In the first episode of Fallout Season 2, we learned that Cooper wanted to run away with his daughter, Janey, after hearing his wife, Barb, talking about dropping nuclear bombs and starting civilization over from scratch just so that corporations could call the shots instead of the people or the government. But a meeting with Moldaver changed his mind. She convinced him that there was a way to stop the world from going up in flames. To do that, he would have to go to Las Vegas with his wife, where she’d be meeting RobCo CEO, House, and kill House. Since the bombs dropped, we know that Cooper didn’t execute the plan, but the reason behind why he chose to let House live remains a mystery. In the present day, we saw Cooper and Lucy still searching for Hank. Hank’s trail of destruction led them to Vault 24, where Cooper, Lucy, and Dogmeat found out that Vault-Tec had developed some kind of a device that, once planted on the back of a person’s neck, would allow someone to remotely mind-control that individual. Elsewhere in Las Vegas, Hank reached a massive facility of Vault-Tec and began working on a version of that aforementioned device that’d be undetectable with the naked eye and much more stable than it was in its current form. In addition to all that, we saw Bud ordering Norm to either climb into one of the cryo pods or die of starvation and dehydration, and Norm discovering a third option to ensure his survival in that hellscape. He unlocked some of the cryo pods way before Reclamation Day in the hopes that they could help him get out of Vault 31, which was something that Bud wasn’t allowing him to do. How were these plot threads furthered? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Norm Exits Vault 31
As mentioned earlier, Norm thaws some, not all, of the people in Vault 31. They assume that it’s Reclamation Day, since so many of them have been brought out of their cryo pods, and, surprisingly enough, Norm doesn’t deny it. That said, they do want to know about Bud, because he was supposed to usher them into the next chapter of their lives. Norm claims that Bud is dead, and a shot of the Brain-on-a-Roomba in a bucket confirms that Norm isn’t lying. But is Bud actually dead? Isn’t it possible for him to upload his consciousness into the vault’s mainframe or something? We don’t see Bud’s brain, which is the most important part of the character, attached to that Roomba that’s in the bucket. So, there’s a possibility that Norm has kept Bud’s brain somewhere so that he can use his expertise when he’s more amenable, right? I guess we’ll find out later. Currently, the focus remains on Norm handling the people of Vault 31, as they have entered a state of frenzy after learning that Bud is dead and that they have to figure out a way to get out of the death trap without Bud’s help. Norm understands that it’s impossible to use the truth to calm all of them down. So, he unleashes a barrage of lies and claims that he’s a genetically engineered super manager, and the Vault 31ers have been selected to serve him. He says that escaping Vault 31 is Bud’s final test. And he promises to give “merit dots,” which are actually just these round-shaped bandaids, to all those people who manage to get them out of the pickle they are currently in. This somehow motivates all the recently thawed denizens of Vault 31 to use their intellect and skills to find a way to escape from the place.
The commentary on “office culture” isn’t all that subtle here, but I have to underscore it, because unless these things are pointed out, people will continue to consume shows like these and probably forget what they’re actually about. The need for incentives, regardless of how arbitrary they are, and a strong leader, no matter how uneducated they are, has been ingrained into our heads in such a way that we have forgotten how to function on our own or work together as a unit for the sake of self-preservation. In Norm’s case, we are rooting for him as he is one of the good guys, which is why his exploitation of this flaw in the human brain doesn’t seem malevolent. Maybe if this was somebody else, the sinister undertone of this shift in Norm’s character would have been a bit more apparent, which is to say that, yes, it’s possible that Norm is becoming more like his father and less like his sister. Coming back to the plot, the people of Vault 31 manage to find a hatch with a ladder that leads them out of the place. While some of the Vault 31ers complain about how awful everything looks, Norm is really enamored by the beauty of the outside world. Well, that’s because he hasn’t seen the horrors that exist out there. Once he comes across some ghouls or radiated monsters, he’ll probably regret not heeding Bud’s advice and exiting Vault 31.
Hank Is Busy With His Experiments
At the Vault-Tec facility in Las Vegas, Hank is conducting tests on mice to see if the brain-computer interface is functional. He fails multiple times, as the device keeps exploding the mice, and then finally decides to bring out a human specimen from the Premium Elite Plus section of the facility. No, the guy doesn’t survive, and his head explodes, thereby prompting Hank to go back to the drawing board and figure out why the brain-computer interface is causing this problem regardless of the size of the “lab rat.” Now, Hank makes it seem like he selected this guy—whilst lying about Reclamation Day, just like his son did—because he didn’t care about his family and let his “loved ones” die in the nuclear holocaust. It feels believable, because Hank has gone above and beyond to shield his family from any and every kind of atrocity, and he just couldn’t tolerate the sight of a man who hasn’t done the same. Even if that’s true, Hank’s stance is really hypocritical, because he is judging a person based on how he reacted to a nuclear holocaust caused by him and the company that he works for. Sure, that “Premium Elite Plus” guy could be the worst person in that facility, or in the world, but Hank has no right to take some kind of moral high ground and sermonize from there.
Also, I think this scene is a commentary on the invincibility that the “Premium Elite Plus” class exhibits in real life. They think that they can buy their way out of any situation, but they forget that the people who are selling them something exclusive are way more powerful than them. Those sellers, which in this case are Vault-Tec and RobCo, might have attained that stature by exploiting the poor, which might have been fun to witness for the “Premium Elite Plus” group, because the fire that was burning the lower classes hadn’t yet reached their doorstep. However, the thing about fire and the greed of private corporations like Vault-Tec and RobCo is that once they are done burning through the commoners, they will come for the hand that’s been feeding them all this while. There’s nothing sacred to the Hanks of the world, and they’ll go to any length to impress their boss. And if they don’t have a boss, they’ll cross every line in existence just to see if they can get away with it. So, yeah, whatever you do, don’t put your trust in corporations like Vault-Tec or individuals like Hank because they’ll bring about the end of the world to find a solution to a problem that was caused by them in the first place.
Lucy Is Captured By The Legion
I assumed that Lucy and Cooper, along with Dogmeat of course, would spend some more time in Vault 24 investigating the mysteries trapped in there from every perceivable angle. But apparently they have hit the road again, searching for Hank, and Lucy is teaching Cooper how to improve his attitude so that when he reunites with his family, they won’t be put off by his rude attitude. During this road trip, which is essentially a very long walk, they come across a hospital, and Lucy hears someone—a woman—screaming for help inside. Lucy wants to answer the call, while Cooper wants to keep walking. However, when Lucy goes into the hospital despite Cooper’s warnings about how empathy is just like mud, because Lucy is of the opinion that if they just help people then the issues of this nuclear apocalypse will decrease, Cooper and Dogmeat have no option but to follow her. Inside the hospital, they find two injured people, a woman and a man, wearing tunics. Cooper seems to be familiar with their kind, which is why he advises Lucy to not waste their resources on them. Lucy obviously ignores Cooper’s suggestion and proceeds to give her some water. Before Lucy can do something for the guy, Cooper kills him and starts eating his flesh. Lucy is understandably shocked and reprimands him for his actions. That’s when Cooper starts gagging and spits out the flesh, because it’s been poisoned. By what? By a giant radscorpion and its babies.
As soon as Dogmeat senses that trouble is right around the corner, the dog bolts out of the hospital, leaving Lucy and Cooper to fend for themselves. Both Cooper and the tunic-wearing woman get stung by the giant radscorpion. So, once Cooper is done blowing the radscorpion to smithereens, Lucy has to make a choice: giving the stimpak to Cooper or the woman. Lucy obviously uses it on the woman, because she knows that Cooper can survive without it. Yes, he’ll take some time to heal, and Lucy wants to use that period to introspect about why he is so selfish. No, Lucy doesn’t abandon Cooper; she promises to come back for him after she has reunited the woman with her tribe. That said, as Lucy and the woman approach her village or temporary shelter, the vibe starts to shift, as the woman keeps telling Lucy to go home. However, Lucy is too determined to deliver the woman to her people, and hence, she keeps following her into the dangerous part of the woods, that too after she loses track of the woman. She finally reaches a camp, which has a red flag with a white bull on it, and she is surrounded by some menacing-looking guys in Roman attire, thereby sort of vindicating Cooper, who warned Lucy that empathy is like mud, in which you can lose your shoe. As per videogame lore, this faction that has entrapped Lucy is called Caesar’s Legion or just the Legion. Yes, they emulate the values of the Roman Empire, because they think that’s the best way to help humanity survive this post-apocalyptic hellscape. Based on the promos, I think they’ll play a prominent role in this season of the show, or they’ll become Cooper’s next meal.
The Brotherhood’s New Home Is Area 51
Fallout Season 2 Episode 2 takes us back to the moment where Shady Sands was bombed with the help of a guy being mind-controlled by the brain-computer interface. Much like the one that House used in the flashback scene in episode 1, this version of the device was still in its rudimentary phase, but it was effective enough to allow Hank, or a subordinate of his who was piloting the suicide bomber, to make the meat puppet deliver the nuke to Shady Sands via a cart. Apparently, Maximus’ father tried to deactivate the nuke, but whoever had built the bomb knew that someone might try to do that. Hence, they’d installed a failsafe that prevented any further tinkering of the bomb, and also started the timer on it. I saw it as a cruel joke where the builder of the bomb gave the one defusing it some sense of hope before brutally snatching it away from them.
Although the whole sequence was extremely brief, the horror and sadness that Maximus’ parents, along with everyone else in Shady Sands, felt was palpable. Especially because that moment stood in stark contrast to the next scene, where we saw a middle-aged Hank reading bedtime stories to Lucy and Norm after ensuring that the remote-controlled suicide bomber had done its job. The casual manner in which Hank just went from destroying a whole borough to chilling with his kids was scary and eerily relevant because most “world leaders” do that every day in real life. In the present day, we see how much Maximus has changed since Season 1. He has become a ruthless killing machine who slaughters ghouls like he is playing a video game. He doesn’t care if his missions are high-risk and low-reward. He just wants to get the job done so that he doesn’t have to think about the circumstances under which he got his knighthood status, the true reason behind the destruction of Shady Sands, and what the Brotherhood intends to do with the power of the cold fusion reactor. That said, after reuniting with Quintus at their floating HQ, which is a mix of a blimp and a boat, Maximus does ask him what the use of the artifact that he and his team have just acquired is, and Quintus says that it’s the key to their new home in the desert, which once used to be Nevada. Once the artifact is installed in a slot in the blimp, those on the ground activate these windmills, which blow away the sand, revealing said new home to be Area 51.
Maximus Might Lead The War Against The Commonwealth
While most get busy tinkering around with all the stuff that’s been stored there, Maximus focuses on using the cold fusion reactor to power the place. Then he goes off to clean himself and his power armor, which is when he is approached by Dane. They have a brief conversation about Lucy, but since Quintus’ council meeting is of utmost importance, they shelve the discourse on Lucy and discuss how Quintus is supposedly making a move against the Commonwealth, which might have some disastrous consequences. Maximus seems to be too devoted to Quintus’ cause, and hence he wants to stand by him no matter what. Before Dane can educate Maximus on the topic of following someone blindly in order to hide your own insecurities, the chapters of the Brotherhood of Steel from the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Coronado reach Area 51, thereby prompting them to join everyone in the meeting room. The conversation between Quintus and the other Elders goes off the rails almost instantly because, firstly, they can’t fathom the concept of battling the Commonwealth in the name of power, and secondly, they can’t look past the long list of differences they have with each other. But Quintus manages to unite them by giving them crates full of fusion cores and promising them that he can make an endless amount of those nuclear batteries, and all the Elders loudly proclaim that they are in fact ready to fight the Commonwealth.
By the way, the Commonwealth in the series seems to differ from the games. In the videogame series, the Commonwealth is basically a region of America. But the Commonwealth in the series seems to be the governing body of all the chapters of the Brotherhood of Steel. They allow everyone to rule the areas that have been assigned to them as long as they pay their taxes properly. If they fail to do that, I suppose the Commonwealth has enough fire power to destroy any faction they want. Beyond that, there isn’t a lot of information on this organization. Maybe when Quintus wages war against the Commonwealth, we’ll get to know more about it.
In the ending of Fallout Season 2, episode 2, a bald knight invites Maximus to a fight, without their power suits, because he wants to overpower the guy who killed the infamous Moldaver. For the most part, the bald knight does beat the everliving hell out of Maximus, but once the bald knight pulls out a knife, Maximus loses his cool and kills his opponent. That’s when Xander, from the Commonwealth, arrives to talk to Quintus and the other Elders about the civil war that they are trying to start, probably with the intention of supporting them. He also exchanges a look with Maximus, as if to say that he is impressed by Maximus’ work. It’s pretty clear that Maximus is going down a dark path, and he isn’t going to stop until he has hit rock bottom. Until now, he had underscored his allegiance to Quintus by killing ghouls, but by killing a fellow knight, he has essentially tattooed Quintus’ name onto his soul. And if he is ordered to lead this impending civil war with the Commonwealth, I think he’ll jump into that power suit and kill anyone who opposes Quintus. It remains to be seen what will finally compel Maximus to see the light. I mean, we all know the answer—it’s Lucy—but whether or not that’ll be enough to save Maximus’ soul is a big question mark. What are your thoughts on the same? Let me know in the comments section below.
