Fallout kicked off with a fantastic Season 1, but Season 2 has kicked it up a notch with New Vegas, the introduction of supermutants, and finally revealing the active presence of the Enclave with the latest Episode 6 “The Other Player“. With just two more episodes left in the season, there’s still a lot of ground to cover, but Episode 6 revealed a crucial element in the past timeline. Michael Emerson‘s Siggi Wilzig returns, but this time he’s confronting Barb (Frances Turner) to remind her that she’s just a cog in a bigger machine. With the knowledge that Barb isn’t the true wizard behind the curtain and the naming of the Enclave, it’s starting to become clearer who could be the other player involved in the end of the world.
Collider spoke exclusively with executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan, as well as Frances Turner, about Season 2 and the progress thus far. Turner talked about Barb’s interior life and the opportunity for audiences to look deeper into Barb beyond just the character we see at the surface. Nolan discussed the conflict within the vaults and out in the Wasteland. He also gives insight into the adaptation process and what the TV show can do that the games can’t.
Frances Turner Reveals the “Heavy Weight” That Barb Carries in Season 2 of ‘Fallout’
“We don’t know what we would do in those circumstances, unless you’re in them.”
COLLIDER: Francis, I’m going to start with you so I like how in this season we get a more nuanced version of your character. I feel like it’s kind of hard not to dislike her when we finish Season 1, obviously, but by the end of the season, will we have more of an understanding of her perspective and her purpose in what she’s doing? Or do you think it’s going to push viewers away more?
FRANCES TURNER: I think you hit the nail on the head. By the end of the season, you will have learned so much more about Barb, her interior life, why she’s making the choices that she is making, what her participation is in this role. And she’s wife, she’s a mother, she’s also a businesswoman. She’s a career woman. She’s balancing her interest and her love for her family with her Vault-Tec life. You may not love her still at the end, it depends. That’s up to you. We don’t know what we would do in those circumstances, unless you’re in them. But, Barb, I think her journey, you see more of it, and you get a better idea of what she is balancing and dealing with. She is carrying a very, very heavy weight. And you definitely see more of that.
At the end of Episode 5, there’s the scene where Cooper is lying on the bed with Barb, and he’s like, “We need to have a talk.” And he’s been through a lot at this point. What can you tease about where that conversation is going to lead and how that affects their relationship as a married couple?
TURNER: What can I tease? [Laughs] I will tell you it is explosive.
Jonathan Nolan Discusses the ‘Star Trek’ Flair to the Vaults and the Effect of the Wasteland in ‘Fallout’
“Is any of that by design, and are these folks even really in control in the first place?”
Jonah, I want to talk a little bit about sort of the conflict in the vaults this season, in especially 33’s lack of water, which is building up to be an issue. What can you tease about how Steph and Betty are going to be tackling this issue?
JONATHAN NOLAN: I think one of the things I loved about the games in the first place, and one of the reasons why we why we got excited about this as an adaptation was, you may start in a vault, but you’re not done with the vaults. And as you make your way through the Wasteland, you find one vault after another. One of the great discoveries for me of the franchise is that all the vaults are a little bit different. They all play by a slightly different set of rules, and there’s a bit of a Gene Roddenberry Star Trek flavor to how does this vault work and what happened?
They started with an idea or an experiment, and it was expressed over the course of 200 years. What became of these folks, and where did it all go? So, I think the dynamic of here you have this closed system, this kind of closed loop with a certain number of variables, the variables being the people who are in the vault. And that question of, how is it going to work out? Is any of that by design, and are these folks even really in control in the first place? I think, is one of the fun questions the show gets to ask.
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I think this season plays a lot with morality, even more so than Season 1. And I really love the story that Lucy goes through when she’s sort of starting out. She’s unable to kill people. She’s shooting them in like the ass and like in the shoulder, maiming them. What was your guys’s intention when it came to exploring her journey as she travels with the Ghoul, and she sort of becomes not more comfortable, but adapts to life in the Wasteland.
NOLAN: Yeah, not that this has any relevance to our world whatsoever, but when you’re confronted with the total collapse of values and a total collapse of the world you expected, the world you thought you were entering into, and I think one of the reasons she’s such a likable character is that there’s a little bit of naïveté there, but there’s an idealism that I think survives intact somewhat into the Wasteland. But the fun of watching how will she translate that set of values into this world, I think, is one of the great pleasures of watching the show.
Nolan Reveals What the TV Show Gets Right That the Game Can’t
“Every game is its own story; they’re all connected together in this larger story.”
When it comes to adapting the story, you mentioned the games, how do you guys choose when it comes to this expansive world, what you want to pick and put into the story? Because obviously, you have things like FEV, which is teased in Episode 5, and you’ve got the Deathclaws, which is weirdly also connected to that. What can you talk about when it comes to that aspect and developing from the games?
NOLAN: Well, the challenge with this, for me, and those decisions are Geneva [Roberson-Dworet] and Graham [Wagner]’s responsibility, it’s on them. But I think one of the exciting things for me is it reminded me of my experience working in the Batman universe where you have all of these incredible artists and writers who’ve been toiling on this thing for decades. The same is true here with Fallout, with Todd [Howard], his team, the folks at Obsidian, the folks at Bethesda, and all the people who put time into these games.
You have these riches to play with, all of these different factions, all these different characters, all these different ideas, but you also have — this is what was so exciting for us about Fallout as a franchise — this invitation game to game. Every game is its own story; they’re all connected together in this larger story. And it was one of the things that was most appealing to us about the prospect was there was some original storytelling that you could do within this larger adapted universe. And you get to meet characters like Barb, like Cooper, and you got a chance to see before the war, which is one of the most exciting storylines for me in the series, and it’s something that I know in talking to Todd, it’s a little harder to do that in games.
Games are not quite as fluid with flashbacks as television, it’s one of the advantages that we have. So I that was one of the things that Todd appreciates about the show, is our ability to tell stories there. So, there’s a large conversation the beginning of every season in terms of which of the toys we get to take out of the chest and play with, and how much we’re going to continue to investigate and dig into these incredibly rich characters that we’ve come to know.
I can’t wait to watch the next three episodes, just a yes or no question. Do you know where the show is going to end?
NOLAN: Yes.
New Fallout Season 2 episodes premiere every Wednesday on Prime Video.
- Release Date
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April 10, 2024
- Network
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Amazon Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan
- Directors
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Frederick E. O. Toye, Wayne Che Yip, Stephen Williams, Liz Friedlander, Jonathan Nolan, Daniel Gray Longino, Clare Kilner
- Writers
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Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan