Trama

A humble recruit from a post-apocalyptic organization is tasked with scouting the wasteland in search of pre-war technology to preserve it, facing challenges and critiques along the way.

Their mission is to secure the Wasteland and find pre-war technology in order to preserve it. Maximus is low in the ranks, as we meet him getting beat up, and soon see him criticized by a teacher for not knowing his pre-war relics at a glance.—hollisgwin

Lucy, a sheltered Vault dweller, is forced to venture into the post-apocalyptic wasteland after her father's kidnapping. She encounters dangerous factions, enigmatic characters, and the harsh realities of the nuclear wasteland. As she searches for her father, Lucy must make difficult choices and confront the moral complexities of survival.—Prime Video

129 years after a nuclear war devastated the Earth, the descendants of the survivors are living in underground complexes - "Vaults" - and not venturing to the surface. Lucy is an inhabitant of Vault 33 and is about to marry a man from Vault 32. Her life is about to get turned upside down.—grantss

The series premiere opens in 2077 on the birthday of a boy named Roy Spencer (Mason Cufari). A-list actor Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) is performing cowboy-themed stunts with his daughter Janey Howard (Teagan Meredith), a gig he's recently taken up in order to afford alimony payments, as implied by Bob Spencer (Mike Doyle) and Frank (Jamal Thomas). Shortly after finishing his performance and acquiring a slice of birthday cake for his daughter, a nuclear bomb strikes the city of Los Angeles. Janey, seeing the bomb, holds out her thumb to measure the size of the mushroom cloud before being joined by her father, who initially believes the blast to be a large fire. Within seconds, the blast's shockwave shatters all surrounding windows, sending the partygoers into chaos. The Spencers retire to their family bomb shelter, while Cooper grabs Janey and flees on horseback as bombs ignite in the distance.

The show then cuts to Vault 33, 219 years in the future. The audience finds Hank MacLean's (Kyle MacLachlan) daughter, Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), sitting before the Vault governing council regarding her application for a breeder from neighboring Vault 32. In an effort to ease her nerves, Hank tells his daughter how he left his native home of Vault 31 to marry her mother and he's been happy ever since. Lucy's cousin, Chester (Dave Register), the vault gatekeeper, attempts to stall the process as he is secretly in love with Lucy, however, Lucy rejects his advances, emphasizing the disastrous effects long-term inbreeding has on future generations. As the door to Vault 32 opens, Overseer Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) introduces herself alongside Monty (Cameron Cowperthwaite), Lucy's selected breeder. At the wedding, Overseer Hank announces that current studies suggest they will be able to begin repopulating the surface within the next generation. Lucy and Monty retire to their unit, where Monty undresses and initiates sexual intercourse with Lucy. The perspective again changes, this time to Lucy's brother, Norm MacLean (Moisés Arias), who decides to sneak into Vault 32. Inside he discovers an array of dead crops and decaying corpses, causing him to flee. After Lucy and Monty finish, Lucy picks up her Pip-Boy to discover Monty's radiation levels are exceptionally high, suggesting he's from the surface, not a vault. Upon her discovery, Monty slashes Lucy's face, stabs her, and begins to asphyxiate her, before being smashed over the head with a glass pitcher and heavily cut. Lucy, armed with a tranquilizer gun, escapes her suite to discover the entirety of Vault 33 is under attack. Stephanie Harper's (Annabel O'Hagan) husband, Bert (Diego Borborema) is killed during the raid while she is stabbed in the eye with a fork, causing permanent vision loss. During the chaos, Lucy is able to assist her brother in hiding from the raiders, but while helping her brother get into a storage unit she is grabbed by a heavily wounded Monty who attempts to strangle Lucy yet again, before being beaten with a shovel by Hank and drowned in a barrel of vinegar. The Vault-door alarm begins sounding, causing Lucy and her father to run towards the door to Vault 32 where Moldaver and multiple hostages are waiting. Moldaver forces Hank to choose between the hostages or Lucy, however, Hank responds by locking Lucy in a nearby janitorial closet before being tranquilized and abducted by Moldaver's goons. Moldaver tells Lucy she resembles her mother before detonating a bomb rigged to the vault door, starting a countdown. The hostages are able to escape before the bomb detonates while Moldaver and her men escape with Hank. The show then cuts to the vault dwellers conducting necessary tasks around their vault: nursing survivors, composting their dead and repairing destroyed tech. Lucy pleads to the council to send a team of four dwellers to the surface to find her father, however, the idea is instantly rejected, with the idea of opening the door being deemed "too dangerous," however, Norm argues it's because they know they'll lose their power if the overseer returns. With the assistance of Norm and Chet, Lucy is able to escape via the main vault door, tranquilizing Chet to prevent him from following her. Council member Reg McPhee (Rodrigo Luzzi) and resident Davey (Leer Leary) arrive at the door as Lucy is leaving in an unsuccessful bid to get her to stay. As she steps into the desertified ruins of Los Angeles, Lucy is greeted by the countless skeletons of those who attempted to enter the vault the day the bombs fell. As Lucy steps out she gazes upon the Pacific Ocean and the destroyed remnants of the Santa Monica pier.

Shifting narratives once again, the show introduces Maximus (Aaron Moten), a Brotherhood of Steel aspirant. In one of his classes, Cleric Felix (Jacinto Riddick) reveals the Brotherhood's mission to gain a strategic monopoly on all pre-war technology. Maximus, after watching the arrival of a massive Brotherhood airship and seeing dozens of sets of T-60 power armor is overcome with memories of being saved by a Brotherhood night as a child after his hometown was destroyed. Max's friend, Dane (Xelia Mendes-Jones) is promoted to serve as Knight Titus' squire, however, the following morning Dane suffers a gruesome foot injury after someone places razor blades in his boots. Max is accused of being the perpetrator of this incident, with Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer) assigning him to replace Dane as Titus' squire. Maximus and Taitus are sent to capture Doctor Siggi Wilzig (Michael Emerson), a former Enclave scientist in possession of an artifact valuable to the Brotherhood.

The show changes to follow three bounty hunters tasked with sneaking into a fortress owned by Dom Pedro. The group's leader, Honcho (Mykelti Williamson) reveals the men are attempting to rescue a bounty hunter being held captive by Pedro. The hunters find the buried coffin of the prisoner and begin to unearth it, placing a caged chicken nearby in case the captured hunter has turned feral, as ferals will attack the chicken before attacking them. Once the hunters finish digging, they unseal the coffin, revealing a glorified Cooper Howard. Honcho proposes Cooper work with him and his two men in order to secure Moldaver's bounty, the same artifact the Brotherhood is in search of, with Honcho mentioning the ghoul has ties to Los Angeles. Enraged by the mention of California, Howard kills Honcho's two men before pushing Honcho into his coffin, leaving him to die. Howard then embarks towards California on his own, set on securing Moldaver's bounty.