'Fallout' expands 'everything' for show's second season

LONDON: Hit television series “Fallout” ups the stakes as it returns to screens for a sophomore season, its stars and makers say.

“You can play it two ways,” actor Walton Goggins said as he premiered the new season in London on Tuesday. “You can play it safe, rely on what happened in season one, or you can go for broke. And we went for broke.”

Based on the popular video game franchise of the same name, the live-action series centres on three main characters; former vault dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell), Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel (Aaron Moten) and Cooper Howard/The Ghoul (Goggins), a former movie star and mutated bounty hunter.

The new season picks up where the season one left off, with Lucy looking for her father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), and pairing up with The Ghoul on a post-apocalyptic adventure through the Mojave Desert to New Vegas.

The show’s executive producer, Jonathan Nolan, said audiences could expect “more of everything”. “More madness, more humour, more violence. We just try to outdo ourselves,” he said.

The second season also shows a new side to Lucy as her optimistic attitude clashes with The Ghoul’s nihilistic worldview on their way to Sin City, said Purnell.

“She’s in the wasteland now and she has to survive. You can’t always do that by being nice,” Purnell said. “I don’t want to spoil it, but we’ll see what happens to that moral compass.”

The new season introduces Justin Theroux in the role of Robert House, the ruler of the New Vegas strip, and a major character in the franchise.

“It’s a bit intimidating,” said Theroux. “The players of this game and the fans of the show are really sort of the shareholders, so you don’t want to disappoint them. But I worked very hard to hopefully not do that.”

Also joining the cast are actors Macaulay Culkin and Kumail Nanjiani, as well as a host of new creatures, brought to life by puppeteers.

The eight-episode second season of “Fallout” starts streaming on Prime Video on December 17, with a new episode released weekly.