If you’re anything like us, chances are you spent the weekend binging Season 1 of Fallout on Amazon Prime video. The inaugural season of the live-action adaptation of the Fallout games is an excellent step in the right direction for the series, though there remains improvements to be made, In GameSpot’s review of the series, Phil Hornshaw wrote, “The show makes a lot of hay from the weird and goofy setting of the game series, and does a great job of filling it with fun, fascinating people. Though it feels like the show could have leveraged its setting even more, seeing how characters cope with life in a world that is both murderous and ridiculous keeps Fallout entertaining, even through its shortcomings.”
While we don’t know yet if Fallout will be renewed for a second season, the makings of one was certainly set up in the final episode of Season 1, “The Beginning.”
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 1 of Prime Video’s Fallout. If you haven’t watched it yet, turn away now.
Quite a bit happens in the final episode, tying together the storylines of the three main characters, while setting up a larger narrative–and new location–for Season 2.
The story so far…
Basically, Lucy (Ella Purnell) finally tracked down her father Overseer Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), who had been taken captive by Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury). We learn she was one of the surviving members of the New California Republic, a unified people that organized a Californian government after the bombs fell. They were based out of Shady Sands, the former home of Maximus (Aaron Moten). The destruction of that city is what sent him on his journey with the Brotherhood of Steel.
Upon Lucy’s arrival to Moldaver’s compound, we learn that Hank isn’t some innocent Overseer. Instead, he was an executive at Vault-Tec whose role was to keep order in Vault 31. Meanwhile, two doors over in Vault 33, there wasn’t an underground community. Instead, that was where Vault-Tec had its executive branch cryogenically frozen so they could rebuild the earth in Vault-Tec’s image.
Some time later, after Hank was thawed out and put in charge of Vault 33, his wife Rose realized the lies he’d been telling and that people had survived on the surface. She left Hank to be with the NCR, taking Lucy and her brother with her. When Hank came looking, he took the children back with them. Rose was left to become a ghoul, whom Moldaver keeps alive, unable to kill the woman she loved. In Hank’s own words, Rose “stopped” being their mother when she left.
What’s the purpose for all of this?
All season, the severed head of Wilzig (Michael Emerson) has been a MacGuffin powering the story forward. As we reached the end of the season, we finally discovered why. Wilzig had implanted an experimental cold fusion particle in his head, something that both the Brotherhood of Steel and the remains of the NCR wanted. The NCR wants it to provide ultimate power to the people, free from the Brotherhood or anyone else that wants to lord over them. The Brotherhood, of course, wants it so they have more control.
Another group that wants it is what’s left of Vault-Tec that isn’t frozen–including Hank. As his story unraveled and we learned the depths he sunk to, you could see a sense of cockiness and villainy wash over MacLachlan’s face. The happiest, goofiest person around is actually pretty devious.
Enter The Ghoul
As if everything Vault-Tec had done wasn’t enough, we learned of even more misdeeds that bring The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) into the mix.
Before the bombs, when he was still Cooper Howard, the movie star was married to a high-ranking Vault-Tec employee and even starred in commercials for the company–becoming the basis for the iconic Vault Boy “thumbs up” image. After a run in with a group that opposes Vault-Tec–and has been labeled Communist–Cooper used a spying device to listen in on his wife’s work conversations, learning that not only did Vault-Tec conspire with its biggest competitors on the Vault program, but that the company itself planned the nuclear attack that wiped out the world.
The End of “The Beginning.”
When Maximus arrived to help Lucy, he released her father, not knowing all Hank had done. While Lucy explained, Hank slipped into a suit of discarded power armor and knocked Maximus unconscious.
With Lucy horrified by the man her father has been all along and Maximus knocked out, The Ghoul finally arrives at Moldaver’s compound. He wants nothing else but to know where his family is. Given Vault-Tec froze a bunch of their executives in Vault 33, we’re guessing that’s where his wife ended up. As for his daughter, we know Cooper and his daughter were at a birthday party together when the bombs dropped. If she’s alive, she either found her way into a vault or, quite possibly, she is also a ghoul out there in the wasteland somewhere.
Before getting his answer, though, The Ghoul fails to stop Hank from getting away. So he set out to track him down, convincing Lucy to join the adventure. She’s forced to leave an unconscious Maximus to follow The Ghoul, with the Brotherhood of Steel arriving for him. Before leaving, though, she finally put her own ghoulified mother to rest with a single bullet to the head.
Some point after that, Moldaver manages to activate the cold fusion particle, immediately lighting up the Wasteland with free electricity. She then dies, succumbing to injuries she incurred while fighting the Brotherhood.
What’s next?
Thankfully, the show gives a pretty big indication of what’s coming next. With Hank off to find people sympathetic to his cause–and potentially other Vault-Tec executives, he is last week outside of a location Fallout fans should know very well.
As you can see above, that’s the skyline of New Vegas, the central location of Fallout: New Vegas. In the game, New Vegas is controlled by post-apocalyptic mobsters, with the story following multiple factions as they attempt to gain control of the Hoover Dam.
While chances are we don’t see that story play out in Season 2, it’s entirely possible we could see some characters from that game, including Mr. House or members of Caesar’s Legion.
Before any of that happens, though, Prime Video needs to renew the series. All eight episodes of Fallout Season 1 are streaming no.