Transcription
I don't think it's a prerequisite to have ever played the games the new Prime video series Fallout is based on to get sucked into its strange world. And if the online discussion is any indication, being too attached may work against you.
Luckily, I seem to be in a pretty perfect position as someone who has enjoyed countless hours of fun playing around in these games without having too much of a stake in the different developments that have occurred in the series's long and complicated 26-year history. When I heard the creator of Westworld were involved in producing a Fallout TV show, my hopes were simple: I wanted to see them shape some of those strange elements that got me hooked when I first played Fallout 3 into a story that would make for great television. I think they pulled that off, especially on the first point. There's an attention to detail present that can only come from people who have a loving relationship with the source material. To the second point, I'll just add the caveat: I think that the first season was a solid introduction.
There is a ton of world-building required when trying to appeal to a wide audience, especially people who have never played a Fallout game. The endless references to those were enough to keep me engaged, as was the new information they introduced, which we'll be talking about in this video. But on some level, because of that, the story is just getting started. At the end of episode 8, where things go from here will decide if this is just a well-crafted, quirky alternate timeline post-apocalyptic story based on a really popular bit of IP where Walton Goggins steals every scene he's in, or a great TV show in its own right. Time will tell. And if Bud Askins is to be believed, time is the ultimate weapon, although the Ghoul has some pretty good ones in his arsenal as well.
To explain what happens in the first season of Fallout, I'm going to take a page out of its book and flush out some details I think might help set the mood, or maybe resolve the mood, since you presumably just watched the whole season. If this is your first introduction to the Fallout universe, there are a couple of key distinctions to keep in mind. The show and the games it's based on take place in an alternate timeline that diverged from ours sometime after World War II. There isn't a single incident that you can look at as the point of divergence; it just shares our history until it goes in a slightly different direction. Even though it looks like the birthday party in the opening scene takes place in the 1950s, the floating home assistant robot is a sign it's actually in the future, which, as you can see, is not exactly our future.
I won't go too far into the differences, but we'll say they're not limited to tech or the retrofuturistic look of things. Before this version of humanity arrived at the point of nuclear conflict, it evolved in its own direction. The changes affected all aspects of life, but a big part of the premise is also that regardless of those alterations, people are people, and human nature persists. The intro for each game in the series opens with the statement "War, war never changes" as a way to set the stage to maximize the dramatic effect. The show saved this until its final episode, but to a certain extent, if there was only one thing you needed to know about the games, this would be it. But I'll give you a couple of other things that might be useful to know.
The first game came out on October 10th, 1997, which the code Moldaver is trying to get from Hank, 10197, is a reference to. There have been five additional main games released since, which were titled Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76. They all function as standalone stories in the connected universe, which is the wasteland of what used to be the United States. The event we see depicted in the opening sequence of the TV show is known as the Great War. The nuclear apocalypse lasted 2 hours from start to finish and came on the heels of a decade-long traditional war between the Fallout timeline's two superpowers: the United States and China. This was a clash that started in 2066 over control of Earth's dwindling resources. The bombs dropped on Saturday, October 23rd, 2077, and as we see when the show's present-day storyline picks up 219 years later in 2296, the world never really recovered.
The games jump around on the timeline in the years that follow the Great War, but nearly all of them start in a similar way, or more specifically, in a similar place. As the show lays out, in the years leading up to the war, Vault-Tec Corporation won contracts from the federal government to create a network of underground shelters known as Vaults. The stated purpose was to protect the population of the United States if a nuclear war were to break out. But then they only commissioned 122 of them, which would only provide room for a fraction of a percent of all Americans. On top of that, as we see in the finale, the purpose of the Vaults was subverted to become a preservation/reorganization project to recreate society. The pitch, as it comes down from Barb Howard, is that it's a chance to make war obsolete. The current societal configuration has inherent friction that will always lead to war. The heads of industry and the tentacles of the military-industrial complex who have a seat at the table in the meeting in the final episode believe this is a result of things taking shape without intentional guidance, so they want to use the Vaults for experiments to figure out how to create the perfect conditions for humanity. The obvious flaw in this logic is that these are the people who are currently running things in a way that got us into this mess in the first place. But that's getting a little ahead of ourselves.
As mentioned, each installment is a standalone adventure, and the show starts its story with the event that set things in motion for a cast of brand-new characters. Famous Hollywood actor Cooper Howard connects things together because he never made it to the safety of the Vaults and experienced the process that exists in the games called ghoulification. I won't delve into everything that's known about that from the games because I tend to think the show provided us the details it wants us to know about it for where we're at in the story. We didn't witness his transformation but get the idea that it's related to exposure to radiation. This has extended his lifespan significantly; he's still going strong 200-plus years after the war and comes with some other perks, like a resistance to radiation, which we see when he's able to drink the irradiated water in episode 4.
And I promise I won't nerd out about the games too much. I'm sure there'll be no shortage of videos out there like that if you want to go looking, and my channel is focused on TV shows. But one of the things that hooked me on the games was the sound design, so the Geiger counter sound effect as they approached the water brought back some memories. Another fun one is when the Ghoul first approaches Wilzig in Filly in episode 2. There's a sound effect that sounds like the spurs you hear on gunslingers and westerns, but if you listen closely, it sounds more like bottle caps, which is the in-game currency. We see Maximus use to get his power armor fixed in episode 3. Back to ghoulification, there's also a downside, which is evident in his withered skin and missing nose, but also the constant fear that you could turn feral.
We get a look into that in episode 4 when they have to go on the show's version of a side quest to replace his chems in the Super Duper Mart where they're harvesting organs. Before she leaves, Lucy wants to free the prisoners, and the two guys running things try to warn her that they can't release all of them. When she insists, we get a look at some feral ghouls that immediately attack and kill her captors, and another ghoul named Martha, who is in the middle of transforming, that she has to put down herself. So ghouls exist on a scale from nearly human like Cooper to the feral variety that is essentially murdering zombies. Cooper is not just any ghoul; he's known as "The Ghoul," and he's not just a great character because of Walton Goggins' stellar performance. He's also a baseline since we know that he was generally a good guy before the war. When Lucy meets him, he's definitely not that anymore, so his transformation serves to show what 200 years of trying to survive in the wasteland can do to someone.
I'm not 100% clear if taking massive amounts of drugs, which as I mentioned are referred to as chems in the games, really prevents him from going feral, or if he just believes that and has become a massive addict as a result. I guess what's important is that he believes that and needs to keep doing them to function. It should be noted that wastelanders aren't very accepting of ghouls for this reason. We hear the shop owner tell the Ghoul that his kind isn't welcome in Filly, which would be a pretty normal reaction. In the flashbacks from before the war, we not only learn who Cooper Howard was but also get insights into the politics of his time. Beyond the fact that he's doing a gig at a kid's birthday party, most of what we see related to his movie star lifestyle looks pretty normal. I guess it probably wouldn't hurt that his wife is a high-ranking executive at one of the biggest corporations in the world, either.
As the season goes on, you start to see a thread of hyper-nationalism or intense patriotism with an equivalent to our timeline's Red Scare taking place in Hollywood. In Fallout 3, you can learn about a government project called Project Brainstorm, which was a plan to include covert and overt messages of extreme patriotism and loyalty into popular media. The retrofuturistic look can be deceiving because it can invoke the idea of "quote unquote" better times. There is a tech explanation: transistors were never widely adopted in the Fallout timeline, where there was more of a focus on nuclear energy and technology. That explains why the gadgets and appliances look different and why even years in the future, they haven't gone completely digital. But the aesthetic is something different. In an interview before the show was released, Jonathan Nolan and Walton Goggins said the series takes place in a world where America did not experience the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, or the Woodstock-type counterculture of the 1960s, and never had a conversation with itself about its own sins and transgressions. They say America stayed in its Eisenhower era of swagger until coming to an end with the Great War.
If the Ghoul is the character that connects the timelines, then Wilzig is the person who connects the characters in the present-day timeline. He's a bit of a mystery, as is The Enclave, which is the organization he's working for in the beginning. In the games, there's a lot that's known about them, as they're basically the bad guys in Fallout 2 and 3, but then they don't have much of a presence in the West during Fallout: New Vegas, which makes it hard to say what they're doing. In the labs he was working at, the show presents them as a mystery, and I think that's probably fine for now. I think we'll learn more about them in the following seasons. In Fallout 76, which is the latest Fallout game that was released, there is some indication of a relationship with Vault-Tec or at least Vault Dwellers in The Enclave, but I won't spoil that here since this may be part of the larger story the show is trying to tell.
I guess what matters if you haven't played the game is that in the post-war wasteland, different factions are vying for control. Wilzig has access to what we'll find out later is a cold fusion reactor that's capable of generating unlimited energy. He takes that and escapes from his research position with his dog CX-404, who we see him save from incineration after noticing that he was slightly underweight as a puppy. That's a small detail, but something you might want to file away about how The Enclave operates. Wilzig is trying to get the reactor to one faction, but quickly comes under the attention of a different one called the Brotherhood of Steel, and also the Ghoul, who makes his way in the world as a bounty hunter.
Maximus is the character who provides us with a look into the Brotherhood of Steel, which is a faction that plays various roles throughout the Fallout games. The Brotherhood is similar to The Enclave in that there's a lot known about them from the games, most of which the show didn't introduce. Generally speaking, they are a post-war technology-focused paramilitary order with chapters operating across what used to be the United States. In the classroom scene in episode one, the instructor says their duty is to secure the wasteland. When the initiates become squires, they'll help knights find and identify pre-war tech. He adds that they're the finders and preservers. There's more to why they do that, which I'm guessing the show will make clear now that Maximus will be a knight in the second season.
The most recognizable thing about the Brotherhood is their power armor. If you played the games, you know how Maximus must have felt when he got his hands on Knight Titus' suit for the first time. In one of the flashbacks in episode 6, we get a brief history of the introduction of power armor during the Sino-American War when Cooper meets Bud Askins, who was working for West-Tek while they were developing the first set, that was the T-45. And what the Brotherhood uses on the show is the evolution of that called the T-60, which was released right before the nuclear apocalypse. We don't get a tremendous amount of information about Maximus' chapter of the Brotherhood. They have access to a cool-looking airship and take orders from the Commonwealth chapter, whose name refers to the area that used to be Boston.
Maximus is interrogated by Elder Cleric Quintis after his friend Aspirant Dane is injured. He promotes him to the rank of Squire, which pairs him up with Knight Titus and sends him out into the wasteland. Maximus is a main character who was born on the surface but was taken in by the Brotherhood after losing his family. This led to him living a sheltered life, one that, based on what we see, was somewhat cult-like and a quite different one than our final main character, Lucy.
From Vault 33, since most of the games start out in a Vault, Lucy is the show's most recognizable character as a Vault Dweller. She spent her entire life underground where everything's been provided for her. It's a little bit weird, and they never go outside, but they are safe, and considering the alternative, it's a pretty good setup. Her sheltered life means she has no idea about the world outside beyond what she's been taught. Her father is the Overseer in charge of their Vault, and she has a younger brother named Norm. The only thing her life is missing is a potential partner and mate she's not related to. So at the beginning of the series, she applies to participate in a trade with Vault 32. In the interview, she gives us a rundown of her skills and activities, which include the Young Pipe Fitters Association, Gymnastics Club, Fencing Team, Intermediate Fizzed, and Riflery. She has a passion for teaching American history with a focus on ethics, and as we see her doing some of her activities, she looks like she can handle herself. All of these details are a nod to the game's primary statistics system, which is called S.P.E.C.I.A.L., because you can distribute points across your character for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck.
When she's approved for the program, her life gets turned upside down. While she grew up thinking her Vault was fostering a community that was preparing for Reclamation Day when they would reemerge from the Vault and rebuild society, Vault 33 is really part of the three-Vault plan that Bud Askins devised. It's connected to Vaults 31 and 32, with 31 housing Bud's buds, which are Vault-Tec employees who were cryogenically frozen in 2077. The plan was to have their most loyal employees survive to reshape things after the radiation on the surface gets to a level where they can repopulate the wasteland. Lucy's Vault and Vault 32 were for breeding so that the Vault-Tec executives would be able to produce viable offspring that would be aligned with their vision. In flashbacks, we see that her father, Hank, was an assistant to the Ghoul's wife, Barb, and Lucy's brother, Norm, will go on his own side quest later to discover the truth of their situation, only to be trapped in Vault 31 with Bud's buds and be forced to enter his father's vacant cryopod, at least until next season.
Lucy's arranged marriage ends up getting hijacked by a character named Moldaver and what I presume is a group of raiders she hired for the job. We'll learn later that she's connected to the New California Republic, which has a history that stretches back to the first game. At one point, they were the model example of post-apocalyptic success and the largest economic and political power in California. One of the things the show does well is play with the expectations of people who played the games. For example, when Lucy's Vault was connected to 32 by a tunnel underground, it immediately felt wrong, since that's not something that was familiar among all the Vaults you visit while you play. This was a clue as to the experiment, which turned out to be something you could never expect. After Moldaver kidnapped her father and Lucy started her journey, that matched what the protagonist in the games experienced. This is a good way to introduce the world; it's a key component to how you experience that in the games, and this could have been a stale rehash of what players already know or an exercise in pointless fan service. Somehow, they managed to avoid both.
The other hurdle the TV show has to clear is that players are no longer in control of the characters and have become passive observers. While stories are what drive video games, being the one to make the decisions that affect those is where the magic happens. So the show has to find a way to make watching equally engaging. And while I love that they nailed the tone, both visually and in the dialogue, and there's so much attention to detail in the set dressing with so many familiar in-game objects, where I was most impressed is how they played with the parallels between all these very different characters. Because you do have to bring them all together, and Wilzig's head is a fine enough way to do that, but if we're going to get invested, the thing that TV can really do when it's working well, you're going to need more.
Maximus grew up in the wasteland with nothing, but that led him to a life with the Brotherhood that's almost as sheltered as Lucy's. As a Vault Dweller who had everything, these are things that can connect them, and they're radically different backgrounds. And sure, there's a lot they can learn from each other. Important thing, since the wasteland is all about survival, Lucy and the Ghoul's philosophies couldn't be more at odds when they first meet, but we see them have nearly identical discoveries that lead to disillusionment.
As we jump back and forth between the timelines, as Lucy gets a taste of the world outside, she learns that things were never what they seemed in the Vault, and that the worldview passed down from her father and, by extension, Vault-Tec, was a lie. Cooper Howard fought for freedom as a soldier and believed he was living the American Dream. It's a small thing that starts his unraveling: that no dogs are allowed in the Vaults. And while he dismisses most criticisms of the status quo out of hand, up until the point when he meets with his friend Charlie Whiteknife, at that point, something starts to click. The United States government has put the responsibility of preserving humanity in the hands of Vault-Tec. They are a corporation, and that means their primary purpose is to make money for their shareholders. He uses the term "fiduciary responsibility," which means they're obligated to make those shareholders as much money as possible. Regardless of where you fall on the scale of capitalist to socialist, this is an obvious problem. With the former, when we're talking about the end of the world, it becomes a problem to ease those tensions and the fear they generate because it produces income. It isn't hard to put it together, then, that continuing the conflict serves their interests.
For Lucy, it's just a matter of being deceived and not having a choice to make her own decisions. She was the Vault Dweller ideal, practically an ambassador for their way of life, all backed up with that all-American "can-do" spirit. Okey-dokey, she even grew up watching Cooper Howard movies with her dad. And if we're talking about ways the show added to the lore, I'm totally behind using him for the origin story for Vault Boy and his famous thumbs-up. That's something that pretty much everyone knows, even if you've never played the games, you've probably seen that. I also enjoyed the two-part reveal of showing where the thumbs-up came from: in episode one, something they taught him to do in the Marines in case of a nuclear attack, and then later seeing him suggesting he do it in the blue Vault suit in the photo shoot in episode three. The original Vault Boy becoming a ghoul was not something I saw coming.
The other area where I thought the show excelled while it was introducing us to the characters and the world was the way it balanced the brutality of the wasteland with a bit of absurdity. This also feels true to the games. The way they depicted the violence certainly looks familiar, and I give them credit for pulling that off in a way that adds to what's happening rather than taking away from it. Lucy using a stimpack after she got that stab wound, which is the in-game way to heal your character, was a treat, and it worked to poke fun at some of the things we have to suspend disbelief around in games. More broadly, I do hope that's not something that they'll return to over and over, though, because that might diminish the stakes in tense situations.
As the story continues, for example, we see Moldaver expire in the final scene after accomplishing her goal of activating the cold fusion device. Could she have been saved by a stimpack? It didn't take away from the scene because it was just something they touched on in the early episodes, but if they go there too often, it seems like it could. And that goes for a lot of things. There's a point when the Ghoul says, "The wasteland has its own golden rule: Thou shalt get sidetracked by [ __ ] every goddamn time." This is a hilarious reference and reminds me of every time I logged into Fallout 76 to do one thing real quick and then spend an hour doing 10 unrelated things before I realized what happened. It was good for a laugh and self-referential in the right way, but hopefully that doesn't become a regular fixture of the show because, well, there's already enough of that in the games. The show works best when it sticks to the characters' main quest and when putting them together brings the world into focus.
This happens for Lucy and Maximus on their way to Vault 4 and during the time they spend there. This is when Lucy's unraveling truly begins. Throughout the early episodes, it started to feel like there weren't that many people in the wasteland, not as many as I was expecting, because they had these hints from the trailers that Shady Sands, the original capital of the NCR, was nearby. As they approach a sign that melts Lucy's perception of reality when she sees that 34,848 people once lived there, it starts to become clear that something happened on the West Coast since the last game visited there. Lucy can't believe that civilization started over without any input from the Vaults, who were all working towards Reclamation Day when they would be the ones that would do it. After Maximus tells her it didn't work anyway, she wonders what happened. He explains it's the same thing that always happens: everyone wants to save the world, they just disagree on how. This is sort of the spiritual successor of "War, war never changes," and it won't be the last time one of the main characters revisits this subject.
From there, they enter a Vault-Tec medical lab and wind up in Vault 4, which was the promotional Vault that was in Cooper's commercials in the before times. Even though there was a trap involved in their arrival, Lucy couldn't be happier to be back in a Vault to celebrate. She asks Maximus if he wants to have sex, and the awkwardness involved all around made me root for this romance for the first time. I'm not sure what the Brotherhood of Steel is doing on its compounds, but how do you get into what I'm guessing is your 20s surrounded by a bunch of young men and still think of ejaculation as something similar to a pimple popping? The Brotherhood has truly lost its way. For now, they don't take things to the next level, and over time, Lucy realizes that this Vault is very different than the one she grew up in. The mutations are only the tip of the iceberg, but it turns out not to be as horrific as she first thinks after she makes her way to level 12. And that's not even mentioning the surface dweller ceremony she wandered into. It turns out that all of these people are refugees from the NCR and the bombing of Shady Sands.
And in the overall scheme of things, none of what happens at Vault 4 is that important on its own. It all just serves to move Lucy in the right direction and give Maximus a taste of how good life in the Vault can be. And it fills in some of the blanks as to what happened to the NCR along the way. But that is the one place where the show kind of lost me. There is a scene when Lucy is in a classroom, and we get a timeline of events related to the New California Republic. If you've just discovered Fallout through the show, then I'll say none of this should cause you any alarm. What happened with me is that I was trying to put things together, and before Lucy saw the Shady Sands sign, I assumed the bombs that Maximus had referred to must have happened sometime after the ending of the last game that featured the NCR. So I looked that up to make sure, and it turns out that stuff all played out in 2281. With that information, I was waiting for the reveal, and then when she looked at this chalkboard, the date listed says 2277. I've been thinking about this for a few days and have no idea what that's supposed to mean. It could simply be a mistake; it could be hinting at something else that just isn't readily apparent, and until they explain further, that's where I'm going to leave it. I imagine this would be controversial, and was right about that, but I can't say I agree with the opinion that's coming from the people who seem to be the most upset about it. I will come back to this when we get to a different scene, though.
Since I've already touched on Cooper's unraveling, we're finally ready to talk about the ending, which comes in the strongest episode of the bunch, that's titled "The Beginning." Earlier, I mentioned that it felt like it was just getting started in episode 8 once it got the world-building out of the way, and here, here I'll add: if you're going to do it like that, you better make it count. And boy, did they. They couldn't have structured this episode any better for the story they were trying to tell. They set things up to unfold in a way that takes the tension all the way up and then drops one bomb after the other to answer some questions and has those answers land with maximum effect while leaving you wanting more.
If you strip away all the details, you have a character who for 200 years has been trying to make sense of something he learned about his wife. You have a crusader who first appeared as a villain who finally achieves her centuries-long goal after she exposes what we thought was a wholesome father who did some insanely ghoulish stuff for what he thought were the right reasons. And you have the obligatory Vault Dweller who started her journey as a dewy-eyed idealist learning everything she thought she knew no longer makes sense. The thing that carries this entire sequence is Walton Goggins' reacting to what he hears through his listening device as a who's who of some of the game's more notorious shadow companies meet. We got representatives from Vault-Tec, West-Tek, Repconn, Big MT, and while you could look those up if you want spoilers from the different games, the one that could be more important going forward is the RobCo rep, Mr. House.
Cooper is listening because when he met Moldaver, she encouraged him to and gave him the device, and you get the sense that he was hoping to prove her wrong. Instead, what he gets is a look behind the curtain. To his horror, he hears his wife offer Vaults to these corporate titans and defense industry insiders so they can form the ultimate monopoly. We hear about Bud's proposal for Vaults 31 through 33, and some of the other ideas that get thrown around describe Vaults you'll encounter when you play the game. It should be noted that Barb is the mouthpiece here. Just before she takes control of the meeting, she gets a message on her Pip-Boy, and we see her look up at a mysterious figure who's watching, watching from above.
While this is happening, Norm makes his way into Vault 31, where he discovers the Overseer is Bud's brain on the Fallout universe's version of ARPANET. As I mentioned, Norm gets an idea of the big picture for their Vault and sees Bud's picks in stasis for his plan. But I'd be surprised if this turns out to be the most interesting Vault that's run by Vault-Tec, because remember, Barb told Cooper that she worked so hard to get them a spot in a special Vault for management where they'll be overseeing the others. That's a little vague, but I don't think she's talking about Bud Askins' Vault. He wasn't even at Vault-Tec for very long. I'm guessing there's another one where the real VIPs would be. Hank was her assistant, and I wouldn't think someone like that would be in the same Vault as, say, the company CEO.
When Lucy finally confronts Moldaver at the Griffith Observatory, which is where she operates with what's left of her wing of the NCR, she learns some hard truths. Not only is her father a surface dweller from before the war, but he's the one responsible for nuking Shady Sands. Why? Because her mother figured out civilization was returning to the surface and tried to join them. Of course, this goes against the Vault-Tec grand plan, and as Moldaver points out, they still deal with their competition the same way they did 200 years ago. She also learns that her mother became a ghoul as a result, and she puts her out of her misery. Before all is said and done, Hank begs Lucy to let him out of the oversized bird cage that serves as his cell, but she can't be swayed.
When Maximus leads the Brotherhood of Steel to the observatory, and he breaks in in an attempt to save Lucy, Hank talks him into unlocking the cage. Before that, Lucy convinced her father to do what Moldaver couldn't: get him to give her the code to unlock the cold fusion reactor. She's able to activate it but gets distracted when the power armor-clad knights arrive on the scene. I joke that the Brotherhood had lost their way, but seriously, this faction that Maximus grew up with really did feel like a mess. They are able to wipe out this small faction of the NCR, but they have a technological advantage, and it seemed like most of the ones that had the T-60 armor had come in from somewhere else. None of what we see with the initiates or aspirants, as they refer to them in the show, is very honorable or what you'd expect to see in a group that considers itself the guardians of civilization. Before they launched their assault, Elder Quintis hinted that he felt the same way and throughout the idea of starting a new faction that he would be the head of with the likes of Maximus acting as his sword. Quintis tells him he's been looking for a home for his entire life and that he should build one with him. Before he met Lucy, this would have been exactly what Maximus wanted to hear.
When Hank gets a hold of one of those suits of power armor, he knocks him out, robbing him of the chance to run away. I imagine this will set him up to have a journey that will end in the same kind of disillusionment that the other main characters experience this season in the next one. It wouldn't be an ending without the Ghoul, who shows up after Hank has been freed. He shoots him in the face without killing him, which is a pretty badass thing to do on purpose. We had seen the culmination of the pre-war timeline, which ended with the revelation that broke the man he used to be. Not only was Vault-Tec doing all the shady things I've already mentioned, but when Mr. House asked Barb how they could guarantee results for their large investment, she answered by dropping the bombs themselves. Which, of course, is crazy, but as Barb lays it out, this would be a tragedy, killing all those people, but for the people in that room, it would also be an opportunity. She goes on to say how it's really about making war obsolete and all the nonsense, I guess you have to tell yourself if you're making decisions like this.
I thought this was a pretty great twist. It seemed pretty consistent with some of the other takeaways you'll get if you play these games long enough. I'm curious to see if the implication is that they actually dropped the first bomb because there never is a "who dropped the first bomb" moment. Who dropped the first bomb was always a mystery in Fallout lore. It was presented that way on purpose. Last year, one of the original creators said in an interview that it was China, and I sort of just took that as the truth. He hasn't been involved with the games for a long time, so at this point, that would just be his opinion. But in the spirit of that, I wonder if the show is saying that without a doubt, Vault-Tec dropped a bomb and got both sides to retaliate. I've seen quite a few takes that this was now canon as the way the war got started, but it's interesting that they still kind of left it open. I would be fine with that, but it also seemed a little strange that Cooper would have his daughter at a job with him right before it happened if Barb was in on the planning.
Either way, seeing this side of his wife was the beginning of the end for Cooper Howard, the idealist, which makes you wonder if seeing this side of her father will have the same effect on Lucy. It's a really nice touch that when the Ghoul hears Betty suggest dropping the bomb, that a young Hank is standing right in front of him. And when they're face to face at the observatory, he gets a dig in by saying that Hank used to pick up his wife's dry cleaning. And then he gets to the question he's waited 200 years to ask: where's his family? He'll have to wait a little longer because Hank makes a break for it, and he decides to let him leave. Then he adds his own spin on the series's tagline, saying, "War never changes. You look out at this wasteland, looks like chaos, but there's always somebody behind the wheel." And that's who I want to talk to.
When Lucy struggles to understand why he let Hank go, he explains that that's where he's headed, and it's easier to track a stuck pig than ask it where it's off to. He gives her the choice to stay with Maximus, but she'd probably be killed in that scenario when the Brotherhood take the observatory. So he gives her the option, saying she can "come meet her makers." She goes with that, and after she kisses Maximus goodbye, promising to find him, and kills her gold-digging mom, they hit the road.
Maximus eventually wakes up to find out she's gone. Moldaver has been seriously wounded in the battle, but she makes it back to activate the reactor. She lasts long enough to see the city start to light back up and poses the question of what he thinks the Brotherhood of Steel would do with infinite power to Maximus. She also suggests he might be able to stop them, and then she dies. Dane comes in and sees an opportunity, capitalizes on the situation to make it look like he killed Moldaver, and we cut away as the Brotherhood chant, "All hail Knight Maximus." We see the Ghoul and Lucy start on their journey, and then we see where Hank is heading. And I just want to say, putting K.M. McLoughlin in T-60 power armor is something I think you just have to do if you get the opportunity. What an amazing shot I had no idea I needed to see. And there's even a bonus Deathclaw skull on the ground for good measure.
In this closing scene, we see him under the glowing desert sky, the Mojave Desert sky to be exact, and we see him arrive at New Vegas, which makes for a fantastic season-ending stinger. This is part of the reason I was so surprised that people jumped to some of the conclusions based on the date I mentioned on the chalkboard. This tells me we're going to get some answers about New Vegas in the next season and possibly spend a considerable amount of time there.
This season ends here, and I've got a lot of questions, which means I'll follow this up with another video sometime this week. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It looked great. The cast was all pretty fantastic. So many fun references and Easter eggs and things like that that you just keep finding in every single frame. It can be a little on the nose, but Fallout was never very subtle, and I do like the direction it looks like they're heading in. I think this is a great setup. I think it's nearly guaranteed there will be more seasons to follow, and I'm looking forward to see where they go from here. And I think that is a great place to leave things. Please like this video if you enjoyed it. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already, and thanks for watching. I'll talk to you soon.