, it just like um, when it's forced that way, it just kind of, I think, doesn't play well. As well as that, there really wasn't any like I'll say I, if you like action, don't watch this for action.

42:47 The action was spaced out quite a bit, yeah, you know, and it's just like there is like thriller-esque or like or more like horror-esque, like scenes you know of of high intensity and big sounds and monsters popping out and stuff grabbing things, but like it's really not going to see any like badass fighting, I think yeah or like, or even the big finale scene it was one of those things that felt like the. It felt weird and I we mentioned this a little bit in the first takes the choreography doesn't always match the effects and like especially the slow motion in that final fight scene in episode eight, like two giant groups battling out on this hilltop and there's so much overuse of slow motion and just like the choreography and it looks hokey, it look, it looks like dancing and it looks less like people are getting hit.

43:46 Yeah, and that's like I think the biggest thing I get frustrated with when I see that choreography is like, dude, if you're going to do slow motion, it's got to look like a hit, there's got to be momentum, whereas like a lot of choreography, in slow motion the person getting struck, whether by a bullet or fist or bat or a sword, they're they're acting and like leaping backwards or spinning around. If that, if the, if the visual effect artist can't come in and cover that up with realistic effects, like this guy, literally I'm not saying this was in an episode, right, but hypothetically like headshot, so much momentum pulls a guy off his feet and he's straight up like off his feet, flat on his back, falls down, like the visual effects has to make sure that when this dude does that acting and it's recorded, and then it comes to them to do the effects that acting and it's recorded, and then it comes to them to do the effects that if that guy's head and neck and stuff isn't properly positioned to look like oh, he got shot in the head and he's like turning his head too quick to the side to catch himself and splay out, you just remove his head like you just blow his head off.

45:04 You know what? I mean like it just seems like there's so many things like that in the fight scenes and I was like dude, don't do slow motion if you're not going to make the hits look like hits. Like hard hits, and if you overuse it it wrecks it, and typically it should be used as a storytelling device. Like at the end of the Lion King, the slow-mo fight scene. I don't remember it's been so long I know, but it's like at the end of lion king simba's facing off with scar and there is this like fast fight fighting going on. But then it goes into this epic, like slow-mo, of them trading blows in the fire and sparks flying. It's this like epic battle of the kings type of thing and it's like it's a mode.

45:44 They didn't do it because they could. They did it because it was like it was a. It was to show the monumental um, uh, the momentous uh, explanation of what was going on it, to tell the story for it and so, and then also like, because it my other, great for me, because it's from a video game, like video games, what you do in the whole video game you just like you're shooting stuff the whole time, like you're going down the hall you're shooting stuff, you turn a corner, you're shooting stuff, and then you like, maybe you stop shooting for a little while and you like, yeah, you find a little health package or or you know a nuka cola quantum soda and you drink it and you get better, and then you next thing, you know you're like you're shooting stuff and like, you're like and like there there's progression and you find a new weapon or whatever there could have been.

46:30 I felt the same way kind of maybe in Last of Us as well. Sure, I think now they did a great job with the storytelling there, but it was also like where's that a little more of the nonstop? I will say that might just be also an opinion you have based off of, like, what games you played when you played games, right, because I will say fallout could easily be described as a walking simulator. Right, like you just walk and talk, for probably about I would say 50 of that game is walking and talking, yeah, the other 50% is shooting shit, right.

47:11 You know what I mean and like it's way more. You could probably beat Fallout without having to kill anything, just running through it. Right, it'd be hard, but like you could probably do it. It's the same with, like something like Assassin's Creed. Yeah, it's like very much in the storytelling and the character development and like you're you're gathering intel, like you're not just doing the whole time but like, but when it is on, it's on like it's game time, like whatever you're you know like it's like a little more of that kind of I feel like I get what you're saying. I feel like when it was time to be on in this show, it just didn't feel like they had maybe the right choreographers or action direction, stunt direction, right.

47:52 I mean, I don't know. I feel like the stunts looked pretty cool on, like rope pulls and stuff like that, but yeah, no, I agree with you, it definitely felt like it is no John Wick, right, which is weird, because Fallout is one of those games that literally gives you an in-game thing the Pip-Boy you know everyone has in their arms. Well, the Pip-Boy apparently has an ability to freeze time. Oh, wow, like freeze time to target what you're going to hit. You can target like head, arm, leg, torso, that's what you shoot. Oh, yeah, and that's, you know, like just one of those things that, like I didn't expect them to bring that to the show, but that literally, like that allows such unique combat stuff.

48:34 And I do feel like that was a good part of, like the fight scenes with the ghoul. The ghoul seemed that he always was able to kind of freeze time, yeah, and do those like high trick shots, yeah and uh, that is like what I thought they did really good from the game, I guess, cause that's I mean, that's what you do in the game too Like sometimes you're just like F this guy I'm going to shoot his gun out of his hand and then when he turns to go pick it up, I'm going to shoot his legs, yeah, and when he tries to like, run away. I was going to narratively translate it, but I will say this it feels like you're disappointed in some of the action sets and that they didn't deliver.

49:17 I agree, I feel like the action sets didn't deliver that much. Also, think episode 3 or whatever, when they fight the Gulper. That thing with the fingers in its mouth? Yeah. It just dies because you just pull her out. I was like what? Why is this thing dead? Because you pulled her out, and it was when Thaddeus got pulled out, the knights. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah and. I'm like I was expecting him to rip in half. Whoa Thaddeus. Yeah, I thought that the the, the me too, squire, was going to get ripped in half because the in the episode before or seeing a couple scenes before we'd seen him head like great and I'm like that was awesome like this dude's gonna get you know, freaking just ripped in half out here and that's going to be the end.

50:01 That's what I thought was going to happen yeah but yeah, that monster was scary and weird, yeah it was gross and gross it was a human mutation thing. Yeah, but yeah, I think that was another example in my eyes of like kind of let down action, like could have had a sick ass fight between the Brotherhood of Steel and the Gulper and had the Brotherhood of Steel, you know straight up King, rip its jaws open right and then fish thaddeus out. That's. I thought he was gonna have to let him get swallowed and then go in after him. Yeah, I thought he's gonna. Men in black I was just out of there oh, he pulled him out and it killed it. that's dumb, uh, okay, but um, I started getting into, like by, like midway how did you, how did you feel about like midway by the time you're like getting into episode four, episode five, cause like that's when like the plots really I think start, cause it's really divided across like four plots.

50:54 You know, there's Lucy, who's trying to survive on the surface, learn how to survive and find her dad. There's, um, the ghoul, cooper Howard, who's clearly just like on a mission to find Moldover Moldover who also happens to have Lucy's dad. And then, of course, maximus, who's trying to complete the Brotherhood of Steel mission and earn his title as knight. And then there's Norm, back in the vault, trying to figure out what the hell happened to Vault 32 and all the raiders, where they come from, and trying to put it together.

51:36 And so I really feel like, across four storylines, it's hard to really push the ball forward on them evenly, and so I feel like there's definitely a cadence difference on them evenly. And so, like I feel like there's definitely a cadence difference between, like episode six, seven, eight, maybe five, six, seven, eight, yeah, and then episodes one, two, three and four. So before we kind of like go to the latter half. I was just wondering like, yeah, how'd you feel about like the first four episodes overall? Yeah, I felt like the the. The first four were setting up the story and developing the plot and then, and I feel like it was moving the plot forward, and there was some and they're still keeping like mystery and we're not sure what's happening or what's going to go on and what's going to show up in this world, um and but I think, and I think towards the, the middle of the season, stuff kind of slowed down, which I was wondering about in these short series we're doing now, instead of like 20 episode series.

52:38 Yeah right, like just how tv is going, like the there's no, there's no room for filler episodes. Yeah. Which I feel like a couple of the shows we have reviewed too, that do these eight, ten episode seasons. They throw one or two filler episodes in there that Still are a waste of time. They're a waste of time where you've got to make all of it count count um, and I think that was maybe an oh, which was the which episode had, like the organ harvesters, like episode four, organ harvest, oh yeah, like yeah when she's when she's getting sold.

53:18 Yeah, the goal sells lucy in like episode four to these raiders at the supermarket. Yeah, they're gonna harvest her organs and stuff yeah, yeah. And now when I feel like it was like uh, I feel like there were some parts through there that, just like um, didn't necessarily develop plot. Now, that being said, also, what they did do was like each episode was like a level of a video game, where like meaning like quest, yeah, the last one, yeah, it's just like that's the here and now, like the level today is escape from the guys trying to harvest your organs and then get back to the story. So there is like something to be said for that as well yeah, no, I agree, and I think even funny enough, like at the end of episode three, before episode starts and they go to the supermarket.

54:04 The end of episode three the ghoul says time for a side quest because his drugs are all broken and shit he's always like we still got time for a side quest, right, um, and so, uh, yeah, I did. I did think that, like, uh, the pacing for me just felt slow in those early episodes. I felt like they were trying to at least establish Like we should care about every character and it felt kind of like, I'll be honest, it felt like I didn't understand. It took a little too long, I think, to get to the story of each character. Like, here's each character and then we're going to start doing their story, and I was like, why not just tell their stories and get us going faster?

54:46 So, but all that said, I think by episode 5 I don't know Like, why not just tell their stories and get us going faster? Um, yep, so, but all that said, uh, I think by episode five I really was like used to, kind of I felt like the format the show was taking it's. It was definitely. The show's definitely way more lighthearted and satirical than the games are. Right. But that might just be because they're they thought it would reach a wider audience. I mean, it hit a big audience. It was number one and number two on trending for weeks now. But yeah, I definitely think by episode five, six, seven and eight. It's kind of weird because I know there's the mutant vault cult down at the bottom which is kind of comedic satire still.

55:29 But it kind of felt like, I guess, like the later episodes felt like more story focused and a little bit more serious in the direction, and I think that's largely due to the flashbacks with Cooper. Like Cooper Howard's story is like really not brevity or lightheartedness. Cooper Howard's story is like the tension of like ohheartedness. Cooper howard's story is like the tension of like, oh my god. Like the world is gonna end because we started off with. That's why I think the the show kicked off so well was with his flashbacks of seeing seeing him in this. You know they set the scene really well for this 1950s type world. But then also seeing him run away on a horse with his daughter from nuclear blasts, you know that like that was a huge setup oh, yeah, stuff and so then I think I do, I, I was I was gonna mention that as well for these where I think in those earlier episodes they didn't make use of the flashbacks, stories like as well as well and and they did, and they did have scenes of him and stuff, and then it did, his story did ramp up through but like, and I was gonna say this, I'm most interested in cooper, cooper for one and that story yeah, the flashback stories was all the stuff that I I enjoyed the most.

56:43 Yeah, and that's what I mean when I say cooper, like I'm most interested in the story of Cooper Howard and just what happened. Clearly he got a divorce. They say so in episode one. He's doing this for alimony payment. So after finding out about his wife and her plans with Vault-Tec, there must have been a falling out. Did his daughter die in his arms? We don't know Right. Um, but the Cooper story I think, is the most interesting. I do think the ghoul story Could be, could be the most interesting Presently, but I'm just not entirely sure they're gonna allow To have the room it needs, right, and it kind of feels like the ghoul is supposed to be more of like a I don't know like a reality wake up call narrative of like hey, it's dangerous out here.

57:45 You know what I mean. Like it seems like he's just there to constantly remind us if we're having lightheartedness or funniness. It's also really rough and there's bad men and so I don't know. We'll see. I hope he has a little bit better storyline, but it definitely seems like I will say by the end of the season. Present day scenarios of the season. Present-day scenarios I'm most interested in, like the Lucy Hank McLean story, like right, lucy now going after her father and Hank like just lumbering off to which you don't know. This, which is, oh, I would just want you to know. When I saw that ending credit shot of Hank standing outside of what is known as New Vegas in the Fallout lore, I shit my pants Because that's the best Fallout game and we kind of thought that the show was going to non-canonize it.

58:42 You know how Star Wars, episode IX, decanonized all like the best parts of Star Wars for a lot of people. A lot of us were like please don't do it, please don't do it too. And then they showed it and we were like, oh my God, like they like no, no, no, we're going there, boys. Like that's what it felt like. You know what I mean. It's so felt like. That's where my the most hype feels, I guess, like narratively wise. But I do think like for this season the Cooper narrative was the most interesting. Right and because going forward in the show, he's the only flashback story we have. Yeah. We don't know like, and Hank's involved in that story, but he's a side character to it, right, and so you know there's what are they going to?

59:26 They have to introduce somebody else or go back into the story, like whatever. And so I think, yeah, for me, me, I feel like I just wish the ghoul was the main character and I think he kind of is, I think I think yeah, I think it technically you could make an argument that the ghoul is a main character. I would say, like they really they really see it as as like a Game of Thrones, like there is no main character, it's an ensemble cast. Main character for Game of Thrones, season one, mm-hmm Spoiler alert, it was Sean Bean's Ned Stark. And what happens? His head gets cut off at the end. Yeah, exactly, I just remember that I was like, oh so he wasn't the main character, mm-hmm. I think that's what they're kind of doing here.

1:00:08 I don't want to be surprised if they allowed, you know, a like similar situation where, like we really think season two maybe season two like Maximus feels like the big OG character but and a season two, he's dust, like you know, he gets vate right and I just like I could see them doing that. I mean, fallout is a pretty brutal world. I could see them taking that ensemble approach. He definitely had the biggest rise to power, for sure, for kind of doing nothing. I mean, he had a hard uphill battle, right, right, but meaning like he was just kind of always in the right place at the right time to like. So, okay, right, let me tell you this too the Fallout games.

1:00:50 They have what's known as perks and it's kind of like funny things that you can take to give you an edge in the game. One of them is called Idiot Savant, where the game says your intelligence can no longer be higher than this number, and it's like out of a 1 out of 10 scale, it's like I think your intelligence is no longer allowed to be higher than three, but your luck increases to 10. Oh yeah, and like I was like a lot of people speculated, like bro maximus just says idiot savant, yeah, like that's his perk that he took. And like there's another really funny one of like uh, that they said norm has, which is called small frame, which is just like you're really skinny and short and smaller than average, but like you have really high intelligence and you know stuff like that.

1:01:35 So, um, that's so interesting, I think, because I think the fact that you picked up on that, that he didn't really do anything to deserve it, right, like sure that he survived, I guess, yeah, but I think that's kind of the point like that they're going for is like they're trying. I think each of the three characters main characters are supposed to feel like a different playthrough that we, as the players, play right in one of the games and maybe for him too. One thing they were shown was like, at the beginning of the show he kind of wanted to be great. Yeah, he really wanted to be greatness. Yeah, he kind of wanted to be great. Yeah, he really wanted to be greatness.

1:02:16 Yeah. And by the end of it he was held up as the big man, because they all start chanting he was the one who killed the big bad lady and all this stuff. Even though he didn't right and you can see it in his face he's like now he's arrived there. It's like he doesn't want that because he's romantically involved with Lucy. But are they romantically involved? And I didn't see that coming necessarily Meaning. Did they force it? Was this a forced thing to you? All of a sudden they were like in love. Like all of a sudden they were like in love. Like like all of a sudden they were bound to each other and really like she really cared about him and who he was and he'd still yet to do anything to like seem worthy of anything like yeah like worthy of even having a relationship with I don't know like, uh, I I was.

1:03:04 I was caught off guard by the first time we see romantic involvement with them. Or the start of their flame was just them offhandedly being like want to have sex and then being like I don't know about sex, and then I thought they were just going to leave it at that, this awkward interaction. It was like, oh no, now they are like they really didn't develop like a love story. No, you're right, I do think that was pretty weak. I get like I think I also would wager that like each episode maybe jumps a little bit in time and it's inconsistent, but I do feel like you know, when lucy casually suggests like they have sex, I thought it was supposed to be comedic and to show like her inability, like she doesn't see sex as like a very emotionally intimate thing, right, and he that not, that is maximus just has no idea what it is.

1:04:07 Yeah, and all he knows is like from a story. From a story from a story where they're like literally like I don't want my penis to blow up, like I'm just like he's like. That sounds dumb, yeah, like, and like the way he like, just so nonchalantly, like no temptation, just like. No, that sounds awful, like it is just like. I kind of like that. That was I thought I thought that was kind of funny, um, and I thought that tracked, but I think like that didn't strike to me like the beginning of the romance. It definitely struck me as like the beginning of like a friendship. And did we get a kiss? Was there a kiss? because I'm not entirely sure. There was a kiss, I think there's. There might have been like a kiss on the cheek or something.

1:04:49 I don't even think so. So that's why part of me thinks it might have not been necessarily romantic, but it definitely did show kinship, or maybe not kinship but just intimacy to some level of trust, and maybe we're supposed to believe that, like the journey was a lot longer than it looked on camera right, and they spent more time together than we saw. But I will say this it was like definitely, like felt like a hey, yeah, they're getting, they're becoming friends and they're getting to know each other better and they're relying on each other, and I was like all right, like I could fight it. I didn't necessarily see it. Right. But also like what options does Lucy have? None, Her husband was a raider that tried to kill her within like three seconds after consummating love, and her other romantic partner was her cousin in the vault, which again wasn't even romance.

1:05:43 He felt romance, she didn't. It was just like a boredom thing right, so maybe I'm assuming romance too, just because it's a guy and a girl, you know maybe. I mean I think it kind of telegraphed it, but they didn't do like anything physical. Maybe it was just like you know, they're just bound to each other, they care for each other, they're friends, right, um? But even then there was not a lot of things that happened. That was like I wasn't endeared to, I don't care about their relationship yeah, no, I'm not endeared to like them. Like you know, like I care way more about her relationship with the ghoul. Like I want the ghoul to just make lucy hard yeah, you know what I mean exactly and so, yeah, I think that that's where it's like the just a little bit of lack of forming, sure Forming stuff for the audience to care about it.

1:06:34 What'd you think of the whole side plot with Norm? Because part of me at times felt like it was detracting from the potential for more interesting stuff on the surface. But then also, as it went on, I thought it like oh seedy darky secret yeah, I like it. You know what I mean? yeah, he was a great actor. I thought and it developed well because, like episode one, you have no interest in this brother, true, like I don't want anything to do with him. And then by like yeah, by the end of it, like all right, this, this guy's like risking it, he's figuring stuff out, and the um, it was a good vehicle to help us to understand, you know, the vault dwellers aren't just the savior of the world and or completely, you know, well-intentioned at their, at their base, and so um, so it did help reveal the you know, the final thing, where she, you know, is learning the truths about like her father and where he comes from.

1:07:34 Yeah, some cabal secret government organization. In the games there's an organization called the Enclave. That seems to kind of. They exist post-apocalypse and they exist pre-apocalypse they exist post-apocalypse and they exist a pre-apocalypse. They kind of planned and orchestrated things for the soul of America to survive and it seems like they had a lot of politicians, senators. You know a little bit of like the the not necessarily like what we saw in the show with Vault-Tec, like planning the demise of humanity for a board of directors, yeah, but like more of on the government side of like the enclave was preparing with scientists, politicians, engineers, military leaders, right To like make sure America came out as a dominating force.

1:08:22 And it seems like the show's like hinting there is that kind of cabal network that Vault-Tec established Right. Yeah, because that's a pretty nefarious thing. Yeah, for profit margins yeah for profits. Yeah, just to be like. If we outlast in such a long-term game of thinking, just like, all right, we'll outlast all of humankind, All the competition. Yeah, there will be no more competition, it'll just be us like. That's why yeah yeah, um, and that's what I think too. That's why I do think I cared most about the flashback stories, because it that was like grabbed by that um, and by being seeing the story unfold from Coop's perspective of you know, he has this happy family, happy marriage, um, and uh, thriving career, and then you know to kind of have his whole world, his reality, shattered about, like you know, not just the reality of he had his reality shattered around, like his relationship with his wife and who she was, but is his reality of the world and what was you know, was just totally shattered in that um, that final episode, um, or I guess in the in the episode seven is that where he's there's that, like there's that scene of him, I think, episode seven is where he goes to the meeting.

1:09:54 Oh, yep, yep, yep. And they ask him, ask to spy, to spy on his wife and make a decision for himself. Yeah, cause it's the end of the episode. We never see the fallout of him finding that out, though, about of him finding that out, though about his wife, like we never see him have the argument or anything like that, you know, because the last thing we see of the flashback there would be just hank coming into picture. That's like the connecting pieces, like that. We know now that hank is old and was cryo frozen and, yeah, a part of this whole deal and uh, and I thought that, yeah, the the way they used coop story was the part I was most interested in.

1:10:36 Then I feel like the maldova character didn't get enough she's pretty like. I just thought it was bad writing because in the beginning, the first, is she a bad guy. She's bad writing Because in the first Is she a bad guy, is she a? good guy and in the first episode you're like this lady is powerful and like scary, and then like by the end of it she really isn't in it. Much the rest of the story. What did she do that was so worship worthy? She had a cult of mutants in that vault worshipping her for blood or something I think. I don't think they were worshipping her. I think they didn't have that. That was a different. I thought that was her face on the flag. I think that was the mom's face no dude, I gotta go back and figure out, because I thought it was the mom's face because, remember, she the what was?

1:11:25 The town called Sunny Acres or whatever you know, like the town that tried to survive on the surface and that's where the mom went to. And then I was thinking, like she came to this town and then was a big deal there before it got um, you know, before the town got nuked, so the survivors of that were in vault four and that she was something to them and that was. I thought that was like maybe like her mom or something, I don't know, but whoever it was, yeah, like you know, I don't think that they were the vault four people were worshiping the mold. You know, I don't think that they were the four people were worshiping the Moldova character either.

1:12:05 Like I don't think whether it was the mom or not, I don't think it was the Moldova character and I just thought she would have more storyline around. Wow, this crazy, you know powerful person up on the surface that started that, planted a seed in episode one, um, and then she, just at the end, like she did, she powered up a town with the blue cell, you know, blue pill, and then like died, but I don't know what that brought to anybody besides the fact that at the end of it all, I guess the brotherhood has that now. I'd assume they took that thing with them when they left or just set up camp there yeah, yeah, I don't know.

1:12:50 I don't know if I showed them remove it. I don't think it did showed all the lights, come on, yeah, in that area, and so yeah, it was one of the I don't know. Looking online too, I don't see much. A lot of people are confused about the whole idea of like the cult. Um, seems like I gotta do some more reading. But yeah, a lot of people are just like what the hell is up with that, like that doesn't make a lot of sense. I think maybe she, whoever was helped, freed them Because the vault is ruled, or like the people living in the vault now were the experiments that the scientists in the vault, you know, and the experiments took over and escaped and stuff, and which is what we see the scientists getting killed in the Hall of Tape footage.

1:13:38 But the cult worshipers are the people who've come from the outside, like they're not the I think some of them None of them were mutants. You're right, yeah, yeah, those were all the land dwellers who've come in, and most of them refugees from that town. So I don't know. Moldaver was in that town, right, so her and yeah. So I don't know, maybe it was. Anyways, could've used some more explanation. Because it it was just a really random graphic scene to have like, also for the fact that that vault at the end like wasn't bad. They were just weird, quirky people who were like Dude, I loved the execution. They go to execute her and they just like banish her with a gift box. You are executed. Yeah.

1:14:18 From this vault. We will give you some food. I was like I kind of. I mean, I thought it was silly and wonky. Um, the vaults, though, are like. A lot of the vaults are that kind of goofiness like I had told you about a couple of them, right, like one vault was just one man and a hundred women. Another one was a hundred women, I'm sorry, one woman and a hundred men. One was, they wanted to see what would happen if everyone, if lsd, was uh made into like a air particle and just pumped through the system all day. Another one was like where the computer system of the vault required them to make a sacrifice every month, or the vault would explode, and it was really just supposed to make them band together to refuse, and then the vault would reward them and there would be no more sacrifices.

1:15:12 And that one didn't work out very well, because they, they bowed to it and yeah, and they just kept on sacrificing for 100 years. Um, so, all that said, like the vaults are like, I like that they're quirky and I like that they at least introduced another one to show like the differences. All right, could have used more context, for sure. Um, all right, I guess, before we kind of do like a wrap-up, I just want to get, like your, your opinions on like overall acting. Who do you think was like best actor? Who do you think was just like? Was there anyone who was like, oh, this is rough, like they're not very good? Um, you know, kind of like the acting overall in this show.

1:15:54 How'd you feel about it? I felt like lucy was fine, she was like. I felt like at the first she was pretty good. I thought in the first couple episodes she really was this portrayed, a you know this goody, two-shoes vault dweller, and then. But then I felt like there were times throughout it where it didn't feel and not saying she, she should develop through here. Now she's like out on the outside, going through the wasteland, whatever, all these things, like she should change. But then I felt like there were just things thrown in there and maybe it was just the writing or whatever. That just felt like in incongruent with her character. And I'd say the same thing about like Maximus.

1:16:35 I just don't know what he was supposed to be good or bad, not good. I just don't know if he was supposed to be like um, nefarious, or just like self-serving or conflicted, or like was he just supposed to be like a wildly deeply traumatized individual? because we saw him as a seven-year-old coming out of a bombed out refrigerator and so like because he has this weird like kind of he seems like he's on the spectrum, just kind of like he like, he like just like he's an idiot savant. Yeah, these like nonchalant, like responses, and then also like these scenes of like intense anger and like you know, and then also like but, and then also with that anger, like intense ambition, so I just didn't know like what I was supposed to think of him like I don't like him.

1:17:22 I'm not like a, you know, a rooter. I'm a fan of him. I don't care what happens to him. He's just a piece of the story, like you know. He's like. I don't know what he's supposed to be. Um, I definitely came around to him a lot more towards the end. Yeah, like I feel like once the house of cards came out from under him and he lost the power armor and needed to rely on Lucy for like to survive, yeah, like, I feel like I came around to him more, I thought I didn't think it was bad acting, though, like I thought he was totally fine and I thought Lucy's you know, I thought Lucy was well acted. And then, of course, like Walt and Goggins, the only thing is that I felt sometimes he was a little one dimensional, which again, I think is to the writing.

1:18:10 They wanted him to be outlaw bounty hunter guy. But I think is, you know, the acting he was able to do in the flashbacks was, like, you know, the best, like a lot of confliction, you know, and just like clearly doesn't enjoy being a celebrity, right anymore yeah, and I wonder if they will see him and because part of what happens that maybe they're also setting up there where, like you have this ghoul now man who's just uh, he is what he is. He's just 200 year old killing machine. You know, cynic versus this. What he used to be was a complex individual with lots of feelings, emotions, and we do see, at the end of the, the very last kind of thing going on is him like where's my family?

1:18:57 and he has care for that. He cares about that. Yeah, the only other thing we know he cares about is getting his drugs, but he does care about his family. He's on a mission to find them. But, um, and so maybe that'd be like we're like in season two. Maybe we see the ghoul develop yeah, and I think we will. I think in season two we'll see him because he was just sitting in the earth waiting for the next bounty, right. And now that he knows he can track hank and I think he believes hank will lead him to his, to his ex-wife, right and his daughter and the, and as a viewer I'm connected to him most because I saw him, his humanity, and now you, it's like it's, it's just like it's kind of like the vader effect too.

1:19:38 Yeah, like you're just being like I, who you are, I know who you could be again. That kind of thing is the huge potential there. On that note, I really liked the duality of episode three. Opens up with the flashback of him on set where a director is telling him no, you need to execute him, he's a villain, you need to shoot him like a dog. And Cooper is like, yeah, but need to execute him, he's a villain, you need to shoot him like a dog. And Cooper's like, yeah, but I play the good guy, I wouldn't execute him, I'd take him in, let justice decide. And it's like now he is the bad guy as the ghoul and he is Judge.

1:20:20 Jerry, executioner, I need to shot that dude's kid. Remember that scene. He's in their in there that kid went for the shotgun that kid went for the gun real fast he did, but it just was, like you know, he already knew what was gonna happen when he walked in there like kind of like he, but he just like you know I kind of I really like that scene though yeah, I thought that scene was good. Um, all right. Uh, plot story overall, how'd you feel about, like the mcguffin and how it kind of, you know, pulled these three stories together. Um, you know, in the like combination with the flashbacks I think that it it did its job. It was kind of underwhelming at the end maybe of just how powerful or special it was now granted in a, in a world without you know, in a world that's been knocked back to the Dark Ages pretty big deal to have a little pill that powers up everything.

1:21:09 But I think it just kind of did its job, like it's no longer. It doesn't, it's out of the story now. Yeah, the MacGuffin doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter now, it's done. Whereas there's other ways where you can use that. Where it's like it's still a mysterious thing out there, that's still something to achieve, find, understand more of, because now they're now we don't have a big overarching thing in. In that sense, we do know. What they are trying to figure out now is just the mystery of the past. Who did this? What happens? That's now the big mystery driving force forward now, but that's just to understand the past versus this was a here now present thing that people need, people want to find, and so something like that has to be introduced again.

1:21:56 Yeah, and now that the MacGuffin is gone, part of me wonders what's Maximus going to do. Like part of me wonders, like, what's Maximus gonna do? Like the Brotherhood of Steel, I think, is just gonna want to send him out on like other fetch quests for other things, and he clearly doesn't want to do that anymore. He wants to go with Lucy and the ghoul. So part of me is wondering, like they're gonna have to have a divorce between him and the Brotherhood of Steel so he can go do what he wants. Um, because, like you said, yeah, the MacGuffin's gun brother gone the Brotherhood of Steel, so he can go do what he wants. Because, like you said, yeah, the MacGuffin's gone, the Brotherhood of Steel has it. Overall, I thought the plot story was similar to a lot of the games as being pretty oversimplified in order to let the player create their own stories or whatever, and I thought like, yeah, I just really thought it was pretty dragged out in the beginning half and I thought it really came together more in the end half.

1:22:51 Like it really kind of pulled the threads a lot tighter, felt maybe almost a little rushed, but, um, overall like I'm content with it, like I thought it did what it set out to do Right, and if it was just one season, all right. Like it was wrapped up pretty, pretty cleanly, I thought the setting and set design. So they filmed a lot of it in Namibia and that's where, like they had all this plane wreckage and car wreckage that they could use to make shanty towns and stuff and all this open kind of wasteland looking stuff, desert area, and I thought they did a really great job. I thought they did a good job of minimizing how much CGI there was, because, like we've seen the last of us and so we know, like the ability to make very believable apocalypse wastelands look good and not like phony green screen, um, and so that was kind of the measure I was measuring it by right and I thought they delivered pretty well.

1:23:52 I thought they did really good set like location and when there was cgi, it wasn't distracting yeah, I thought the the set design and setting was good. The only time that it was, the only one that was like uh, a hard from the from the directing or editing point of view that pulled you in and out was two or three where the finger mouth monster they're in like. They're in like lush trees and water. And then the next scene for the ghoul and luc're in like they're in like lush trees and water. And then the next scene for the ghoul and lucy is like they're like in the desert. No, water like just like die, and it's just like how'd you get this far out here all?

1:24:34 Of a sudden like what where'd you go from here to there? But um no that's a good point. That was just like you know, a little like maybe plot holy type thing or like setting a hole, but otherwise I thought it all looked like a wasteland. Yeah, I was really pleasantly surprised, especially those scenes of like. It felt like I was watching Book of Eli-esque yeah, where it was like just like a house with a dude in his underwear like shoveling something. Yeah, yeah, I was like, yeah, you know, it's like it. It made me think of how a video game does look and it made me think of that book of eli type you know, like, that's just like I immediately thought of the old married couple that ate people. Yeah. Book of eli exactly it was really. Yeah, I thought that part was really well done.

1:25:15 Um, the themes it's kind of hard to figure out what the theme is. You know, I I think the theme is just like throughout, more than anything is kind of coming like growing into your own shoes, not really necessarily coming of age, but like not really a capable person to like a true wasteland survivor Norm really kind of figures out and deduces like he becomes like almost I would say like borderline, like he will probably be a revolutionary in like the next season or something like that and come into his own evolutionary and then like the next season or something like that and come into his own um, you know, the maximus whole arc of like the delusions of grandeur to realize like it's actually not that great and I want something a little bit simpler, probably more and more real.

1:26:18 And then the ghoul again, like, like you said. I think I really agree with your point, pat of like. And then the ghoul again, like like you said. I think I really agree with your point, pat of like. He finds his old self and the the opportunity to be like the old version of himself, because really when we first meet him doesn't seem like there's a lot of reason for, if he was still that character, to even keep lucy alive. Like he can clearly track pretty well himself. He could probably track hank without lucy right, but he hasn't come along as a companion. You know, they're a team now and I think that's like the whatever the other themes people might want to say there are, like. I think the overall theme is like you've got a lot of characters flawed. They need to grow up quick and grow into their shoes pretty quickly and I think they all do relatively, relatively well.

1:27:06 What about you? Yeah, I agree, and I think the what's, the, it's like the opening words of, like, I think, every fallout game war, war, never changes. Yeah, it's like. That's also is like that is the thing. There's always going to be war is the theme of, like that's the theme theme, the big theme, like I feel like they stuck to that um, and then, yeah, they're bringing in all these other. I really appreciated that they had um gosh, it's not clancy brown. It's the voice, the dude who played um hellboy. Um oh no, I'm not. You know I'm talking about. I can see his big chin and his big apish features.

1:27:46 I can't remember his name now. Let me see if I can find it real quick. But I was happy that they had him do that. Opening war never changes. Even if he only had that one line in the whole show, I'm happy that they had him say it. He's the voice in every Fallout game. They've always had him do it. Gosh, I can think of all the characters he's played. One of my favorite characters he's played is Clay in Sons of Anarchy. That is a hell of a character. I just need to watch. Ron. Perlman, ron Perlman, I just need to watch Hellboy. I mean not Hellboy, sons of Anarchy, hellboy, I mean not Hellboy, sons of Anarchy. Hellboy is also great. It's two movies that you just watch and you're like, damn, I wish there was a third one, like a real third one.

1:28:29 Yeah, yeah, no, ron Perlman is great, all right, the believability, I guess, which is like interesting, because it's very weird. The Fallout games really do follow a totally fictional diversion from human history. They technically take place in the future but everything feels old world. But even then you're playing the games and it's very immersive. It's hard to say cause you're like, you get very swept up in like the believability of, like the practicality of like, yeah, this is the world and this is how people survive, and like it makes sense, yeah, and it makes sense how harsh it is.

1:29:12 And I feel like the show kind of lost that a little bit. Like I feel like the show felt a little cartoonish almost. Yep, yeah, there was some cartoonish pieces as well, as like you got to set up your universe better and talk about the science, for instance, like yeah, america in you know 2077 could be just like it was in the 1950s, but we just need some a little bit more help knowing that like someone like if someone's played the fallout games, they know right off the bat oh yeah, boom, like you know. But if you haven't, you're like like wait, I'm confused. I thought this was 1955. But there's a robot, yeah, like what's going on? And just to know, oh, like you know, some sort of it's just a little bit more set up there and or, like you know, big pink salamander finger monster comes out of the water.

1:30:01 But big pink salamander finger monster comes out of the water but like I feel like there wasn't a lot of monsters in this. There was that and the bear, yeah, and like really the roaches, the roaches, yeah, but like just showing some of the like how we got here, or like this is what this is how it is yeah, yeah, no, and they definitely, you know they said for season two. they've heard fans say that and they're like there's gonna be a lot more monsters this season too. Yeah, like we promise, and they definitely, you know they said for season two. They've heard fans say that and they're like there's going to be a lot more monsters in season two. Yeah, like we promise it. Just they didn't have like the room for like a monster of the week. Each episode is what they kind of said as the reasoning, which I was like that's fine, but like there's so many diverse Florida and Fauna in Fallout, that is awesome.

1:30:45 I was really bummed that we didn't get more. One of the big ones is just super mutants, which are honestly just big, giant, muscly green boys that just are dumb and they eat everything and they're such a strong, powerful, comed comedic relief. But they're also absolutely terrifying, right, because whenever you find them in the game, they're eating people and you're just like this is horrible, but they're also like you. You talk to them sometimes and they're dumb as rocks and they're so funny that's what I think. They could have used things like that to. Going back to the action piece too, you have this walking through the desert dialogue scene.

1:31:27 They did it once on the bridge where he and Maximus had to shoot the raiders but, like during a conversation that him and Lucy are having, it either just starts with we don't know what happened, but there's a dead green thing on the ground and they're like kind of have some blood on them. They're like, oh my god, and like they're just back into dialogue, whatever like or like and or in the middle of it, like having to. You know, like in a video game, where it's like things just pop up when they pop up and you gotta take care of it, and then it's like back to the mission, back to the thing, whatever like. Yeah, kind of the side, those in lots of video games there's always like the orc, like character, just always freaking, shows up.

1:32:09 You gotta deal with it. They have nothing to do with that level or the story, it's like just a mob. Yeah, you gotta take care of it, like yeah. I think they could have done that. Here's the thing. I hope in season 2 they group everyone together better, because I think if everyone's grouped together you have more time to budget those things, but if everyone's split up then you don't really have the time to budget as much. Right, but All right. Do you think, having not played the games, do you feel like this is rather successful as an IP show? Like, does it make you want to play a Fallout game? Does it make you want to play a Fallout game? Does it make you want to look at the lore, right? Do you feel like this is something that you know? Because the whole, when you think of these things, like the Last of Us and you know I'll say like another one that sucked, like the Assassin's Creed movie or like the Fallout show, like, like those things really are just to like promote interest in the IP and get people to want to go and either play those games or watch other related material.

1:33:07 And so I'm just curious, like as someone who hasn't played that stuff, like, how do you feel about it as an? IP. I think it's successful as an IP show for a couple reasons. One, it does interest me to like. I'm like I wonder what the game would be like, the fact that, like the first one came out in 1998 or whatever. I'm like I wonder what the game would be like. The fact that the first one came out in 1998 or whatever. I'm like, I cannot play a game that old. You know like just at this point, a lot of people have played it and say it's still really fun. Right, you know, but like and being like, the journey of like, I don't know. I think I can play through 23 games to catch up you know, on what's going on, but then at the same time. So, while it does interest me in the franchise in the game um, I think they broke through to where the secret to this one was.

1:33:48 They captured a much wider audience of a lot of people who want to see it who never played the game, never heard of the game? who enjoyed watching this? Um? But then at the same time, because they picked a storyline that didn't have anything to do with the game and we talked about this in our first takes was where they just set it in this universe of Fallout. It really allowed them to do what they want with it and as long as they don't break any major lore rules, they don't have to stick to the story of that main character. And that never happened or whatever, like the story of that main character and that never happened or whatever, like you know, that kind of thing where it kind of like in, for instance, like in dune maybe like there's the fan, the fandom in dune is like unreal, unreal, yeah, and the the scrutiny that you have to go through to please everybody is brutal, whereas in like this, just I don't think I've seen anybody who's like a I'm sure there's people out there, but I haven't seen like fans of fallout.

1:34:49 Just being like this is just trash. Yeah, no, I'll say like what I've seen looked on the Reddit and stuff majority positive reviews questions like, what the hell is that for Right Um concerns. A lot of people were concerned that, like I said, they were going to retcon New Vegas and you're like, yeah, that's not real. And everyone was going to be real pissed Because that's easily the most beloved Fallout game Right Of all of them. But you know, it seems everyone received it pretty positively, fans and non-fans. Season two is coming up. You know season two is coming up, I guess you know. Final thing, I guess it also kind of you know allures to what we're gonna rate it but like, should it have a season two? You know the bear, classic example of like season two was good but season one was the cream of the crop.

1:35:35 Yeah, did the, did the bear need a season two? right um and so like for this, like you know, do you think it needs a season two? Does it deserve one? Is it good enough? I think that it's, in one sense, it's not good enough that it needs a season two, meaning, like the bear, for instance, in the bear, you could have left that as a great piece just alone. Yeah, this one, like I'm not gonna be upset that they keep going with it, like I don't think it's not good enough that they can ruin it at this point, like it's just true, it's just been, it's just it's been set up as what it is. It's not like you know, like I was saying earlier, like about how, like the characters and stuff, like I don't care about really any of the characters that much that they could like make, mess it up or offend me, or like then the storyline isn't complicated enough yet that they are just gonna have all these plot holes and not be able to fill it in.

1:36:28 Like yeah, so they have plenty to work with. And then the only thing would be too, if you want it to be a successful long-term franchise, then you do actually have to start making something that is risky. Yeah, to the point where it's like people are like, oh my God, are they going to be able to wrap this up good or not? Like and like, or is it just going to be hey, there's a season one that was. It was good. Season two was fine and they just dropped it. After that Cause prime decided they didn't make money. They wanted to because Prime renewed Rings of Power for season two and it's like is there a show that has failed to make its money back more? But are they doing it?

1:37:09 Is there someone? My hope with that is that someone's doing it to redeem in the attempt of redemption. I doubt it. But anyways, we'll see. Yeah, I think I look forward to season two. I don't think it needs it, right, but I'm excited to see what they do. Like I said, I'd love to see more of the action and the monsters that I'm familiar with in the games, because I think season two has a lot of potential to be way better. Oh yeah, because this was a setup in a lot of ways. A hundred percent, I think. And what's interesting is that they definitely kind of put themselves a little bit in a corner. And again, it doesn't matter that much to a casual audience viewer like you, but for people like me who's a fan of the games and stuff, they said this is canon and they're trying to keep it canon with everything that came before, and every game that comes after is going to have to work with the Canon of the show.

1:38:04 So that's kind of one of the things is like they're clearly I mean, microsoft, who owns Bethesda studios said like hey, get to work on that next fallout game, like we want to capitalize on the all the interest, and so it's one of those things of like you know they're going to have to like check their notes. You, you know they're going to have to like check their notes, you know. And season two's got to be good, because if season two sucks it's going to suck all the hype out of whatever the next game is Right. Anyways, any final thoughts before I just do? I have a couple cool trivia things here. No, let's get into it, dude, pat, get your phone out. So I want you to call this number and hold it to the mic. All right, let's see. But there was an on-screen ad for Vault-Tec that Walton Goggins in the show does and he's the poster boy for Vault-Tec in the show and they listed a number which is 21325VAULT, and apparently it's a Los Angeles number with a man's voice comically screaming, which is apparently Walton Goggins himself screaming and yodeling on the phone, and so you can text the number for a customized message that automatically replies or you can call it, and I just wanted to see what happens if we call it.

1:39:26 What? Wow, and it just hangs up. That's pretty. I thought it was gonna be more comedic and that was scary. That was like unsettling. I wonder why they wanted him to just scream like he was being murdered. Dude, that was brutal, uh, anyways, um, yeah, call yourself if you don't believe us and also send it a text message and you get like a contact card with the fallout logo.

1:40:11 Um, movie posters in cooper's house. Uh, you can see he was in a movie called a man and his dog, which, if you're a cinephile like us, you'll probably recognize that as based off of the movie A Boy and His Dog, which was a 1975 apocalypse movie that, along with Mad Max, inspired a lot of the Fallout games. Additionally, there's like that poster of Mad Max walking off with his dog. He's got leather armor on and a sawed-off shotgun. That's pretty much also been used in a lot of the fallout game art um for the silhouette of the lone wanderer and a faithful pup by his side. Um, in, uh, one of the episodes of the ghoul who's been taken by the sheriff deputies, um, he meets a sheriff known as sorrel booker, which is a reference to sorrel book.

1:41:01 Now this is a little before my time so I didn't pick up on this, but I bet a lot more of the older audience members picked up on it. Uh, sorrel book is played by boss hogg in the dukes of hazard 1979 tv series. Both characters, sorrel booker and sorrel book, are overweight, bald, smoking cigars and oversee two bumbling police officers in addition to abusing the powers of their government positions. So I guess that was like a super on-the-nose reference to Dukes of Hazzard, which I just thought was interesting because it's like I don't think the majority of the audience watched Dukes of Hazzard. That's pretty obscure. Yeah, when Norm hacks the Overseer terminals when he's snooping around in the vault, he uses the same exact hacking minigame that's in this in the game series, which I thought was pretty cool.

1:41:51 The ghoul calls the dog dog meat, which is the name of the dog you could choose as a companion in multiple fall games. The dog's name is l 5, which is a Belgian Malinois. What happened to Lana 1 through 4? The code for the Overseer computer Norm types in, and it is 101097, which is the North American release date for the first Fallout game, october 10th 1997. And in the boardroom scene, barb finishes her speech with the line war never changes, which has always been the first words in the introductions of the Fallout video games.

1:42:31 No real goofs, unless you want to be super nitpicky and a nerd actually. But yeah, no, there was a couple kind of nudie things from scene dressing, but nothing major. So yeah, pat, pat, how about we give it? Uh, we give, we're giving our thumbs to, you know. Compare to the mushroom cloud in the distance. Yeah, you know, that's well. Yeah, of course. This is the intro of the show. He jokes about it, right? how long you got to run, or sit and enjoy your nookie cola. Yeah your nuclear nookie cola? Um yeah, so uh, what do you? What do you think I'm giving it?

1:43:12 one thumb, one thumb. I thought it was good yeah okay, no, no, like conditions with that one thumb it it almost got a zero almost it was on the fence. You know it's on the fence, but I've given it one. I think the show almost it was on the fence. You know it was on the fence, but given a one I think the show has potential. Sure you know yeah, you know what same for me one thumb again, I almost was on a no thumbs border, but I genuinely think like comparatively it did pretty dang good um, for being a video game ip and just being something that you know is, in my mind, probably complex to adapt, but also, like I thought they did it rather successfully and safely and, like you said, probably it was a little too safe.

1:43:57 They need to take more risk if they want to have a great show. But all right, well, any any last words, words pat, before we sign off I don't think so. I think that's. I think we said it all right. Well, hey, ken, remember that you can always go to the store and, uh, grab yourself some nuka cola quantum from amazon if you want to try a delicious four thumbs up soda. Uh, check out the fallout show and uh, you know, as always, please uh, leave a review on the podcast. Let us know how we're doing, uh, whether that's on spotify, itunes, our web page, um, or on youtube, we always appreciate that, but uh, yeah, till next time.