Mandaris

There is A LOT of hype around this show. I had ignored it when it first came out because I didn’t want to deal with the world ending because of nuclear war instead of catastrophic climate change. But, I had changed my mind when a couple of my friends recommended it multiple times. That’s how word of mouth works.

The show is good. I don’t recall points in the show where I felt a need to skip forward to where my favorite character is back on the screen. It’s 8 episodes of story and character building. You don’t need to know anything about the game franchise in order to understand it. I want to know more about the characters but I don’t find the need to look up if something is an Easter egg in order for scenes to work. Give it time and the story unfolds for you at the same time as most of the characters.

Speaking of characters, I want to shout out to Moisés Arias who plays Norm on the show. Not every character needs to be a hero or villain. It’s nice to see a character who is just trying to figure out what is going on. It takes a certain kind of bravery to go against the flow and what is comfortable. When you compare his physic against Dave Register, Norm is not what we would call a hero, but I’d like to see more characters like him in my media.

The story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there's almost nothing left to have. 200 years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind -- and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird, and highly violent universe waiting for them.