Fallout Season 2 Proves Netflix Needs to Ramp Up This Rival Video Game Adaptation

This article contains spoilers for “Fallout” season 2, episode 1 – “The Innovator”.

Season 2 of Prime Video’s stunning video game adaptation “Fallout” is here, and so is the video game’s most memorable character “Fallout: New Vegas.” Robert House (Justin Theroux) is not only the most important new player in “Fallout” Season 2, but if everything “The Innovator” suggests about him is true, he might just be the most important and infamous person in the entire live-action portion of the franchise. Mind controller, murderer, main instigator of the apocalypse, and terrifyingly suave guy who’s always one step ahead, the show’s version of Mr. House seems destined to become a fan-favorite character for the ages. He’s also a very obvious villain to the eccentric real-life tycoon Howard Hughes, who was memorably played by Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best films, “The Aviator.”

The impact Mr. House made from the start does more than just elevate “Fallout” to a new level. It also makes me wish Netflix would hurry up with its film adaptation of another great video game property: 2K’s “BioShock.” This franchise also happens to feature a very Hughes-inspired villain similar to Mr. House: Andrew Ryan, the designer and builder of the terrifying underwater utopia gone wrong called Rapture.

“BioShock” and “Fallout” share much of the same post-apocalyptic DNA, although the former is considerably more serious and disturbing than the latter. Andrew Ryan’s ruined underwater city of Rapture was supposed to be a haven for the world’s brightest minds, but it has fallen into mutation and chaos, leaving the player character to navigate the rusting ruins on their mysterious mission – a mission that turns out to be far more tortuous than the player could have expected.

A Netflix “BioShock” movie has been in the works since 2022, and considering the remarkable job Prime Video has done with “Fallout,” fans will no doubt be eager to see if it can capture the unique atmosphere, brutality and unsettling moments of its source material. Now that Mr. House is on the table in “Fallout” Season 2, the series has already proven what a compelling antagonist, a Howard Hughes archetype, can be in a post-apocalyptic setting – and I, for one, would really like to see if Netflix can do the same with Ryan. After all, given the budget cuts announced by “BioShock” film director Francis Lawrence in May and the resulting emphasis on smaller-scale storytelling, the Rapture bigwig might just be the ticket to anchoring the film with a compelling performance.

Season 2 of “Fallout” is streaming on Prime Video.