We begin Fallout Episode Two inside a womb, a dog’s womb! We’re in what I figured was The Enclave, as Michael Emerson’s scientist character is shown falling in love with Dogmeat. Not actual meat, but everyone’s favorite K9 companion from the games. In this lab, if a newborn doesn’t reach weight they get tossed in the incinerator and our boy isn’t having any of that. We get a delightful montage of him raising Dogmeat, injecting himself in the neck with the season’s Maguffin, and eventually getting found out before having to escape out into the Wasteland as our Fallout title card is filled full of lead.
Lucy, Max, and the Doc
I’m not sure what the title for episode two is called, nor any of the remaining ones for the season as they didn’t list them on our screener copies. We join back up with Lucy as she begins her trek through the wasteland. She’s happy, whole, and naïve as can be. The world around Vault 33 is dead, covered in sand dunes, and full of skeletons. In a house, she finds Vault Tec’s Plan D, cyanide for the whole family! It’s a grim reminder of the capitalism-run amok nature of the Fallout universe, where those without the financial means were left with few options in the post-apocalyptic world.
Lucy starts up a fire outside an abandoned building, because again she’s super naïve, and then she goes to sleep out in the open. Dogmeat awakens her as they start tearing through radroaches in the dark, and we see Michael Emerson’s character Dr. Siggi Wilzig sitting there. He dispenses some advice to Lucy, mainly “Go back to the Vault or you’re going to die out here, it’s terrible!” before departing with Dogmeat.
Cut to a Vertibird as Maximus tries to make friends with the Knight he is squire to, Titus. Turns out Titus is a giant prick, who has Max clean his crotch protector before setting the Vertbird down because he is bored and wants to go shoot something. Their main task is to find the good Dr. Wilzig but Titus just wants to kill something, anything. We then see the Dr. and Dogmeat outside a cave, and after Dogmeat returns with a human hand the Dr. looks scared shitless and they take off. Later on that day Titus and Max come across the same cave and see the food the Dr. and Dogmeat were going to eat.
Despite being the one wearing power armor Knight Titus tells Maximus to go look in the cave and see what’s going on, showing little regard for Max’s life. After exploring the cave for a bit a giant irradiated monstrosity beats the ever-loving shit out of Titus, who tried to run away like a scared child despite his power armor. “F*ck, F*ck, F*ck, F*ck, F*ck, F*ck, F*ck” is Titus war cry as he runs away terrified. After tripping and hitting his head on a rock Knight Titus has his chest ripped open by the horrific bear-creature, begging Max to help. He shoots the creature straight into the dome, one-tapping him and saving Titus.
Titus though, being the awful moron he is (played by awful moron Michael Rappaport), starts telling Max how the Brotherhood is going to kill him for letting Titus get injured, and not helping him immediately. So Maximus does the only sane thing and refuses to give Titus a Stimpak, instead letting him die and stealing his power armor. Hell yes, Max.
Wasteland Thongs
We’re back with Lucy as she continues aimlessly searching the wasteland in search of her father. She comes across a lonely, thong-wearing individual with bad posture who can’t get his water filter to turn sand into H2O. He’s dumb as a stump but seemingly a decent person. He gives Lucy some directions and then thanks her for not shooting him, it’s one of the few pleasant interactions she’ll have outside of the Vault.
Cutting back to Max he’s in Titus’ power armor and having too much fun. He’s running, jumping, kicking, and throwing to his heart’s content before he hears a struggle and goes into cop mode. He stops a man who was throttling a disgusting-looking tramp with a briefcase, though he later regrets this after finding out that the tramp was “f*cking my chickens”. Lots of effin and jeffin in this series, it’s a hard R rating and it does not play things safe.
Lucy then makes it to the city of Filly, made up of mostly airplane parts. It’s a huge set that I immediately figured we’d see a lot of this season, and I was right. She visits the saucy old lady who called vault dwellers dipshits in the trailer and fails at getting her to help once the name Moldaver is thrown about. Dr. Wilzig arrives and that saucy old lady is his contact to get safe passage through the wasteland to a particular destination. Which one? We don’t know yet!
Shit pops off as Ghoulgins was there waiting for the Doc. After a very short “negotiation” Ghoulgins blows off Doc Wilzig’s left foot and the fight is on. Dogmeat tries to protect her Dad but gets stabbed in the side. The saucy old lady puts a bounty on Ghoulgins head so the whole town tries to take him out. Being a ghoul getting shot in the body doesn’t do much and he uses his mini-nuke bullets to quickly dispatch a variety of wastelands in a hilariously over-the-top and gory fashion. Max shows up to save the day in his power armor and starts beating the snot out of Ghoulgins
In the ensuing chaos, Lucy is persuaded by the Doc and the old lady to help him as the person he’s going to is none other than Muldaver. They screw a metal boot into the disgusting stump of the Doc’s left leg and sneak out the back. Ghoulgins gets the best of Max after the latter finds his foot stuck. He’s able to cut one of the cables that controls the power armor and Max ends up losing control and flying off. Ghoulgins seemingly takes pity on Dogmeat and heals her with a Stimpak, though his actual motive is in using the pooch to track her back to the Doc.
Our final scene is with Lucy and Dr. Wilzig. They’ve made it a fair distance but he knows he can’t make it. He’s lost too much blood and secretly takes a Cyanide pill before telling Lucy she only needs his head. After a back-and-forth discussion, he dies, and she reluctantly takes up the chain-saw he had given her. Oh boy! That’s the end of episode two, and it was a mostly solid though occasionally clunky one. I greatly enjoyed the dialogue and where the story went but found the fight between Ghoulgins and Max a bit clunky. It makes sense as Max is a fraud with no experience in Power Armor but it was too predictable on how things would play out.
Wrapping Things Up
Fallout Episode Two sees all of our main players meeting up in a huge fight, with the plot swiftly moving forward. The episode is beautifully shot, with solid pacing and a ton of gore. With only eight episodes in the season, it’ll be interesting to see how things get spread out as we’ve already jumped so far into the deep end.
Fallout Season One Reviews
- Full Season
- Episode One
- Episode Two
- Episode Three
- Episode Four
- Episode Five
- Episode Six
- Episode Seven
- Episode Eight
Fallout Episode Two Review
PROS
- Chicken F*cker
- Bloody Fun Gore
- Snappy Writing
CONS
- Ghoulgins vs. Max was predictable
- Maybe too quickly paced?
