Episode two of Fallout’s second season sees more stage-setting for our main characters. We finally catch up with Maximus and The Brotherhood of Steal. Lucy and The Ghoul have an interesting run-in, which leads to some New Vegas-y geeking out for fans. Hank continues to absolutely suck, and Son of Hank finally climbs the corporate ladder.
Mad Maximus
The episode begins with a flashback to Shady Sands. The townspeople are kind, caring, and full of hope. In Fallout, you know that means they’re doomed. As Season One showed us, they’re about to get blown up by Hank.
A travelling vendor is repeating the phrase, “Patrolling the Mojave makes you wish for a nuclear winter,”. His double-headed Brahmin walks a caravan full of goods into town. Maximus’ father and mother are shown to be loving, capable parents. The vendor collapses and starts bleeding from his eyes. Max’s dad looks at the cargo he brought in, finding Hank’s Nuke, ready to blow.
One unsuccessful disarming attempt later, and we see Max getting put in the family’s lead-lined refrigerator. The tears flow between Max, his Ma, and his Pa. It’s a beautifully acted opening, providing a real gut punch before we finally see adult Max. He is now known as “Mad Maximus” for the first time this season.
The Brotherhood storyline sees our intrepid California division finding the key to Area 51. Maximus looks numb as he blasts ghouls before finding the data key. Dane notices Maximus’ morals be slippin, and tries talking him into his old wide-eyed ideals. No dice, though, as Cleric Quintus has called in the brotherhood factions in the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Coronado to discuss a civil war against The Commonwealth.
Max brought them Cold Fusion, and Quintus doesn’t want to hand it over. Max gets challenged to a fight by a gigantic man, eventually having to kill him when a cock punch pisses off the giant, who produces a knife from his boot. The episode ends with Kumail Nanjiani showing up as a rep. Harkness from the Commonwealth, looking as ruggedly handsome as ever.
Lucy, The Ghoul, and The Legion
Lucy and the Ghoul dominated the first episode; they barely show up here. We get a short scene of them together, talking about morals and how The Ghoul needs to behave better, in case he ever finds his family.
A woman’s screams from a hospital lead Lucy to follow her good heart and head in. A pair of ‘tunics,’ as the Ghoul calls them, is injured. As Lucy attempts to help a lady, the Ghoul slits Markiplier’s throat and eats a bit of his neck meat (if it’s not Markiplier, it REALLY looks like him). Turns out they were attacked by RadScorpions, and the neck meat tastes like ass. A fight ensues with both The Ghoul and the woman being stung. As they kill the final big boy Radscorpion, Lucy decides to give her last Stimpak to the woman, telling the Ghoul she’ll come back for him.
Lucy gets the woman back home to Caeaser’s Legion from Fallout New Vegas, time to geek out! Well, maybe not for Lucy, as the woman warned her to stay away from Vegas, as she didn’t want to see her ‘get raped’. Lucy’s part of the show ends with her surrounded by some creepy, kinda horny-looking Legion members giving her a not-so-warm greeting. It’s OK, though, she makes sure to let them know that she is a good person!
Vault 31 and Son of Hank
Son of Hank, a.k.a. Norm, Lucy’s brother, has awoken all of Hank’s co-workers in Vault 31 and disposed of the Bud-bot. He lies, telling the newly awoken corporate stooges that it is reclamation day and that Bud is dead. They all panic, and after a while, Norm concocts more lies, like how he is a genetically perfect middle manager, set to lead them to the surface in Bud’s last test.
The corporate worker bees immediately start doing their best to find a way out, eventually succeeding by creating a literal corporate ladder of people who climb up to an air vent on the roof. As they emerge onto a California beach, Norm is overwhelmed by how beautiful the surface is, while one guy laments that the mall is gone.
Hank Sucks
Finally, throughout the episode, we follow Hank and his experiments in the Vault-Tec New Vegas facility. He’s doing experiments, and he’s not very good at them. It’s not a great thing to watch if you like mice. They’ve asked us not to fully spoil exactly what is going on; suffice it to say, he’s carrying on Robert House’s work that we saw in episode one.
That about wraps it up
There you have it, a solid, if unspectacular, episode of Fallout. An emotional gut-punch early on is met with a lot more setup. It makes sense, being only episode two, and I’m excited to see where the Commonwealth Brotherhood storyline ends up going. Max is down in the dumps after Lucy left with The Ghoul, and he’ll need some cheering up from his buddy Dane if he’s going to get that ‘be a good person’ mantra back.
