Fallout S2 Ep 5 Review
Well, it’s official: Fallout has hit rock bottom. Not just because the protagonists have hit their new lowest point, either. It’s also because this was the slowest episode of the entire season thus far. After the last episode ended with the Brotherhood at war with itself and Lucy and the Ghoul facing down a Deathclaw, you’d think the follow-up episode would build on that momentum to give us something cool. But anyone who was expecting balls-to-the-wall action must be disappointed, because this episode relied on talking and drama to move the plot forward. I know that’s not what everyone wants to see, and, admittedly, it makes for a slower episode. However, I would like to point out that what we learned about how the nuclear apocalypse came about was worth its weight in solid gold caps. Not only that, but we got a hint at what Bud’s plans were for the Three Vaults…and they’re not good for anyone. If the acronym FEV means anything to you, then you should be getting ready to panic.
Vegas Starts Eating Away at People
So, the last episode ended with Lucy, Dogmeat, and the Ghoul facing down a Deathclaw Matriarch in the Strip. This episode opens up with two more showing up, turning a nightmare scenario into an even bigger one. The trio cannot get out of there any faster, leading them to end up in Freeside, AKA the slums north of the Strip. Apparently, that pack is the one players meet on the road to New Vegas in the game, with everyone deciding to abandon the Strip and trap them in there. Perfect!
Both Lucy and the Ghoul are frustrated to find their goals being so close yet so far, as we learn why the Ghoul wanted to head to New Vegas so badly. He knows Vault-Tec had several Vaults for their management and family hidden across America, and he’s spent the last two hundred years looking for the one with his family. New Vegas was his last hope, and as the episode reveals, he’s right. His wife and daughter are alive at the facility that Hank Maclean’s taken over, safely in cryostasis. A situation that could change very quickly.
The Ghoul may act like he’s heartless at times, but as we’ve seen throughout the show, he’s a man broken by the experiences of his incredibly long life. All he wanted to do in the flashbacks was do the right thing, but in a world as complicated as Fallout’s, that can be hard. Harder still is trying to do it while keeping your hands clean.
Lucy Finally Killed Someone
Take Lucy, for example. When she tries to buy medicine that could flush her body clean of drugs, the unfair prices prompt her to steal it. And a power fist glove. When she’s caught in the act, she winds up shooting and killing the person in self-defense. Granted, the person she killed was a thief who had killed the store owner, but that’s not the point. The point is that Lucy has shown she’s willing to kill to survive, and that something that terrifies her. It would terrify a lot of people, honestly. But that is the kind of morally grey decision you might have to make in the Wasteland.
My personal opinion: if the man she killed was a thief who killed the store owner, that’s just karma. Plus, it makes the stuff fair game. Though karma might have caught up with Lucy since the Ghoul sells her out to her Dad.
So, the bad news about this episode is that Hank manages to perfect the Black Box tech. In a case of black comedy, his first successful test subject is the snake oil salesman that turned Thaddeus into a ghoul. And he was into it, too. Hank blackmails the Ghoul into turning on Lucy by threatening the life of his wife and daughter, and it works. The Ghoul gets impaled on a pole, and Lucy is forced to watch helplessly tranq’d as her dad looms over her.
Oh no, Not the FEV
This is not a good day for anyone, and Norm’s day is even worse.
As I feared, Norm was unable to keep up the charade about being Bud’s successor, leading most of Bud’s Buds to turn on him. The one exception is Claudia, this woman who says she only joined Vault-Tec right before the bombs dropped. The last we see of him, he’s out cold on the ground and at the mercy of the Buds. But before he got caught, he learned something important about Phase 2 for the three Vaults: it involves the Forced Evolutionary Virus, or FEV.
Remember my post on the origins of the Brotherhood of Steel? How Maxson’s unit was guarding scientists performing experiments on people to turn them into super-soldiers? That was the FEV, a virus that transforms people into giant, green, hulking brutes called Super Mutants, or Meta Humans. They’re super strong and immune to radiation and disease, and there are actually quite a number of them in each game that are friendly and pleasant individuals. The ones that aren’t, though, can be violent killers with little in the way of intelligence. And since the virus renders people sterile, the only way to make more is by exposing them to more FEV.
This is bad news. Really, really bad news. If Bud’s plans involve turning the Vault Residents into Super Mutants, the west coast is at risk. At the same time, though, Bud’s idea isn’t exactly treading new ground since someone else already tried that. The real question, though, is why Bud would want to do this. The answer might surprise us.
House is Actually Scared of Something
The flashbacks to Cooper Howard’s life before the bombs fell are at their peak this week as we see him travel to New Vegas to meet Mr. House. As I suspected, Moldaver was likely wrong about him being the one to drop the bombs. He only wanted her Cold Fusion generator to power the machines he would eventually use to preserve his life in the digital ether. It’s what he says about who may start the Great War that’s most concerning: he doesn’t know.
Let me repeat that: Robert House, at the time that he meets Cooper in Vegas, doesn’t know who will drop the bombs. And I’ve got major praise for his actor for selling us on just how scared that makes him. However, he’s convinced that this unknown party is the one who created the Deathclaws, and is someone that goes beyond even Vault-Tec and their capabilities. But just who could this entity be?
Now, the safe bet would be to say that House is alluding to the existence of the Enclave, the deep-state remnants of the US Government that will go on to terrorize the Wasteland several times. However, I’m actually hoping that it isn’t the Enclave. What if there was something out there that was even worse than them? I’ve seen and heard about how bad they are, and while it would be nice to have them make a resurgence in the era of the show, I also want to see someone else step up to the plate.
This episode feels very much like a breather as we prepare for something far worse. However, given how we only have three episodes left in the season, I don’t think the show can afford to keep messing around like this. There’s only so much of New Vegas we can hope to see, and I think the fans want to get some answers about how the game canonically ended before the season ends. Tell us already, BETHESDA! Beyond my personal gripes, though, sometimes a slower episode is often better. Especially if it means that the next episode is going to be a banger. Given what we see with the teaser for the next episode, that feels like a given.
