Back to the Wasteland: Fallout Season 2 Episode 1: The Innovator

 

And we’re back! We’ve got exploding heads, bad robots and fresh, hot flea soup. As with last season, each episode is packed. 

We spend a little time Lucy and the Ghoul, who are following Hank’s trail of destruction. They are not natural travel buddies. Lucy always wants to try manners and diplomacy first, whereas the Ghoul just wants to kill and move on.

Lucy’s maladjusted little brother Norm is fading as he listens to Robot Bud blather on.  Betty in Vault 33 seeks a way to keep water flowing in the vault while Reg, her former council co-lead wanders the vault aimlessly.  Over in vault 32, Chet bemoans his fate as sitter to Overseer Steph’s nameless baby.

We see more of Cooper Howard in the past, being egged on by Moldaver to spy more on his wife, and to attempt to kill Robert House when he tags along on her upcoming Las Vegas trip.

Finally, we see Hank arrive near Las Vegas at the Vault Tec offices. He’s completely comfortable there, and he swaps his power armor for a natty grey suit and tie.  He sends a message to his boss letting him know he’s arrived, and that he’s going to finish what the boss started, all in the hopes of a long awaited promotion.

It’s great to be back in the wasteland.  All of the trademark humor appears intact. I wish the episodes weren’t going to be released weekly, but I’ll be right here to watch every one.

Five Things Friday February 14, 2025

 Happy Valentines! Don’t forget the chocolate cake! 

What would your mom put on a candy heart?

I didn’t watch this cartoon much, but I sure know the laugh.

There’s something about this picture that really captures what a great time these women were going to have on their Sunday drive. 

I saw the movie Them one summer night long ago and despite the hokey special effects, it really scared me. Maybe the way they moved or the sound they made.

The Cat Star! 

I Am Mother (Netflix)

 

On day one after an extinction event, a robot puts an embryo in a small chamber and waits patiently while it develops.

She tenderly cares for the child, who we see grow through childhood to her teen years.  The girl is smart, sweet, well behaved, caring.  She's tested periodically, on her knowledge as well as her ethics.

First a mouse makes it's way into the facility. Mother disposes of it immediately as it likely contains the contagion that wiped out humanity.

Then, a woman bangs on the door. The girl is so thrilled to see another human that she hides her from Mother, as she doesn't want her to meet the same fiery end as the mouse.

The woman is almost feral, and claims there are other humans alive, and the girl belongs with them rather than with the murdering robots.

Mother insists the woman is not telling the truth about anything.  The bullet she was shot with came from a gun just like her own.  

The tension mounts as the girl and the viewer really can't tell which view of the world is correct.  As it turns out, both robot Mother and would be human mother are telling very little of the truth.

For myself, I was more distrustful of the human woman and her story.  Also, she had a very savage nature.

Having read a book called A Close and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, with a large section dealing with a young girl raised by an AI, I was taken with the many scenes of care and tenderness shown by Mother and wanted her to be telling the truth.

Very enjoyable.

The Tomorrow War (Amazon Prime)

 

I'm a huge fan of science fiction/action/adventure movies.  The Tomorrow War has Chris Pratt's Dan Forester joining a large group of untrained draftees in a time jump to the future.

In 30 years, earth is overcome by White Spikes, screeching, tentacled, loping devourers.  A group of soldiers comes back from the future and says they need help fighting these creatures or humanity will disappear.  All nations agree to a draft, and thousands are sent from all over the world each week.  Few return.

Dan Forester's group doesn't stand a chance as some glitch has them mostly falling from tall building height to the ground. The lucky few land in a rooftop swimming pool.  Pratt takes charge as he answers a com message. 

His daughter, grown up, is in charge of the operation. He follows her orders to try to retrieve lab personnel and their work.  Succeeding only in getting the lab test tubes and hard drives, the staff is dead--Forester works with his daughter to try to find a toxin that will kill the creatures before they wipe out humanity.

I thought the film was action packed.  I liked Forester's relationship with his daughter as a child and adult as a backbone of the story.   

All those ordinary people just tossed into the conflict with no training, yikes.  And Forester, a veteran, took as good care of them as he was able.

Good stuff.

D.O.A. at the Movies: Interstellar

The Earth is running out of food for its people.  The world has become a huge dustbowl with monstrous storms making life nearly impossible, and certainly miserable. Crops are down to corn alone.  All other food crops have succumbed to a blight.

Matthew McConauhey’s  Cooper is a former pilot who now farms with his young son and daughter, aided by father in law Donald, the grumpiest John Lithgow I’ve ever seen.

On top of everyday problems, daughter Murphy feels as if there is a poltergeist or some other phenomenon in her room trying to send a message.   Her father helps her decode a message, which gives the coordinates to a hidden NASA base. 

At the base, Michael Caine’s Professor  Brand and his daughter Amelia-- Anne Hathaway are working with a huge crew to pilot through a wormhole (which mysteriously appeared near Saturn 48 years ago).  Other missions called the Lazarus Missions went through in the past.  The new mission hopes to find a place to colonize beyond the wormhole, saving the last bits of humanity in two ways:

Embryos which will be activated at the new planet.

The scientific base they’re working in is a space station which can lift off and save a number of people.

 

 

At the heart of the rest of the film is finding a real home beyond the wormhole for colonization, and doing so within the lifetimes of family left behind.

Time on the other side of the wormhole is different.  This is made worse by a Black Hole called Gargantua.

Three viable seeming signals are received by the team, and they have to decide which is the best bet for finding life.  There is a possibility that all or any of the signals is old and that the teams are already dead.

I found the discussions between the crew members trying to decide what the best chances would be to be fascinating.  They hadn’t the fuel to simply look at them all.  The nearest of the choices had such close proximity to the Black Hole that time would be very warped there-- 7 years passing for every hour spent on the planet.

As a film of traveling into the unknown reaches of space, without hopes of rescue, with limited resources and time being an enemy in every way, it was superb.

The closeness of Cooper to his family and his determination to do what would save them no matter the cost to himself, was really a great emotional core. 

The element of aliens who could put a wormhole out near Saturn, and who likely existed in five dimensions, and the plot developments leading from those things…dicey thinking.

All in all, a fine film, lots to think about, including the many moral choices made by everyone involved.