You are definitely in the right ballpark. It's a little more complicated than that, because it's not exactly humanity as a whole that refuses to learn (this whole thing is a take-down of modern capitalism and bribery in politics, after all), but you're definitely picking up what the show is putting down.
Lucy's true existential crisis moment?
I just started watching Fallout, but will finish soon so correct me if I'm wrong ...
Okay, so when Maximus tells Lucy that he was a kid when the bombs dropped ...
Her reaction was like, "Wow, you were so gullible" ... right?
Did I catch that right?
Because, I feel like Lucy's big existential crisis moment isn't actually when she finds out that humans already rebuilt after they dropped the bombs.
I feel like Lucy's big existential crisis moment comes later, when she realizes the true horror of the surface.
I mean ... she spent her whole life imagining the triumphant return of civilization - the proof that humanity could come back from when they dropped the bombs.
But I'm sure that in all those years, she never once imagined they would drop the bombs again.
When she realizes that horrible truth ... that humanity won't come back better. That it'll all be the same. That humanity is so incapable of learning any lesson, that they can't even learn the lesson to not do THAT again.
She has no words. She can't even say what she's thinking and feeling. All she can do is indirectly say it, by questioning how the surface people can even go on. What could possibly be the point, if there's no hope of ever getting better? If humanity can't even learn this one stupendously obvious no-brainer, what kind of future is there to struggle for?
Did I get that right? Or am I overthinking it? Or am I missing something? Am I way off base?
message to all leftists: understand that landlords are bad because they are extorting you in exchange for a basic necessity of survival, not because they are "lazy" or "don't have real jobs"