In episode 4 of Fallout Season 2, the Brotherhood’s civil war began because Dane had stolen the cold fusion relic from the lab in Area 51 and given it to Maximus so he could take it as far away as possible from the tyrannical Quintus. Meanwhile, Maximus confessed to Quintus that he had killed Xander to save a bunch of ghoul kids, which caused Quintus to go berserk on Maximus. So, Maximus didn’t have much of an option, and he made a run for it into the desert with Thaddeus while the Brotherhood crumbled in the background. Things got heated between the denizens of Vaults 31, 32, and 33. Norm tried his best to make it seem like he knew what he was doing, but Ronnie, Bud’s former personal assistant, sensed that Norm was coming up with the plans, thereby setting the stage for inevitable confrontation. As for his sister, Lucy, she got addicted to Buffout after it was administered to her for two whole days. While entering Las Vegas, her heightened state of mind allowed Lucy to kill a bunch of ghouls that were dressed as Elvis Presley. However, when she, Cooper, and Dogmeat came face-to-face with a Deathclaw—probably the same one that Cooper had encountered in the Alaskan Front while fighting the Chinese—the color drained from Lucy’s face. What happened next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Cooper Reminisces About The Past In Freeside
In episode 5 of Fallout Season 2, it’s revealed that the particular area in Las Vegas that Lucy, Cooper, and Dogmeat are in doesn’t have just one Deathclaw; the whole place is bloody infested with Deathclaws. So, they have no option but to make a run for it. They eventually make it past a barricade—which was spotted by Dogmeat, actually—that supposedly prevents the Deathclaws from crossing into the territory where humans reside, which is called Freeside. Don’t ask me how a barricade stops those beasts, even though they are so terrifyingly powerful, because I have no clue; maybe it’s that good old plot armor at play. Anyway, the following day, Lucy asks Cooper why those Deathclaws exist in the first place, but Cooper goes off on a tangent about the creation of these special Vaults, which were supposedly different from the ones regular people lived in, which would be in charge of “management.” Cooper’s theory is that his wife and daughter are in one such vault, and although he’s been all over the United States of America searching for the vault that houses them, he has hit only dead ends. The only place that he has not searched is Vegas, and he thinks that the Deathclaws have been “stationed” there to disallow anyone from accessing that vault. Lucy wants to make a run for it and get past the Deathclaws. Cooper wants to stay in Freeside and “strategize.” He gives Lucy some money so that she can buy a bottle of Addictol, rid herself of her Buffout dependency, and think clearly as well because everything she’s recommending currently isn’t productive.
Cooper goes to a bar to consume a whole bottle of alcohol and reminisce about his meeting with House. In this flashback sequence, we see Cooper, Barb, and Hank at the airport, about to board the plane to Vegas. While Barb and Hank go ahead, Cooper hangs back under the pretext of talking to his agent, whereas in reality he wants to have a chat with Moldaver. She is glad that Cooper has decided to go ahead with his mission of killing House, but it seems like Cooper is still on the fence about actually murdering this guy. Moldaver underscores the fact that as soon as Vault-Tec gives House the cold fusion technology, he’s going to give them the bombs, and that’ll lead to a nuclear apocalypse. So, Cooper has to use the vial of poison that he’s been given on House and put an end to him. Cooper tells Moldaver that he’ll stop the exchange and give the cold fusion tech to her, but he won’t kill House. After reaching Vegas, Cooper and Barb get to Lucky 38, which is the casino that’s fully owned by Vault-Tec (and is surrounded by Deathclaws in the present day). While Cooper is getting his pictures taken by the press, he notices Congresswoman Welch getting chucked out of the establishment. Since Cooper recognizes Welch, he rushes to her aid. However, Barb doesn’t allow Cooper to hang around with her for too long, because Welch is opposing whatever Vault-Tec is doing, and if the face of Vault-Tec is seen fraternizing with a critic, that’ll be bad for business. Cooper quietly advises Welch to continue her protests before heading into the hotel with Barb.
Cooper Meets House
As soon as Barb gets busy talking to her associates at RobCo, Cooper starts tailing Hank to see where he’s going with that briefcase that’s handcuffed to his wrist. Before he can approach Hank, the duplicate House—who admits later on that that’s a full-time job that he has been doing for around a decade—approaches Cooper and takes him away to meet the real House. The real House apparently knows that Cooper plans to kill him, because he has been following Cooper for a long time; he says that their destinies are “mathematically intertwined.” Cooper goes on to say that he’s about to acquire Cold Fusion because it’ll make him immortal and also save Las Vegas from the impending nuclear war. He adds that he runs algorithms and programs to predict future events, which is how he got to know that the world as they knew it was about to come to an end. He points out that, coincidentally enough, the day his data gave him that information is the day Janey was born. He also says that the moment Cooper decided to come to Vegas, the date the world would end got moved up by one whole month. And this has brought House to the conclusion that Cooper and his family are integral to the fate of the planet. Why or how? Well, that’s something that House doesn’t know.
Cooper tries to bring the conversation back on track by talking about how both RobCo and Vault-Tec are actually responsible for the impending nuclear holocaust. House surprises Cooper by saying that neither of them will drop the bomb; that’ll be done by some “unknown entity.” Again, House doesn’t know who that is, but the fact that he says that the creator of the Deathclaws is the one they should be looking out for, I guess this is a reference to the Master. As per the game lore, originally he was a guy named Richard Moreau or Richard Grey. He supposedly transformed himself into some kind of human-computer hybrid and is considered to be the primary antagonist of Fallout. Cooper is unable to wrap his head around all this, because House’s rambling about the future is overwhelming. Hence, he takes House’s leave and decides to get drunk. I mean, Cooper’s reaction is understandable. So far, he was sure that convincing House would do the trick. The fact that there’s someone above House who is pulling the strings to bring about the end of the world complicates everything. Cooper eventually blacks out and is rescued by Barb. When he comes to, he says that he needs to have a conversation about Barb’s world-ending strategy.
Ronnie Realizes Norm Has Been Lying
Norm leads the Vault 31ers to a Vault-Tec building, and as they start investigating the place, Ma June and her friend, Barv, show up to tell them that they are trespassing. While Barv chats with Claudia and the rest of the “roach farm” that they are managing in that facility, June and Norm talk about the former’s encounter with Lucy in Filly, which has been burnt down by the Brotherhood of Steel, and how Lucy tried to help Wilzig deliver the cold fusion tech to Moldaver. June understands that Norm is looking for his sister, but she opines that Lucy’s chances of surviving out there are slim to none. Hence, she advises Norm to take his friends and head back to the vault because it’s pointless to roam around the Wasteland. Speaking of Lucy, in Vegas, she visits Sonny’s Sundries to get a bottle of Addictol, but when she realizes that she doesn’t have the money to buy it, she decides to steal it, along with a power fist and several other items. She is caught red-handed by the shopkeeper, who isn’t all that innocent himself because he has killed Sonny, stuffed him in a garbage bin, and taken control of the shop. But instead of giving Lucy a free pass as a fellow thief, the shopkeeper tries to kill Lucy, thereby prompting Lucy to draw her gun and kill the dude. That’s when the dead guy’s wife arrives, and Lucy is shocked to see what kind of a person she has become.
Norm watches as Ronnie leads a team into the comms room in the building to establish contact with the investors. The fact that Norm has even asked this question seems odd to Ronnie, because if he’s in charge of guiding the Vault 31ers on Reclamation Day, it’s something he should be aware of. Instead of getting into a tiff with Ronnie over this topic, Norm goes off to pacify Claudia, who’s having a mental breakdown. During their conversation, Claudia reveals that Bud’s boss was Barb, and she was in charge of all the Vault proposals. Claudia even takes Norm to Barb’s office in that building. As Norm goes through Barb’s computer, Claudia says that she knows Norm isn’t Bud’s successor because he isn’t as “nuts” as the rest of them. Ronnie overhears this conversation, and when Claudia leaves to have a drink, he interrupts Norm’s investigation into the Forced Evolutionary Virus, or FEV. As per the game’s lore, it was created by West Tek’s NBC Division, and, as suggested by its name, the virus has the capability of altering any creature’s genotype and phenotype. It was in development before the war began and was famously used by the Master to create all kinds of horrifying mutants. But before Norm can learn more about this topic, he gets into a fight with Ronnie for betraying the Vault 31ers. Norm is no match for Ronnie, and he manages to choke Norm until he loses consciousness. I think the only reason that Ronnie doesn’t kill him is because he wants the rest of the 31ers to decide his fate. There’s a good chance that everyone will be as supportive of Norm as Claudia, thereby making Ronnie the odd one out. At the same time, it’s possible that, with the exception of Claudia, all the 31ers will choose to kill Norm. And unless someone from Vault 33 or Ma June comes to his rescue, Norm is toast.
Hank Is Probably Lying to Cooper
The Snake Oil Salesman waltzes into Las Vegas and is seen chatting with a Fully Integrated Security Technotronic Officer, but that’s interrupted by Hank, who is there to kidnap him. This probably means that he has run out of rodent and human subjects to test his brain-computer interface on. Now, while transferring the salesman to his lab, we do see the cryo-pods with Barb and Janey’s names on them. Given how they are still active, maybe Hank hasn’t killed all the human subjects, because that might attract the ire of his boss. It’s possible that he tested it on that one guy and realized that it’s pointless to subject all the cryo-frozen elites to the same ordeal. Hence, he has chosen to pick up random people off the streets to experiment upon. I don’t know if the salesman is the first stranger that Hank has kidnapped or the 10th one, but he strikes gold, because the brain-computer interface turns out to be quite the success this time around. I don’t know how. It’s unclear what the salesman actually is, but, yeah, his head doesn’t blow up like it did with that other guy or the mice. Maybe all the drugs and elixirs that he has consumed over the years have made him the perfect candidate for this experiment. Going back to Freeside, Lucy consumes the Addictol that she has stolen and instantly begins puking out her guts. She reaches the room that Cooper is in and begins hurling again. When she settles down, Cooper reveals the mind-controlled salesman that’s in the room with them. The salesman says that Hank is in an underground facility, and he can’t be reached unless he wants to be reached. Lucy orders the salesman to take them to Hank, and in response to that, the salesman says that Hank will kill Barb and Janey if Cooper doesn’t take Lucy back to her vault so that she can wait there until Hank has executed some of the plans that he has set in motion. Cooper obviously accepts the deal and shoots Lucy with a dart to knock her out.
The salesman leaves to inform Hank about his decision, and Cooper helps himself to another drink, because he’s obviously not okay with the choice he has just made. His regret isn’t palpable to the barely conscious Lucy, who takes out the power fist that she had stolen and punches Cooper, which sends him flying out the window of the room, and he gets impaled on a pole on the sidewalk. In the ending of Fallout Season 2, episode 5, Hank shows up in person to meet Lucy. It’s unclear if he is going to take her to the Vault-Tec facility that he’s working out of or take her all the way back to Vault 33. I think a trip to Vault 33 is pointless because that’d mean Hank would have to fly or trek the whole distance that he had covered between Seasons 1 and 2 while carrying Lucy. No, with Cooper temporarily incapacitated, I think he’s going to keep her in the facility that currently serves as his workplace, as that’ll allow Lucy and Hank to have a long-overdue conversation about the latter’s true nature. In addition to that, I don’t know why I have a feeling that Hank has lied to Cooper about the fact that Barb and Janey are alive. I think both of them are dead, and Cooper has been on a wild-goose chase all this while. Either Lucy is going to give Cooper that information, or Cooper is going to learn that himself by tracking Hank as he takes Lucy to that Vault-Tec facility. I mean, Cooper is a Western-esque protagonist, and his chances of getting a happy ending are low. I know that we have a long way to go before the finale arrives, but I am willing to bet that the final altercation will be a three-way battle of wits and strength between Lucy, Cooper, and Hank. What do you think? Let me know in the comments section below.
