I think you have to agree that the seventh episode of Fallout Season 2 was simply incredible. I guess Season 2 was the first time my eyes got a bit moist, and seriously, I was totally blown away by that ending sequence. It was pure brilliance, to say the least. But allow me to give you a spoiler warning now, so I don’t have to talk in riddles, let’s break down everything that went down in episode 7. Also, I think I should tell you I haven’t played the games, meaning I have no idea about the lore, so feel free to correct me in the comments if I start shooting in the dark, because I tend to do that a lot. So, with an “okey-dokey,” let’s get this started.
Stephanie’s a Canadian
Not much of a reveal here, because in episode 4, Steph’s fiancé, Chet, had already found a temporary status ID hidden in their drawer that suggested that Steph was a Canadian and had applied for US citizenship before the bombs dropped. Through a flashback, the episode went on to explain how Steph actually arrived in the United States. We still don’t know a lot about Steph’s past, but it seems like, during the Resource Wars, after the US annexed Canada, Steph, her mother, and everyone they knew were thrown into internment camps, which explains their hatred for Americans. In the opening sequence, we saw Steph, her mother, and a few others breaking out of the camps, but Steph’s mother couldn’t make it. Before taking her last breath, she asked her daughter to stop being a Catholic and cross the border by any means possible. She told her that if she had to hurt people to survive, then she should, because God wouldn’t judge her for that. This might explain the reason behind Steph’s psychopathic tendencies; she’s simply following her mother’s last wishes by killing anyone who’s come in her way. So, after crossing the border and murdering a whole bunch of people, Steph arrived in Vegas, where she started working in a hotel and came across Cooper Howard, who introduced her to Hank MacLean. Not a very formal introduction, but you get the gist. So what I believe happened next is that Steph might have used her charm and wit to get into Vault-Tec, thereby becoming an important member of the management, who was given a chance to get a cryopod so that she could survive the end of the world and wake up 200 years later to rebuild civilization. However, what I am really curious about is how much Steph really knows about Hank or Bud Askins’ ultimate plan for the wasteland. And more importantly, is she aware that the water chip in Vault 33 didn’t fail by accident but by choice? If you remember, in the previous episode, one of the Vault-Tec engineers told Barb that they knew their water chips were faulty, but they knew which ones were going to fail before installation, so they got to choose which vault would run out of water in the future. What I am trying to say here is that it could be possible that Steph has been intentionally ignoring Betty’s request, because she knows how it is going to end for the residents of Vault 33. And this also brings up the question: did Hank always know what actually happened to the previous residents of Vault 32? Did they die too because of the faulty water chip?
Woody Might Be Alive
The seventh episode suggested that Steph might have hurt Woody because he had been asking too many questions and poking his nose in matters that didn’t concern him. Chet had found Woody’s glasses in their garbage disposal, making him suspect his wife’s murderous intent. He quickly asked her about Woody, to which Steph replied that he had been sent on a leadership exchange program to Vault 31. But voila, Vault 31 is empty except for a bunch of open cryo pods and a dead Bud Askins lying by a bucket. But I think Steph’s not lying. It’s possible that she may have sedated Woody and locked him up in Vault 31 so he would starve to death. I mean, we haven’t seen Woody’s dead body, and there was no blood on his glasses, which makes me believe he might still be alive, and Chet, being his friend, will likely figure out a way to save him and bring him back to Vault 32. Also, I think with Steph gone for good, Woody is going to be the next Overseer. Well, he deserves it.
The Mystery Keepsake Box
Okay, so I have no clue what’s inside Hank’s keepsake box, but I think Steph knows. This is the reason I said that Steph knows more about Vault-Tec’s plan than most of the people in the management. However, the question still remains: what did Hank actually bring to the vault inside his mystery box? See, whatever it is, I think it’s going to help Steph get out of the situation she’s found herself in. In episode 7’s ending, Chet exposed his wife to all the residents of Vault 32, leaving her no choice but to lock herself in her office, where she had likely kept Hank’s keepsake box. Now you see there’s no way Steph can run away from this. You can draw a parallel between the state she’s in now and her time before she broke out of the internment camp, but this time, she’s the one who’s at fault. Not America. But I don’t think this is going to be the end of Steph. She’s smart, and she’ll figure out a way. The only thing I am really interested in is if Hank’s box is going to help her escape. And if not, then what exactly is inside it that makes Steph so obsessed with it?
The NCR Is Back
I think this was the perfect time to introduce the Power Armor that once belonged to the New California Republic because now you have the man who deserves to wear it the most. You see, Maximus is a good man, but more importantly, he never stopped being a good man. It’s something his father had asked of him, and he’s still trying to make his parents proud. Shady Sands might have been annihilated, but Maximus still carries it in his heart. And now that he has already abandoned the Brotherhood of Steel, it’s the perfect time for him to become a part of something he truly believes in. Cooper might have said that it was the armor that brought hope to the residents of Freeside, but I think we all know that it’s the man inside it who has sparked this rebellion. And I really want to say this: “The NCR is back on its feet,” quite literally this time.
Maximus and Thaddeus had initially planned to hand over the stolen Cold Fusion Diode to Lucy because Maximus believed she was the right person to have that kind of power. He thought Lucy could use it to save the world, but he was being naive. Cooper, on the other hand, knew the right person who could make better use of it, which was why he had made Maximus an offer he couldn’t refuse. Cooper told him that in order to save “his” good person, he had to hand over the diode to a really bad person, because they are the ones who can actually save the world. And he wasn’t talking about Lucy or himself here. Cooper was talking about Robert House, the man, the myth, the genius, who was destined to get the diode in the first place, before Cooper derailed his plan. So by bringing the diode to House, Cooper was just trying to atone for his past mistakes, but I’ll get to that later. Coming back to Maximus, at the end of the episode, Maximus decided to be a hero and face the deadly pack of Deathclaws so he could see Lucy again. However, during the battle, one of these creatures hit him so hard that he crashed into the barricade protecting the Freeside residents from these creatures, and now Maximus will have to take down each and every one of them by any means possible in order to protect the people who have recently hailed him as their savior. I think with an NCR Power Armor in his arsenal, he’ll be able to save the day.
Diana Welch Is The Snitch
Diana, the congresswoman for the District of Glendale, had always pretended to be a helpless person who was just trying to do the right thing. She wanted to put an end to corporate influence in the United States so the nation could follow the voice of the common people, but now that we have seen her real face, we have to ask ourselves: is that who she really was? Sadly, no. Now I am not saying she’s the boss here, but I think she had been working for the same unknown entity House had been talking about. In episode 5, House told Cooper that the bomb wouldn’t be dropped by him or any of the idiots in the Vault-Tec meetings. His machine told him that there was a secret player in the game, likely responsible for the end of the world, but even with all the resources at his disposal, House couldn’t identify this mysterious entity. And that has been troubling him ever since. Back to episode 7, we saw that Cooper got tricked by Diana’s act and believed her to be a good person because she had been saying all the right things. And under this spell, he told her about the Cold Fusion Diode. Here, you see how quickly Diana’s demeanor changed after she heard about the diode. She instantly became POTUS’ friend. I mean seriously, Cooper is a smart man. He should have been able to see through her tricks. But unfortunately, he didn’t. Like most Americans, he believed in his president, and asked Diana to get him a meeting with the man so he could hand over the diode to him personally.
In episode 7’s ending, Cooper finally met the president and gave him the Cold Fusion Diode, believing he was putting a lethal weapon in safe hands, but sadly, he was wrong. I am not sure what happened to the diode from here onwards, because that’s what we are going to find out in the final episode of season 2, but I am sure Diana, or the person she has been working for, has some kind of deal with Vault-Tec, which is why we saw her head into the mainframe room inside the Vault-Tec facility in Las Vegas. In the episode, Hank told Lucy that it’s the mainframe that programs the automated men. I know when we first heard him saying that, we all might have thought the mainframe was a computer, but it’s actually a human head, wearing an electronic helmet designed by House. It was likely through this device that Diana has been controlling the brainwashed minds of the automated men. But the question that still remains is why did Vault-Tec use Diana’s brain for the mainframe? Was it because she was really cunning or manipulative and her ideology aligned with theirs? Or was it something she had earned by betraying Cooper and getting back the diode? I think we need to wait for the finale to have our answers.
Cooper Brings House to Life
You know, when I saw the ending sequence of the episode, especially the way Cooper had been pushing all those hidden buttons, I thought House purposely brought him to his lab in the previous episode and showed him his magnum opus because House always knew the future. In episode 5, he had told Cooper that they were mathematically intertwined. House routinely ran mathematical paradigms in an effort to predict future events, and I think he knew that Cooper was going to steal the diode from Hank and hand it over to the wrong person, who was going to bring an end to the world, but he didn’t want to intervene. Those future events might have told him that Cooper would eventually bring the diode back to him to power up his roboticized, non-biological form, and this was the reason why he showed him where this machine was hidden, and how Cooper could access it. And now that an AI version of Mr. House is back, I think he’s going to reveal to Cooper who the real culprit is here, the one who dropped the bombs and flattened the earth. Additionally, House will definitely help Cooper reunite with his wife and daughter, who, as hinted in the previous episode, are somewhere in the Vault-Tec facility in Vegas. And sorry I forgot to mention this before, but I don’t think House’s lab and the Vault-Tec facility are in the same building. Maybe Cooper was aware of that, but he still needed to wake up House before rescuing Lucy and his family, because he really needs a strong ally by his side if he wants to defeat Hank in the season finale. Stay tuned for more.
Norm Will Unravel The Truth
Okay, Norm definitely knows something, and whatever it is, it’s really bad. The reason I’m saying he sounded very concerned is that he tried to contact Lucy and his dad on the radio from the Vault-Tec Tower. In the previous episode, Norm had accessed Barb’s computer to find out more about Future Enterprise Ventures, but instead of getting any information on that, he came across F.E.V., which stands for Forced Evolutionary Virus, likely developed by a secret organization called the Enclave. Now, in episode 7, Norm sent a message to Hank asking him if he knew what was going to happen to their Vault. So I guess either Norm is talking about the faulty water chip here, or he knows what’s inside Hank’s keepsake box, potentially a vial of F.E.V. that’s meant to turn the residents of Vault 33 into mutants. Well, Hank’s already experimenting with a bunch of people by robbing them of their free will using House’s automated man gadgets, so poisoning his own people with a gene-altering agent fits his character. And if you still believe that he’s not the real monster here, then let me remind you, he was the one who turned Shady Sands into ashes.
Till the very end of the episode, Lucy too had been confused about her dad. She knew he had done some really bad things, but he was still her father. And more importantly, Lucy knew that he was trying to do the right thing but his methods were monstrous and brutal. By brainwashing people and robbing them of their memories, he had actually made them docile and more humble, if I dare say so. But were they still human? I know we as humans are flawed, but at the end of the day, we all deserve an equal chance at life. That’s what equality stands for. So Hank’s gadget might have calmed down the violent legionaries, but it also took away the beautiful memories of a faithful soldier who just wanted to serve his country and liberate his people. Biff hadn’t done anything wrong. A crime against one honest man is a crime against the whole of humanity, and that’s what Lucy had learned from her father. That was the only reason she stood up against her own father. And in the finale, she’ll do anything to stop him so he can’t hurt more good people out there. So, we know that Lucy and her friends will somehow take down mighty Hank MacLean, but what still remains to be seen is Hank’s ultimate objective. I mean, what’s he trying to do? What’s the end game of the Vault-Tec playbook? I think this is something I look forward to in the finale of Fallout Season 2. Well, these are my thoughts on the penultimate episode, but if you have anything to share or want to correct anything, the box below is all yours.
