My big beef is how they handled the catalyst for the initial plot, the capture of Hank McLean by the commie witch whose name escapes me.
The purported villainess that captures Lucy's dad seemed like an interesting antagonist whose motivations were, at the same time, noble and selfish, but whose methods were definitely not ideal. The kind of character you want to see on the receiving end of some kind of deserved comeuppance. Then all the nuance is thrown away when it's revealed she was a gud girl who dindu nuffin and was totally justified in killing vault dwellers. Plus, the solution she and her company had for the greater good was bought by le ebil capitalists back in 2077 because it was not profitable. Also, the dad was evil all along. By the middle of the third or fourth episode, I was already predicting they would twist Lucy's search and Hank's character, and I was not at all surprised they went with that path.
Is it even explained how the commie witch lived that long without being ghoulified? Was she also inside one of those fancy hibernation capsules?
Oh yes, when called out by the future Ghoul on her hypocrisy, she just brushes it off with "so what, you're also hypocrites, also commies are good actually, you're the ones who don't get it."
To top it off, she dies after fending off the invading BoS in vain, but having "accomplished" the dream of an endless energy source for da peeps. Wonderful. Had she survived and taken over the whole thing, this could have been salvaged. A good thing that benefits everyone, but mad with power and grief, she decides to take the worst possible path and uses it for her own benefit instead. Now the writers' hackneyed idea of a Brotherhood of Steel get to reap the glory of this unsung heroine.
And of course, it was chock-full of tiny little member-berries for the fans. Pip-Boys galore, raiders, characters saying "War Never Changes," Sunset Sarsaparilla outdoor ads, Cram and Sugar Bombs being visibly eaten, the occasional Vault Boy bobblehead... My brother and I clapped when we saw them all!
Speaking of which, my brother was the more excited of the two to watch this, since he's actually played every single Fallout game there is, and he was quite happy to keep me up to date on Fallout lore and tidbits as we watched. By the time we finished marathoning it, none of us spoke of it for the rest of the day. Something tells me he didn't enjoy these particular twists and retcons.
So yeah, I think my household contributed to this travesty getting a second season. This ain't getting better, I just know it.