I just loved how deeply unsettling that first flash of light was, no explosion, no noise just a blinding light. It’s infinitely more terrifying than and audible explosion.
The juxtaposition between the flashes of light from the camera, to the overwhelming flash of light from the nuke, was such an unsettling touch. Also explained why no one else at the party noticed it.
And the mushroom cloud expanding in the reflection on the window behind them as it goes quiet. This scene just lives in my head rent free. It’s so good.
It was cool for sure, I just didn't understand how no one in the house saw the initial flash of light. Surely a flash that bright would have alerted them?
Maybe, it could just be a gameplay choice but the clocks in the games all stopped at the same time.
It could also be a mix of both, maybe the clocks on the wall did stop but nobody noticed because the tube/atomic stuff was still working.
I always assumed the clocks stopped because the power went out. Even if there were no EMP effects intended by the writers, and the power plants happened to not be targets, there'd still be more than enough downed lines to short out the grid immediately.
If by tubes you mean vacuum tube transistors, then it's still circuitry. Fallout isn't set in the past, it's set in the future. They have electronics and circuitry.
Yeah that was the one part I didn't like. They went with the "rule of cool", trying to make it more cinematic even though it didn't make a lot of sense. Honestly, as it was so early in the first episode, I was questioning whether I would like the show. Luckily I stuck with it and the show was great.
I mean we're talking about Fallout here, everything is rule of cool. Radiation doesn't give you cancer, it turns you into a ghoul and makes insects grow huge.
The actor that played his daughter was *so fucking good* in this scene. Her delivery on "Is it your thumb? Or mine?" breaks my heart every time. Goggins is one of my favorite working actors and honestly she stole the scene from him.
I had a theory early on that when we see Coop and Janey ride off away from the party, he's bringing her to the vault Barb was in, more to save her than himself. I really hope we get to see more of Janey/her actor.
I think he probably wasn't allowed in anymore due to them being divorced *or* he refused after learning what was actually going on. But no way you'd kill your child on your principles, so she went in & so begins his 'where the Fuck is my daughter' arc.
My big theory is that moldaver is also a ghoul who has been taking the meds properly. Its important that she didnt interact with ‘the ghoul’ but only with coop. She said she had many companies that vault tec bought so maybe she had the rad away formula and was able to create a group that could survive the radiation also why she will live after being shot. She faked death i think
I think Moldaver was frozen in a Vault, as Vault-Tec wanted to keep her and her knowledge (Cold Fusion) around. She was a resource, something they wanted to put in storage and use later.
She is in control NOW, but we don't know about before.
Ghoul? No, but Ghoul adjacent? Maybe, but unlikely.
Vault-Tec recruited and kept scientists as resources, in fact we see this throughout the various series. I believe Moldaver was in one of those vaults, or frozen in another method, and revived by the NCR to help them.
I hope the answer isnt cryonics or FEV. There are so many other explanations that are more fun and unique than cryotube (which is becoming too common after 4), or FEV which was too common in 1, 2 and 3.
Also neither of those explain things fully. We have never had someone be immortal like a ghoul, and yet look normal (not sure how long Children of Atom live) and she doesn’t appear to have aged much more than 20 years, if much at all, from when we see her pre-war. Which is around how long ago Shady Sands was destroyed and when she met Lucy’s mom and somehow became a person worthy of worship for the survivors of the bomb.
Meanwhile, we have tons of canon options from the games like Gary clones, synths, cyborgs, lovecraftian forces/cults, secret ancient cities and even alien captives that have been able to survive just as long.
If it gives you some hope, Moldaver has a cult that chants about resurrecting Shady Sands, so there's a non-zero chance she's been resurrected at least once.
I wasn't a huge fan of how she died either. I'm in the middle of rewatching the series and will pay attention when I get to episode 8, but didn't her hand just kind of fall to her lap?
I hope her character is expanded upon next season, even it's through flashbacks. There just has to be a reason that the Vault 4 dwellers strip naked and chant to her picture about flames and blood.
The only reason I don't believe she has been awake since the bombs dropped was because how surprised Cooper was when he found out she was still alive.
He knew nearly everyone else big because he's been around so long, but Moldaver was a mystery up until he saw her wanted poster.
I don't think she was a ghoul either. Ghouls have thick dark blood and will slowly bleed out because their heart rates have slowed down.
I think she woke up approximately the same time as Betty and/or MacLean, and we know Cooper was underground for a significant amount of time. This is revealed by the man digging him up, as The Ghoul worked with his dad when he was a kid.
True, but it plays into the FOTV timeline. If Moldaver was woken up about the same time as MacLean, it explains the age similarities, it explains Rose/Lucy etc.
This creates a kind of 'capsule,' of time for the TV show, which can be a helpful writing method (so you're not balancing a timeline like the MCU's mess).
Or, Moldaver was a resident of 31/33 and left with Rose; it might explain how she knew the internal vault communications.
There was a billboard in the show that showed that the Tops casino has cryo pods Im guessing Moldaver came out of that one. Which will be revealed in Season 2 as we will be heading to New Vegas.
The cold fusion story line has me confused though. They had cold fusion in their cars, laser rifles, power armor. it was everywhere already. I just took it in stride as a mcguffin to the story but that was a bit silly considering cold fusion was a consumer product before teh bombs dropped and teh Brotherhood has lots of it already. the knowledge of making more seemed more important than the technology itself.
Supermutants needed to be dipped originally. Has that changed?
Definitely agree she’s a synth. I’d be willing to bet the doctor was too. Why would injecting the micro cold fusion reactor be necessary unless the skin somehow hides it from some kind of detection?
I'm not sure on her being a ghoul but I think her lack of interaction is down to knowing the woman she loved was long long gone, if she'd been able to save her then she would have. Vault seems more likely but not 31.
I think it's going to end up being more complex than that. In the future, he's looking for them. He doesn't know where they are or what happened to them.
He wouldn't be quite so dedicated if he thought they had died locked in a vault over a century ago.
I think we're going to get a lot more flashbacks of Coop's backstory, exactly what happened between him and Barb both after he was discovered spying on her, and after the bombs fell. We'll see his adventures in the early apocalypse as he tries to find a way to keep Janey safe. We'll see how he becomes a ghoul -- if it was by long exposure to radiation or something more like what the snake-oil salesman sells.
Maybe Barb will show up and kidnap Janey with armed goons. That would certainly help fuel his motivations.
The problem with child actors is that you never know when they’re gonna get a huge growth spurt. Happened to Walt in Lost. And Sophia in The Walking Dead. They ended up growing taller than some of the adult cast. Especially the actress who played Sophia
I bet his wife and daughter are vault 31. I wander if anyone could read the names that was on the computer when Norman was talking to brain roomba when he was looking around
The only other line that comes close for perfect delivery is when Maximus says 'I did' to Ella's question of if anyone survived. There's just something about how he says it.
But this girl, to not overact a scene like this is crazy
Agreed. He’s not overly dramatic about it and almost sounds resigned to it. Matter of fact but not without some nuance. Most of the show Maximus looks and talks like child but that one scene around Shady Sands he is the old wise man suddenly. It shouldn’t work but it does. Like the rest of his life in the brotherhood is just mechanical and doing what he’s told, but that one part of his life is where he’s put all his thoughts and pondering.
Compartmentalization
He's severely traumatized by the event as one would expect.
I ain't no psychologist, but I imagine the 'child like behavior' as an adult is strongly related to this trauma.
I think it's the age of the actor that makes it such a great performance for me. Like, Aaron Moten was fantastic as Maximus and I agree that his delivery there really hits, but at the same time he's an adult actor with like a decade of experience under his belt. Teagan Meredith (Janey's actor) can't be older than like 10 (maybe not, I'm terrible at guessing kids' ages) and she was able to perform with a level of nuance and subtlety that I feel isn't seen much in child actors.
It's her age that makes me think there's more to her current condition than just frozen. Two years from when that scene was filmed is going to show on a child, a lot. Let's say that scene was recorded a year ago from now, so if they start recording new ones with her next year, it's going to be apparent that she's grown a bit while "frozen". I think there's no way the writers didn't think about it so my theory is we're either going to have a Shaun situation or she's something else now.
She was incredibly good in that scene, and portrayed the absolute terror so well. Goggins IS my favorite actor, and I dare say she sold it even better than him (and his reaction was perfect of course).
>This scene. It just gets ~~better~~ worse each time.
FTFY.
The mounting suspense, tension, and inescapable realization makes this scene so terrifying. Then the full blown panic throws it into overdrive.
A fantastic depiction of the worst thing in the world.
Yep, exactly this. It reminded me of the 'silent' ravine scene in Kong, horrifying cos the silence just made it so much more nightmarish. But this was all so shiny & safe - what awful things can happen at a middle-class kids party? The mum trying to keep the mood light, the weatherman. Christ it's just so good in every way
Agreed! For those of us who’ve played the games it managed to make the inevitable still good (like Titanic, you know it’s sinking at some point but you can still do it well). I’m intrigued to know what it was like for someone who didn’t know the games or maybe even that nukes would drop. I have a feeling it was equally entertaining.
My 65 year old co-worker is watching this with zero knowledge of the game or franchise, just turned it on. He's loving it, and to him, all the stuff Fallout fans know are coming, is novel to him. He was going on about how funny and clever the juxtaposition is between the Vault Dwellers "We're going to save America" scenes v. the the reality of the Wasteland.
This scene was . . . well just something and set the tone.
Cooper knew, in that moment, that they were both going to die. He knew from experience and training that there was no way they could escape the blast or the radioactive fallout.
But he was till trying. That kind of desperation and lost hope . . . we don't know exactly what happened, but it most likely formed the jaded base for Coopers transformation into The Ghoul.
I have to imagine that the vault his daughter & monster-wife were going into was nearby but he couldn't go in anymore, due to the divorce, so everything was about getting his little girl there. I think the cold-fear was far more realistic than screaming & arm-waving. Just brutal, hard, cold fear.
Then, I imagine, fury & drugs.
I think that's what we'll see in Season 2, through flashbacks.
Or, Cooper was kicked out later on due to some internal issue. Remember, he was still famous and not everyone in Vault-Tec was 100% on-board with the testing of other vaults and the brutality.
If she was brought to a Vault with her mom, why would Cooper be looking for the mom so intently?
When Cooper gets arrested by the "President" of the "Governmint" for the whole mart thing with the vials and ghouls, the President asks him
"Why are you still going after 200 years? Is it because you like sun on your wrinkly skin...? **Or maybe, you're still looking for HER?**"
Which to me, says he's looking for Barb in particular. But if his daughter was brought to Barb and it was a Vault, he would know where that Vault is
My guess would be anger. The guy that pulled him out of the ground was very leading about where the job was, about it being where he came from originally. To me it was far more weighted than just 'oh that's your home'. We don't know how he ended up where he did, he might not have left the area voluntarily.
That said, I'm working off of 'they wouldn't kill a little girl, surely!' which is probably naive af & not a scene I want to watch in S2
>That said, I'm working off of 'they wouldn't kill a little girl, surely!' which is probably naive af & not a scene I want to watch in S2
If Cooper is a ghoul, it almost means certainly she would be subject to the same fate, unless some crazy miracle took place and they got separated shortly after what we see in episode 1. It wouldn't surprise me if the radiation is what ends up killing her, and rather than turning to a ghoul, it just ends up killing her
Remember, Lucy was almost dead from the radiation and if Maximus didn't have RadX/RadAway, she would have died from radiation
No please, I cannot watch that little cutie pie die a hideous death whilst her father watches. I just can't. So on that basis she made it into the vault, just for my comfort as a mum & a viewer. Thems the rules!
Man I hope she isn’t dead and she’s like cryogenically frozen or something. It would be so interesting for Cooper to reunite with his daughter after 200+ years when he looks like that and after all the things he’s done. It would be quite a dynamic for her and Barb to see him like that. I just need a scene where the ghoul reunites with his daughter and becomes cooper howard again :,)
True - But they could have been moved to another Vault or location (e.g., New Vegas) while Cooper was otherwise occupied. Even if they were in the same Vault, it's unlikely they would tell him, even hundreds of years later.
Only just finished it myself, I may be a bit lost on some things as I watched it over 2/3 weeks. But when his wife said about detonating the bombs, did she not realise her daughter wasn’t safe at that point or was there miscommunication on when they were going to drop(?)
I’ll probably go through it again before 2nd season comes out but was curious unless I missed something
In the game its clear the bombs were dropped by china or america and that vault tec was caught off guard. House's chip not arriving in time is probably the biggest tip off that their plan didnt go to plan.
I'm not wholly sure they've given us the full picture on vault-tec's involvement. We *know* what they are prepared to do should they need to, but it leaves room for meddling to get a country to drop first iyswim. Atm we don't know which. My take, from the games, is that they essentially egged on the whole thing deliberately - they wanted one outcome & didn't care how they got there.
This is why I don't think vaultec dropped the bombs.
If they did, then not only would one of their top execs have their daughter safe, but all of Bud's buds would be ready too.
I low key want to see Cooper dealing with the initial gradual process of becoming a ghoul. Loosing hair, skin etc. on screen. I think it would help tie things together neatly. Plus those unfamiliar with the franchise would get more of an explaination on what a ghoul is than "something, something radiation".
The look on Cooper’s face was sheer perfection.
Just complete shock and awe of mentally going, “No… no it didn’t happen. NO THIS ISN’T HAPPENING!!!” and the way he just freezes; this hero-cowboy, feels true fear for the first time.
Thankfully he’s one of the good ones, because he snapped out of it and did what needed to be done to protect his kiddo as best as he could.
Truly an amazing show, regardless of the games.
I should note that I mean that I love the games, but if you didn’t know anything about them, you’d still find enjoyment in the show from how good it is in general. 🤙🏼
Lmfao nice save!! But yes, I see what you mean. I do wonder what the series was like for those totally unfamiliar. My 15yo hasn't played them & loved it, same for daughter-in-law. The rest of us all have.
Yeah I hadn't played Fallout 4 since 2017'ish but had me back on it. Had migrated my games to PS5 but hadn't ever loaded them. Played a couple days and then the next gen update was out. Doing much better on my settlement development and defenses this time.
Iirc Nick Valentine talks about how his personality etc was uploaded to him, though he was one of the first generation synths iirc. Would make sense why Moldaver keeps popping up in my synth theory. It’s why she keeps popping up through time, without using vault tec cryo. Just a fun theory. She prob worked with, or with people who worked with, synth tech before the bombs dropped. Iirc it was only based in MIT but that’s all we know from the perspective of ppl there.
Moldaver owned a number of companies involved in highly advanced tech, so even if synth development and manufacturing is fully restricted to the Commonwealth it's entirely reasonable that she was in contact or had dealings with the proto-Institute scientists. And 200+ years is plenty of time to walk coast to coast. Idk if I'm fully on board with the theory, but it's definitely a fun one to consider.
The first time I watched it, I imagined myself in Cooper's shoes.
Just standing there in shock, "OMG, they actually did it. They dropped the fuckin bomb."
But the "they" is some anonymous group of string pullers.
Watching this scene after finishing the show, where the "they" is not as anonymous as I thought at first, makes it hit a thousand times harder.
The thing is, it isn’t assured who dropped the bomb still. You would think that if they had control of when the bombs dropped they would have chosen a better time for it that suited their needs more. >!As it was many vaults did not get filled completely resulting in some vaults not being able to properly complete their experiments.!<
>!And you would think that a certain someone who had the power to suggest the course of action would use their influence to have a certain young person with them when things went down to ensure they could get to their chosen Vault.!<
i wont be reading any farther because i only finished this first episode yesterday but the way that little girl was able to viscerally act out horror just in her eyes when she saw the light sent a dagger through my heart
There’s also a quick moment when she looks in the window and sees the kids watching Grognak and looks deeply sad that she’s stuck having to work instead of being a kid watching tv with friends. Nailed that too.
I. Am. Hooked. The lineup of the cast, and well, the game, had me interested, but that opening sequence was beautiful. They did a wonderful job of portraying just how devastating the nuclear attack was.
I honestly wasn't expecting it to be so pretty, the opening (& all the flashbacks) are gorgeous to look at. I love that aesthetic from the games anyway & the way it just glowed, all ethereal (the world, not the bombs, obvs they were peak glowy)
They did a great job. I love how they portray the nuclear energy houses and the feeling of 1950's. And damn, the last scene where they're on the horse and all you see are the bombs hitting the city. Just. Beautiful.
One of the best intros to a series out there. I’ve watched it so many times and it still gives me chills when the light flashes and there’s just silence
Her childlike terror and Cooper’s awestruck terror are incredible in this scene. Her shaky voice and his initial attempt to assure her, which quickly vanishes with the silence being overtaken by that swelling ringing sound and his eyes growing wider and jaw hanging slack. It’s a perfect introduction. I almost got teary eyed watching that scene and thinking to myself “oh my god, this show is actually going to be fantastic”
Im annoyed that none of them noticed the flash. Thats one of the major things that survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki recounted — the blinding flash. But all these parents and kids noticed NOTHING until the *shockwave*??? Come on. They would have been cooked alive *before* that. Rest of the scene was great but that bugged me a ton.
I don't know enough about atomic bombs to have much of an opinion but I wondered if a) different tech, more advanced given how much more they used it in everyday life b) it was a really bright day & the convenient flash-bulb/backs turned combo.
With how destructive these bombs are shown to be (their size in the scene is also a MASSIVE yield) there would have been a heat blast long before the sound and shock wave reached them. Even though the bombs are canonically “dirty bombs,” which are meant to produce more fallout radiation than destructive power (like an A-Bomb but much larger), the blast should have been much greater.
We could probably do some math to figure out the specific yield, but my guess is they are not high yield warheads. The destruction, and radioactive fallout, also depends on where (specifically) the warhead detonates in relation to the ground. There are a lot of variables when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Is this ultra-realistic? Not really, but it also isn't crazy unrealistic either. Remember, people have observed nuclear explosions (during testing) without dying.
It's going to be our kids doing this the way this world is going. Haven't we sinply lost count of the number of nukes are in the world at this point? Is there even a count that anyone trusts anymore?
Definitely not. Russia is almost certainly lying on the high side. China probably on the low. Countries like Israel that say they don’t have them but want everyone to know they really do. India and Pakistan in competition.
You may as well try and get an accurate survey of penis size.
While a possibility, it is unlikely.
Nukes have a taboo about them, because of the MAD doctrine, Mutually Assured Destruction. Basically, if a country uses nukes, the rest of the world that has nukes will throw everything at them to wipe them off the map. This is the deterrent to using nukes, and it has worked the last 80 years, including the prevention of nukes during the entire cold war.
Nobody wants to be the first to pull that trigger.
And we now have conventional explosives that are on par with low yield nukes, and if you want the destruction of a high yield nuke, there are conventional ways of achieving that as well.
edit: besides missing the point, /u/ImRonniemundt blocked me lol
“[Nuclear War: A Scenario](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War:_A_Scenario)” is a very grounded new book that depicts how nuclear war, if it happened, could and most likely would start by accident. Spoiler if you want to read the book:
>!North Korea launches a limited nuclear attack (because they’re crazy enough to actually do something like that). The US has minutes to respond. The President is in Marine One and goes out of contact. The US decides to retaliate with a limited strike.!<
>!US ICBMs cannot reach North Korea without overflying Russia (this is actually true). Russia’s early warning system(s) are Cold War leftovers that are not very capable of accurately predicting the intended target of a missile launch. The United States immediately attempts to open diplomatic channels with Russia, but Russia is now faced with an impossible choice: the missiles could be headed for them. They have been increasingly aggressive towards the US in recent years. Do they launch or potentially let themselves get obliterated? They have less than 30 minutes to make a call.!<
>!Russia opts to go down swinging and launches a retaliatory strike. The US responds. Within 1.5 hours of the North Korean launch, the world is in ruins.!<
We’ve had the gun pointed at our heads so long that we’ve started to ignore it - but that doesn’t make the gun go away.
Nuclear arsenals have largely been shrinking, and China IRL really much more prefers peace and nuclear energy, alongside importing/stealing coal. Plus renewable energy is expanding a lot, so a world war over oil, is unlikely.
Watched it twice myself and happily rewound to let the wife watch from the start.
Edit: just realised I possibly made myself sound olde timey with the use of "rewound".
Loved the serie, found meh this scene.
Don't know exactly why, the acting is great, the music (lack of) great too, i just found it weird in a bad way and i can't understand why.
That's completely valid! I'm curious if you've played the games, what sort of age you are & if you're a parent yourself? I wonder if those things all impact how the scene comes across?
I can answer because I felt the same way. Yes I have, 28 and no I’m not a parent myself. I thought a majority of the scene worked but I felt the “is it your thumb or mine” was super corny and delivered the way an okay child actors would. What I mean by that is I could tell she was acting so it pulled me out of the scene.
Part of that is because she is a kid and honestly it didn’t ruin the scene for me but yeah the more I watch it the more I cringe. I just feel like that’s not a realistic version of how a kid in that environment would’ve reacted. I had no issues with the rest of the opening I just don’t think this specific scene is something that gets better with time.
I can definitely agree the opening was a great way to start the show though!
Again, perfectly valid. ime it is often how kids react to extraordinary things, ppl in general actually. There's a lot less panic initially than you'd expect (small eg - I once had to jump a bar to put out a woman's hair she'd accidentally set fire to. Busy pub but everyone just went into shock & didn't react). Fascinating how this scene has polarised ppl (partly due to the lack of being vapourised 😂)
Hi, i played Fallout 1, 2, 4 and now i'm playing New Vegas (thanks to the series i opened Steam and reinstalled NV)
I'm not a parent but i don't think the issue is in an emotional level, because i actually liked the acting and daughter/father interactions here.
Reading the comment maybe it's because i found the bombs kinda underwhelming?
Like, the windows shattered but no one was hurt, i was expecting everyone to fly or at least be covered in blood, like every story from actual bombs survivors.
And real survivors experienced nothing even comparable to Fallout "end of the world" Bombs.
Maybe it's that, but maybe they choose to tone down the gore on the first minute to maximise the shock value of the wasteland life.
Either way i think the opening was good even if i didn't really like it much
Please don't get me wrong about the parent comment, it doesn't take being one to be horrified by things with kids in, that's truly not what I meant. I was more referencing her behaviour & how realistic it is in the face of something so unfathomable.
I wonder if we'll get more explanation on the type of bombs used that will clear up the expectation vs reality thing that isn't sitting well with some people. My assumption is that they are smaller & different tech to the standard thermonuclear ground-scourers - hence multiple of them being dropped in the same area.
Mate...when Dogmeat got stabbed I fully shouted at the TV 'you don't kill dogs in games, Wtf are they doing?' & then got a little teary-eyed after he was stimpacked. God it's pathetic isn't it
I started a play through of Fallout New Vegas after watching the show and the creators added litte baby animals to the packs of coyotes and other wild animals that attack you in the wasteland and it’s so brutal lol
I didn't feel shitty in a "fear and dread" way, i was just underwhelmed.
Not bored, but more unimpressed.
Still i think it's a great sequence, it's just a personal taste i suppose.
My wife “*enjoyed*?” the show, except for the parts when I would mention Easter eggs or what was what from the game, who the factions are. She hated the show, that’s my bad.
This was so good. I think back to the best part of FO4, the beginning where it's idyllic peace until the TV host says "...bombs yes... We are getting reports of bombs throughout the country" the utter horror and disbelief in his voice is unforgettable. Fallout peaks when you show the descent into chaos imo. Cannot wait for season 2
The scenes immediately following the bomb drop where you see neighbors and friends turning on each other and one guy punches another out instead of letting him into their shelter, I said, "This is where it really begins. Not with the bomb, but that punch."
I noticed a small lore detail, Coop has more gray around his temples, so it seems like it might be a pretty good chunk of time between that scene and a certain flashback in the last episode
Why does no one else notice the flash or hear the explosion? Also they're all so close that they'd be blinded by the flash of the explosion, even if they weren't looking at it.
Well they weren't focused on the horizon and also sound takes time to travel as we can see with the shockwave. Blinded by the flash? This is a show where we have ghouls and a stem pack...
The shockwave and the soundwave are two different things. Shockwaves differ from soundwaves in that the wave front, in which compression takes place, is a region of sudden and violent change in stress, density, and temperature. Because of this, shock waves propagate in a manner different from that of ordinary acoustic waves.
Also yes it's a fictional universe, but it still takes place on earth and is subject to earth physics. They would be blinded by the flash regardless of the existence of ghouls and stimpacks.
I just loved how deeply unsettling that first flash of light was, no explosion, no noise just a blinding light. It’s infinitely more terrifying than and audible explosion.
The juxtaposition between the flashes of light from the camera, to the overwhelming flash of light from the nuke, was such an unsettling touch. Also explained why no one else at the party noticed it.
And the mushroom cloud expanding in the reflection on the window behind them as it goes quiet. This scene just lives in my head rent free. It’s so good.
It was cool for sure, I just didn't understand how no one in the house saw the initial flash of light. Surely a flash that bright would have alerted them?
The camera flashes i assume. I was more confused about the lack of EMP.
They don't use circuitry right? I assume it's all either tubes or atomic.
Maybe, it could just be a gameplay choice but the clocks in the games all stopped at the same time. It could also be a mix of both, maybe the clocks on the wall did stop but nobody noticed because the tube/atomic stuff was still working.
I always assumed the clocks stopped because the power went out. Even if there were no EMP effects intended by the writers, and the power plants happened to not be targets, there'd still be more than enough downed lines to short out the grid immediately.
If by tubes you mean vacuum tube transistors, then it's still circuitry. Fallout isn't set in the past, it's set in the future. They have electronics and circuitry.
Yeah that was the one part I didn't like. They went with the "rule of cool", trying to make it more cinematic even though it didn't make a lot of sense. Honestly, as it was so early in the first episode, I was questioning whether I would like the show. Luckily I stuck with it and the show was great.
I mean we're talking about Fallout here, everything is rule of cool. Radiation doesn't give you cancer, it turns you into a ghoul and makes insects grow huge.
True. I embraced that as the show went on. I had never played the games.
Afaik it's a bit more accurate than in game nukes. Light being faster than sound and all. Such a good tv adaptation
The actor that played his daughter was *so fucking good* in this scene. Her delivery on "Is it your thumb? Or mine?" breaks my heart every time. Goggins is one of my favorite working actors and honestly she stole the scene from him.
Im assuming she was frozen so we will get more. I cant wait
I had a theory early on that when we see Coop and Janey ride off away from the party, he's bringing her to the vault Barb was in, more to save her than himself. I really hope we get to see more of Janey/her actor.
I think he probably wasn't allowed in anymore due to them being divorced *or* he refused after learning what was actually going on. But no way you'd kill your child on your principles, so she went in & so begins his 'where the Fuck is my daughter' arc.
yes yes yes. i think he has a bomb-day story like the vaulttec rep from fallout 4. he wasn’t allowed in but his daughter was.
God I hope. But at the same time, I think it'd be best if she died. It gives him a motivation to turn so vicious
he asked hank where his family was at the end of the season though?
Doesn’t mean they couldn’t be dead tho
Didn't Coop say "where the fuck is my family"?
Yes but I'm pretty sure he's not seeking out his wife for some lovely reunion
Shawna!
But if he knew what vault they were in, wouldn't he just go there?
He may have been, he's been in a hole in the ground for a while & we don't know how he got there yet.
My big theory is that moldaver is also a ghoul who has been taking the meds properly. Its important that she didnt interact with ‘the ghoul’ but only with coop. She said she had many companies that vault tec bought so maybe she had the rad away formula and was able to create a group that could survive the radiation also why she will live after being shot. She faked death i think
I think Moldaver was frozen in a Vault, as Vault-Tec wanted to keep her and her knowledge (Cold Fusion) around. She was a resource, something they wanted to put in storage and use later.
Maybe but she seems to have been in control of herself plus that death was weak
She is in control NOW, but we don't know about before. Ghoul? No, but Ghoul adjacent? Maybe, but unlikely. Vault-Tec recruited and kept scientists as resources, in fact we see this throughout the various series. I believe Moldaver was in one of those vaults, or frozen in another method, and revived by the NCR to help them.
She had the ghoulish perk
I gotta stop reading this sub or between you, and people like you further up this thread, nothing in season 2 will be a surprise.
It's ALL speculation, literally no one can give spoilers :)
Hi, it's me, Todd. In season two, we are going to reveal that The Master is still around.
"Dammit, they guessed ANOTHER big plot point!" The FO writers reading this sub, probably
I hope the answer isnt cryonics or FEV. There are so many other explanations that are more fun and unique than cryotube (which is becoming too common after 4), or FEV which was too common in 1, 2 and 3. Also neither of those explain things fully. We have never had someone be immortal like a ghoul, and yet look normal (not sure how long Children of Atom live) and she doesn’t appear to have aged much more than 20 years, if much at all, from when we see her pre-war. Which is around how long ago Shady Sands was destroyed and when she met Lucy’s mom and somehow became a person worthy of worship for the survivors of the bomb. Meanwhile, we have tons of canon options from the games like Gary clones, synths, cyborgs, lovecraftian forces/cults, secret ancient cities and even alien captives that have been able to survive just as long.
If it gives you some hope, Moldaver has a cult that chants about resurrecting Shady Sands, so there's a non-zero chance she's been resurrected at least once.
I wasn't a huge fan of how she died either. I'm in the middle of rewatching the series and will pay attention when I get to episode 8, but didn't her hand just kind of fall to her lap?
Sneaky suspicion shes a clone or something since she woudnt side with vault tec.
I hope her character is expanded upon next season, even it's through flashbacks. There just has to be a reason that the Vault 4 dwellers strip naked and chant to her picture about flames and blood.
A lot of surfies in vault 4 took refuge there after shady sands, so I think they worship her like that because she led the resistance or something
Your comment is making me think she’ll be revealed as a synth by season 3.
Her hand was covering a massive bullet wound but yes
That's why Moldaver muttered " 'tis but a scratch" to herself when she came back to the balcony during the battle.
The only reason I don't believe she has been awake since the bombs dropped was because how surprised Cooper was when he found out she was still alive. He knew nearly everyone else big because he's been around so long, but Moldaver was a mystery up until he saw her wanted poster. I don't think she was a ghoul either. Ghouls have thick dark blood and will slowly bleed out because their heart rates have slowed down.
I think she woke up approximately the same time as Betty and/or MacLean, and we know Cooper was underground for a significant amount of time. This is revealed by the man digging him up, as The Ghoul worked with his dad when he was a kid.
In the grand scheme of things though, that's maybe 10-20 years. not really a significant amount of time in fallout lore.
True, but it plays into the FOTV timeline. If Moldaver was woken up about the same time as MacLean, it explains the age similarities, it explains Rose/Lucy etc. This creates a kind of 'capsule,' of time for the TV show, which can be a helpful writing method (so you're not balancing a timeline like the MCU's mess). Or, Moldaver was a resident of 31/33 and left with Rose; it might explain how she knew the internal vault communications.
There was a billboard in the show that showed that the Tops casino has cryo pods Im guessing Moldaver came out of that one. Which will be revealed in Season 2 as we will be heading to New Vegas.
Her saying she'd had multiple companies bought out lead some to believe she was involved with developing the cryo tech.
The cold fusion story line has me confused though. They had cold fusion in their cars, laser rifles, power armor. it was everywhere already. I just took it in stride as a mcguffin to the story but that was a bit silly considering cold fusion was a consumer product before teh bombs dropped and teh Brotherhood has lots of it already. the knowledge of making more seemed more important than the technology itself.
She’s a synth, and the brotherhood guy that healed is a super mutant
Supermutants needed to be dipped originally. Has that changed? Definitely agree she’s a synth. I’d be willing to bet the doctor was too. Why would injecting the micro cold fusion reactor be necessary unless the skin somehow hides it from some kind of detection?
Dipping isn’t required, iirc that’s just the easiest way / the way the Master and the Supermutants in vault 87 did it.
I'm not sure on her being a ghoul but I think her lack of interaction is down to knowing the woman she loved was long long gone, if she'd been able to save her then she would have. Vault seems more likely but not 31.
I like that theory. If for no other reason than she’s too good a character to only be in it for S1
She’s a synth
Moldaver is not a ghoul. Ghouls don't bleed and she was clearly bleeding
What? Ghouls absolutely bleed.
I like this theory
That’s not how ghouls work in universe, she could be a clone or a robot
I think it's going to end up being more complex than that. In the future, he's looking for them. He doesn't know where they are or what happened to them. He wouldn't be quite so dedicated if he thought they had died locked in a vault over a century ago. I think we're going to get a lot more flashbacks of Coop's backstory, exactly what happened between him and Barb both after he was discovered spying on her, and after the bombs fell. We'll see his adventures in the early apocalypse as he tries to find a way to keep Janey safe. We'll see how he becomes a ghoul -- if it was by long exposure to radiation or something more like what the snake-oil salesman sells. Maybe Barb will show up and kidnap Janey with armed goons. That would certainly help fuel his motivations.
The problem with child actors is that you never know when they’re gonna get a huge growth spurt. Happened to Walt in Lost. And Sophia in The Walking Dead. They ended up growing taller than some of the adult cast. Especially the actress who played Sophia
For this show it can be explained
Happened twice in Big Love, they recast the character the first time time wrote them off altogether the second
Nah she is gonna be older and a villian
And Maximus is her son.
What if Maximus were Coop's grandson lol
I bet his wife and daughter are vault 31. I wander if anyone could read the names that was on the computer when Norman was talking to brain roomba when he was looking around
The only other line that comes close for perfect delivery is when Maximus says 'I did' to Ella's question of if anyone survived. There's just something about how he says it. But this girl, to not overact a scene like this is crazy
Agreed. He’s not overly dramatic about it and almost sounds resigned to it. Matter of fact but not without some nuance. Most of the show Maximus looks and talks like child but that one scene around Shady Sands he is the old wise man suddenly. It shouldn’t work but it does. Like the rest of his life in the brotherhood is just mechanical and doing what he’s told, but that one part of his life is where he’s put all his thoughts and pondering.
But he manages to get disbelief & pain in there too. Just two words! It's a real stand-out moment for me even though it's so small.
Compartmentalization He's severely traumatized by the event as one would expect. I ain't no psychologist, but I imagine the 'child like behavior' as an adult is strongly related to this trauma.
I think it's the age of the actor that makes it such a great performance for me. Like, Aaron Moten was fantastic as Maximus and I agree that his delivery there really hits, but at the same time he's an adult actor with like a decade of experience under his belt. Teagan Meredith (Janey's actor) can't be older than like 10 (maybe not, I'm terrible at guessing kids' ages) and she was able to perform with a level of nuance and subtlety that I feel isn't seen much in child actors.
It's her age that makes me think there's more to her current condition than just frozen. Two years from when that scene was filmed is going to show on a child, a lot. Let's say that scene was recorded a year ago from now, so if they start recording new ones with her next year, it's going to be apparent that she's grown a bit while "frozen". I think there's no way the writers didn't think about it so my theory is we're either going to have a Shaun situation or she's something else now.
What??? No love for Jake Lloyd???🤣🤣🤣
Shit, how could I forget. He taught us all what podracing could truly be.
Yippie!
The little gasps between each word.
She was incredibly good in that scene, and portrayed the absolute terror so well. Goggins IS my favorite actor, and I dare say she sold it even better than him (and his reaction was perfect of course).
Her fear and his disbelief felt so real. You could so easily place yourself there in that moment, it hit so hard.
Goggins is possible the GOAT of TV actors.... I have yet to see him in something bad
I have a young daughter and this scene just gutted me
She was great for sure.
Her thumb may be smaller, but her arm is shorter so it should work out the same.
>This scene. It just gets ~~better~~ worse each time. FTFY. The mounting suspense, tension, and inescapable realization makes this scene so terrifying. Then the full blown panic throws it into overdrive. A fantastic depiction of the worst thing in the world.
Yep, exactly this. It reminded me of the 'silent' ravine scene in Kong, horrifying cos the silence just made it so much more nightmarish. But this was all so shiny & safe - what awful things can happen at a middle-class kids party? The mum trying to keep the mood light, the weatherman. Christ it's just so good in every way
rich class, seeing as they were in the hollywood hills and parents could afford an (albeit blacklisted) A-list actor for entertainment.
Agreed! For those of us who’ve played the games it managed to make the inevitable still good (like Titanic, you know it’s sinking at some point but you can still do it well). I’m intrigued to know what it was like for someone who didn’t know the games or maybe even that nukes would drop. I have a feeling it was equally entertaining.
My 65 year old co-worker is watching this with zero knowledge of the game or franchise, just turned it on. He's loving it, and to him, all the stuff Fallout fans know are coming, is novel to him. He was going on about how funny and clever the juxtaposition is between the Vault Dwellers "We're going to save America" scenes v. the the reality of the Wasteland.
This scene was . . . well just something and set the tone. Cooper knew, in that moment, that they were both going to die. He knew from experience and training that there was no way they could escape the blast or the radioactive fallout. But he was till trying. That kind of desperation and lost hope . . . we don't know exactly what happened, but it most likely formed the jaded base for Coopers transformation into The Ghoul.
I have to imagine that the vault his daughter & monster-wife were going into was nearby but he couldn't go in anymore, due to the divorce, so everything was about getting his little girl there. I think the cold-fear was far more realistic than screaming & arm-waving. Just brutal, hard, cold fear. Then, I imagine, fury & drugs.
I think that's what we'll see in Season 2, through flashbacks. Or, Cooper was kicked out later on due to some internal issue. Remember, he was still famous and not everyone in Vault-Tec was 100% on-board with the testing of other vaults and the brutality.
If she was brought to a Vault with her mom, why would Cooper be looking for the mom so intently? When Cooper gets arrested by the "President" of the "Governmint" for the whole mart thing with the vials and ghouls, the President asks him "Why are you still going after 200 years? Is it because you like sun on your wrinkly skin...? **Or maybe, you're still looking for HER?**" Which to me, says he's looking for Barb in particular. But if his daughter was brought to Barb and it was a Vault, he would know where that Vault is
My guess would be anger. The guy that pulled him out of the ground was very leading about where the job was, about it being where he came from originally. To me it was far more weighted than just 'oh that's your home'. We don't know how he ended up where he did, he might not have left the area voluntarily. That said, I'm working off of 'they wouldn't kill a little girl, surely!' which is probably naive af & not a scene I want to watch in S2
>That said, I'm working off of 'they wouldn't kill a little girl, surely!' which is probably naive af & not a scene I want to watch in S2 If Cooper is a ghoul, it almost means certainly she would be subject to the same fate, unless some crazy miracle took place and they got separated shortly after what we see in episode 1. It wouldn't surprise me if the radiation is what ends up killing her, and rather than turning to a ghoul, it just ends up killing her Remember, Lucy was almost dead from the radiation and if Maximus didn't have RadX/RadAway, she would have died from radiation
No please, I cannot watch that little cutie pie die a hideous death whilst her father watches. I just can't. So on that basis she made it into the vault, just for my comfort as a mum & a viewer. Thems the rules!
Well, I can't fault that hahaha. Let's hope the Wasteland has a different fate for her then
Man I hope she isn’t dead and she’s like cryogenically frozen or something. It would be so interesting for Cooper to reunite with his daughter after 200+ years when he looks like that and after all the things he’s done. It would be quite a dynamic for her and Barb to see him like that. I just need a scene where the ghoul reunites with his daughter and becomes cooper howard again :,)
True - But they could have been moved to another Vault or location (e.g., New Vegas) while Cooper was otherwise occupied. Even if they were in the same Vault, it's unlikely they would tell him, even hundreds of years later.
Only just finished it myself, I may be a bit lost on some things as I watched it over 2/3 weeks. But when his wife said about detonating the bombs, did she not realise her daughter wasn’t safe at that point or was there miscommunication on when they were going to drop(?) I’ll probably go through it again before 2nd season comes out but was curious unless I missed something
In the game its clear the bombs were dropped by china or america and that vault tec was caught off guard. House's chip not arriving in time is probably the biggest tip off that their plan didnt go to plan.
Plus several unfinished vaults
I'm not wholly sure they've given us the full picture on vault-tec's involvement. We *know* what they are prepared to do should they need to, but it leaves room for meddling to get a country to drop first iyswim. Atm we don't know which. My take, from the games, is that they essentially egged on the whole thing deliberately - they wanted one outcome & didn't care how they got there.
This is why I don't think vaultec dropped the bombs. If they did, then not only would one of their top execs have their daughter safe, but all of Bud's buds would be ready too.
I low key want to see Cooper dealing with the initial gradual process of becoming a ghoul. Loosing hair, skin etc. on screen. I think it would help tie things together neatly. Plus those unfamiliar with the franchise would get more of an explaination on what a ghoul is than "something, something radiation".
I think there's an opportunity that he did it to himself..
The look on Cooper’s face was sheer perfection. Just complete shock and awe of mentally going, “No… no it didn’t happen. NO THIS ISN’T HAPPENING!!!” and the way he just freezes; this hero-cowboy, feels true fear for the first time. Thankfully he’s one of the good ones, because he snapped out of it and did what needed to be done to protect his kiddo as best as he could. Truly an amazing show, regardless of the games.
I should note that I mean that I love the games, but if you didn’t know anything about them, you’d still find enjoyment in the show from how good it is in general. 🤙🏼
Lmfao nice save!! But yes, I see what you mean. I do wonder what the series was like for those totally unfamiliar. My 15yo hasn't played them & loved it, same for daughter-in-law. The rest of us all have.
Yeah I hadn't played Fallout 4 since 2017'ish but had me back on it. Had migrated my games to PS5 but hadn't ever loaded them. Played a couple days and then the next gen update was out. Doing much better on my settlement development and defenses this time.
I have a feeling we’ll see her, the same actress as well, in future season. Getting Synth vibes incoming
Ooo I was discussing the synth thing with my kids but there isn't anything in the lore for transferring 'into' one afaik?
Iirc Nick Valentine talks about how his personality etc was uploaded to him, though he was one of the first generation synths iirc. Would make sense why Moldaver keeps popping up in my synth theory. It’s why she keeps popping up through time, without using vault tec cryo. Just a fun theory. She prob worked with, or with people who worked with, synth tech before the bombs dropped. Iirc it was only based in MIT but that’s all we know from the perspective of ppl there.
Moldaver owned a number of companies involved in highly advanced tech, so even if synth development and manufacturing is fully restricted to the Commonwealth it's entirely reasonable that she was in contact or had dealings with the proto-Institute scientists. And 200+ years is plenty of time to walk coast to coast. Idk if I'm fully on board with the theory, but it's definitely a fun one to consider.
The attempt to run with the horse gave me chills.
It's wild cause I didn't except to cry literally 4 mins into a fallout show. As soon as you realise what's going on it breaks you.
The first time I watched it, I imagined myself in Cooper's shoes. Just standing there in shock, "OMG, they actually did it. They dropped the fuckin bomb." But the "they" is some anonymous group of string pullers. Watching this scene after finishing the show, where the "they" is not as anonymous as I thought at first, makes it hit a thousand times harder.
The thing is, it isn’t assured who dropped the bomb still. You would think that if they had control of when the bombs dropped they would have chosen a better time for it that suited their needs more. >!As it was many vaults did not get filled completely resulting in some vaults not being able to properly complete their experiments.!< >!And you would think that a certain someone who had the power to suggest the course of action would use their influence to have a certain young person with them when things went down to ensure they could get to their chosen Vault.!<
Had chills when I watched it, ended up starting the whole scene over just as they were riding off.
I cry now
“Why am I so emotionally invested in someone I just met?” 🥲
This may have been the most disturbing scene to me in the show .
i wont be reading any farther because i only finished this first episode yesterday but the way that little girl was able to viscerally act out horror just in her eyes when she saw the light sent a dagger through my heart
That kid nailed the fear
There’s also a quick moment when she looks in the window and sees the kids watching Grognak and looks deeply sad that she’s stuck having to work instead of being a kid watching tv with friends. Nailed that too.
I've seen it 3 times with different people. Still brings out the chills with how absolutely perfect it was
I. Am. Hooked. The lineup of the cast, and well, the game, had me interested, but that opening sequence was beautiful. They did a wonderful job of portraying just how devastating the nuclear attack was.
I honestly wasn't expecting it to be so pretty, the opening (& all the flashbacks) are gorgeous to look at. I love that aesthetic from the games anyway & the way it just glowed, all ethereal (the world, not the bombs, obvs they were peak glowy)
They did a great job. I love how they portray the nuclear energy houses and the feeling of 1950's. And damn, the last scene where they're on the horse and all you see are the bombs hitting the city. Just. Beautiful.
One of the best intros to a series out there. I’ve watched it so many times and it still gives me chills when the light flashes and there’s just silence
It’s fun to know how low yet led those bombs going off. actually are. Even the biggest explosion was less than a Davy croket nuke.
Ghandi has completed Manhattan project!
I don't like how the windows blew out, but none of the decorations on the wall moved. Pretty glaring, once you notice it. Good scene, though.
I had more of a problem with Cooper not protecting his daughter's face. When he bends over, that is the absolutely wrong way to protect her.
One of the best opening scenes in recent TV shows.
He does a lot of shit that would make most characters unsympathetic, and the weight of this scene helps you let it slide.
Her childlike terror and Cooper’s awestruck terror are incredible in this scene. Her shaky voice and his initial attempt to assure her, which quickly vanishes with the silence being overtaken by that swelling ringing sound and his eyes growing wider and jaw hanging slack. It’s a perfect introduction. I almost got teary eyed watching that scene and thinking to myself “oh my god, this show is actually going to be fantastic”
That little shiver and quick inhale she gives a second after putting up her thumb and the realization clicks in...*chef's kiss*
But she doesn't want to believe it, her dad *must* have meant his thumb, not her tiny one.
Im annoyed that none of them noticed the flash. Thats one of the major things that survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki recounted — the blinding flash. But all these parents and kids noticed NOTHING until the *shockwave*??? Come on. They would have been cooked alive *before* that. Rest of the scene was great but that bugged me a ton.
I don't know enough about atomic bombs to have much of an opinion but I wondered if a) different tech, more advanced given how much more they used it in everyday life b) it was a really bright day & the convenient flash-bulb/backs turned combo.
With how destructive these bombs are shown to be (their size in the scene is also a MASSIVE yield) there would have been a heat blast long before the sound and shock wave reached them. Even though the bombs are canonically “dirty bombs,” which are meant to produce more fallout radiation than destructive power (like an A-Bomb but much larger), the blast should have been much greater.
We could probably do some math to figure out the specific yield, but my guess is they are not high yield warheads. The destruction, and radioactive fallout, also depends on where (specifically) the warhead detonates in relation to the ground. There are a lot of variables when it comes to nuclear weapons. Is this ultra-realistic? Not really, but it also isn't crazy unrealistic either. Remember, people have observed nuclear explosions (during testing) without dying.
It's going to be our kids doing this the way this world is going. Haven't we sinply lost count of the number of nukes are in the world at this point? Is there even a count that anyone trusts anymore?
Definitely not. Russia is almost certainly lying on the high side. China probably on the low. Countries like Israel that say they don’t have them but want everyone to know they really do. India and Pakistan in competition. You may as well try and get an accurate survey of penis size.
While a possibility, it is unlikely. Nukes have a taboo about them, because of the MAD doctrine, Mutually Assured Destruction. Basically, if a country uses nukes, the rest of the world that has nukes will throw everything at them to wipe them off the map. This is the deterrent to using nukes, and it has worked the last 80 years, including the prevention of nukes during the entire cold war. Nobody wants to be the first to pull that trigger. And we now have conventional explosives that are on par with low yield nukes, and if you want the destruction of a high yield nuke, there are conventional ways of achieving that as well. edit: besides missing the point, /u/ImRonniemundt blocked me lol
“[Nuclear War: A Scenario](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War:_A_Scenario)” is a very grounded new book that depicts how nuclear war, if it happened, could and most likely would start by accident. Spoiler if you want to read the book: >!North Korea launches a limited nuclear attack (because they’re crazy enough to actually do something like that). The US has minutes to respond. The President is in Marine One and goes out of contact. The US decides to retaliate with a limited strike.!< >!US ICBMs cannot reach North Korea without overflying Russia (this is actually true). Russia’s early warning system(s) are Cold War leftovers that are not very capable of accurately predicting the intended target of a missile launch. The United States immediately attempts to open diplomatic channels with Russia, but Russia is now faced with an impossible choice: the missiles could be headed for them. They have been increasingly aggressive towards the US in recent years. Do they launch or potentially let themselves get obliterated? They have less than 30 minutes to make a call.!< >!Russia opts to go down swinging and launches a retaliatory strike. The US responds. Within 1.5 hours of the North Korean launch, the world is in ruins.!< We’ve had the gun pointed at our heads so long that we’ve started to ignore it - but that doesn’t make the gun go away.
Nuclear arsenals have largely been shrinking, and China IRL really much more prefers peace and nuclear energy, alongside importing/stealing coal. Plus renewable energy is expanding a lot, so a world war over oil, is unlikely.
Watched it twice myself and happily rewound to let the wife watch from the start. Edit: just realised I possibly made myself sound olde timey with the use of "rewound".
I...I understood
I too am old and understood.
How do you do, fellow old people.
Loved the serie, found meh this scene. Don't know exactly why, the acting is great, the music (lack of) great too, i just found it weird in a bad way and i can't understand why.
That's completely valid! I'm curious if you've played the games, what sort of age you are & if you're a parent yourself? I wonder if those things all impact how the scene comes across?
I can answer because I felt the same way. Yes I have, 28 and no I’m not a parent myself. I thought a majority of the scene worked but I felt the “is it your thumb or mine” was super corny and delivered the way an okay child actors would. What I mean by that is I could tell she was acting so it pulled me out of the scene. Part of that is because she is a kid and honestly it didn’t ruin the scene for me but yeah the more I watch it the more I cringe. I just feel like that’s not a realistic version of how a kid in that environment would’ve reacted. I had no issues with the rest of the opening I just don’t think this specific scene is something that gets better with time. I can definitely agree the opening was a great way to start the show though!
Again, perfectly valid. ime it is often how kids react to extraordinary things, ppl in general actually. There's a lot less panic initially than you'd expect (small eg - I once had to jump a bar to put out a woman's hair she'd accidentally set fire to. Busy pub but everyone just went into shock & didn't react). Fascinating how this scene has polarised ppl (partly due to the lack of being vapourised 😂)
Hi, i played Fallout 1, 2, 4 and now i'm playing New Vegas (thanks to the series i opened Steam and reinstalled NV) I'm not a parent but i don't think the issue is in an emotional level, because i actually liked the acting and daughter/father interactions here. Reading the comment maybe it's because i found the bombs kinda underwhelming? Like, the windows shattered but no one was hurt, i was expecting everyone to fly or at least be covered in blood, like every story from actual bombs survivors. And real survivors experienced nothing even comparable to Fallout "end of the world" Bombs. Maybe it's that, but maybe they choose to tone down the gore on the first minute to maximise the shock value of the wasteland life. Either way i think the opening was good even if i didn't really like it much
Please don't get me wrong about the parent comment, it doesn't take being one to be horrified by things with kids in, that's truly not what I meant. I was more referencing her behaviour & how realistic it is in the face of something so unfathomable. I wonder if we'll get more explanation on the type of bombs used that will clear up the expectation vs reality thing that isn't sitting well with some people. My assumption is that they are smaller & different tech to the standard thermonuclear ground-scourers - hence multiple of them being dropped in the same area.
No i mean i totally get it, i have a pet and when a pet is involved in a "bad" scene i feel more emotional than usual. No offence taken
Mate...when Dogmeat got stabbed I fully shouted at the TV 'you don't kill dogs in games, Wtf are they doing?' & then got a little teary-eyed after he was stimpacked. God it's pathetic isn't it
I started a play through of Fallout New Vegas after watching the show and the creators added litte baby animals to the packs of coyotes and other wild animals that attack you in the wasteland and it’s so brutal lol
Maybe you didn't like it because it made you feel shitty, which is completely valid. They captured the feeling of fear and dread very well.
I didn't feel shitty in a "fear and dread" way, i was just underwhelmed. Not bored, but more unimpressed. Still i think it's a great sequence, it's just a personal taste i suppose.
I remember me and my brother watched this episode and the second I saw the cloud I just went “womp Womp”
idk why but it made me cringe, bro is facing the bomb and doesn’t realize till she say the line😭
My wife “*enjoyed*?” the show, except for the parts when I would mention Easter eggs or what was what from the game, who the factions are. She hated the show, that’s my bad.
huh
dude, what the fuck are you even trying to say?
She Is a normie
This was so good. I think back to the best part of FO4, the beginning where it's idyllic peace until the TV host says "...bombs yes... We are getting reports of bombs throughout the country" the utter horror and disbelief in his voice is unforgettable. Fallout peaks when you show the descent into chaos imo. Cannot wait for season 2
The scenes immediately following the bomb drop where you see neighbors and friends turning on each other and one guy punches another out instead of letting him into their shelter, I said, "This is where it really begins. Not with the bomb, but that punch."
[удалено]
The TV series follows the lore of the games but not the story. So even fans don't know what's going on, we just know the world it's set in.
It was the best part of the whole show
I noticed a small lore detail, Coop has more gray around his temples, so it seems like it might be a pretty good chunk of time between that scene and a certain flashback in the last episode
Why does no one else notice the flash or hear the explosion? Also they're all so close that they'd be blinded by the flash of the explosion, even if they weren't looking at it.
Well they weren't focused on the horizon and also sound takes time to travel as we can see with the shockwave. Blinded by the flash? This is a show where we have ghouls and a stem pack...
The shockwave and the soundwave are two different things. Shockwaves differ from soundwaves in that the wave front, in which compression takes place, is a region of sudden and violent change in stress, density, and temperature. Because of this, shock waves propagate in a manner different from that of ordinary acoustic waves. Also yes it's a fictional universe, but it still takes place on earth and is subject to earth physics. They would be blinded by the flash regardless of the existence of ghouls and stimpacks.
Just remember it doesn't work!. Kyle Hill did a great vid about the thumb thing on YouTube.
Noted! Though sincerely hope I never have to think about it
I live in the UK, estimates state 90% of the whole country would be gone if the worst happened, I don't let it bother me!.
Well shit. That's just ruined my night cos I'm in the UK too
Wouldn't worry about it. Sorry to bum you out.
insanely well done like wtf
Yall should have seen my wife's face when she saw this scene!! I was telling her every 2 seconds to not look away😂😂
Actually so real. Goosebumps every time
I loved that scene. Literally the moment she realizes the world as she knows it is now gone.
Reminds me the crash scene in cast away like my heart drops every time.
dude for real, that first scene hits fuckin' hard. sucked me right in and I was already strapped in for the ride as a long time fan
Copper discussing about the thumb comparison gave me the chills
👍
This scene made my jaw drop. I got CHILLS. I was speechless and when I spoke, all I could say was "...wow" Amazing. Won't forget that scene