It all Ends on the Strip for New Vegas

Fallout S2 Ep 8 Review

Whew, what an ending to that season of Fallout! I was practically on the edge of my proverbial seat as I watched what was going down. This season’s romp through the New Vegas region has been memorable in a lot of good ways, as well as forgettable in some others. Some characters that we wanted to see bite the bullet end up doing just that. Others experience some surprising fates. And most importantly, the series sets us up for an even bigger third season as we potentially go where no Fallout game has truly gone before. But that’s life on the Strip, baby!

The Legion is Back, Sadly

For everyone who was hoping to see that Caesar’s Legion would be down for the count after what the Ghoul did to them, this episode is a major disappointment. Macauley Caulkin’s character uses the civil war to retrieve Caesar’s bones and his will, and discovers that, in a reversal of his desire for the Legion to survive past him, Caesar wanted it to die with him. So the Legate burns the will and just takes Caesar’s golden laurels for himself, becoming the New Caesar. Or, as I’m going to call him, Mcallister Caesar.

I was caught up in the heat of the moment, but this was honestly a surprise. A big reason why Caesar wanted New Vegas was because he wanted the Legion to live past him. Either Amazon and Bethesda forgot that detail, or they chose to ignore it altogether. Either way, like many of the things that happened in New Vegas the game, it doesn’t matter at this point. The season ends with them already marching on New Vegas to take it for good. However, I did appreciate that joke about “Caesar’s Palace.” Having been to Vegas before, that got a laugh out of me.

Thankfully, the Strip has some new protectors by the end: the NCR.

The NCR is BACK!!

At the tail end of the last episode, we saw Max facing down an entire pack of deathclaws by himself. He’s the only thing standing between them and all of Freeside, who, hilariously, can’t resist betting on his odds. I did appreciate how Thaddeus bet all his money on him winning. And to his credit, Maximus manages to slay in that NCR power armor! With just the armor’s wrist blades, jetpack, and rocket launchers (which I didn’t know power armor could have), he takes down close to four or five deathclaws. Killing one deathclaw is a praiseworthy accomplishment, but for a second, I thought Max was going to take them all down. That would’ve been legendary! Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, even with Thaddeus’ help.

Even facing down certain death, though, Maximus doesn’t run away. He stands his ground in defiance with a makeshift spear and shield like a true knight of old. Despite quitting the Brotherhood, he’s become more of a knight than most of their current members. I thought this would lead to the Freesiders ganging up to help him take back their town, but what we got was a thousand times better: the NCR!

If you haven’t played New Vegas, that shot of that NCR ranger firing their anti-material rifle is ripped directly from the game’s opening cutscene. It’s one of Fallout’s most iconic moments, lovingly recreated in live-action for us. The NCR Rangers are basically their elite spec-ops, each worth an entire platoon of soldier. And then an actual platoon of NCR soldiers comes marching down the Strip, ready to take it! I don’t know where they came from, but I think the NCR is about to make a comeback. Which is good, because the Legion is at their doorstep.

But what about Mr. House and Hank Maclean? They’re…non-factors.

So, the Ghoul gets what he wants by waking up Mr. House and gets inside the Vault-Tec facility for management. There, he returns Lucy’s kindness by saving her from being chipped by her own dad, before leaving his fate in her hands. As an example of laser-guided karma, Lucy chips her dad to make him do what she says. Not for justice, mind you, but because she wants him to be the dad she wants him to be. Truthfully, though, I think she knew it would be impossible to make him face legal justice in the world they live in. What Hank does to himself, though, renders everything a moot point: he wipes his own memories.

Part of me was fully expecting Hank Maclean to either die or be rendered a non-factor, but this is even worse. Physically, Hank Maclean is still alive, but the person that we knew is dead. It’s a fate worse than death, and even if he was evil, it’s hard to not feel bad for Lucy. Family’s complicated like that. It doesn’t help, though, that Hank admits that he sent his cronies out with more chips and orders to act on behalf of the Enclave.

Speaking of family, we need to talk about what happens to Norm in his storyline. I think a lot of people were expecting Bud’s Buds to kill him or dump him in FEV, which would have been a compelling twist. However, the show opted for the more chaotic route: the Buds accidentally release a farm of radroaches, all of which promptly slaughter the Buds. All, that is, except for Claudia, who somewhow survives. She must have gotten a fairly high luck stat, because that shouldn’t have been possible.

The last we see of Norm, he’s dragging Claudia away from the ruins of Vault-Tec, destination unknown. There’s a chance that he might take them back to Vault 31. However, with everything’s that going on, I’m not even sure if it will be left standing. Driven into a corner, Step calls the Enclave and tells them to initiate Phase 2. So, it’s now official: the Enclave is back in the game, and we should expect to see more of them in the future. But what else is new?

A few things, actually, as Fallout is about to enter uncharted territory.

Let’s just rip the band-aid off: when the Ghoul opens the cryopod for his wife, there’s no one in there. It’s cruel to the highest degree. Just when the Ghoul thought his long search for his wife and daughter was over, he thinks it was all for nothing. Even House says he shouldn’t have bet on hope like that. Except House is then proven wrong, courtesy of a postcard advertising Colorado. As it turns out, Barb and Janey did survive the War, and after waking up from cryostasis, they went to somewhere in Colorado, which is where he and Dogmeat are headed next! But what awaits them in Colorado?

Here’s the thing: we don’t really know.

No, I’m being serious. Outside of a spin-off RTS game of dubious canonicity, Colorado has never really been explored in the Fallout series. In fact, most of the Rockies and central US is uncharted territory. If we’re about to follow the Ghoul into Colorado, we’re going in blind. Which I think is awesome as it could open up so many doors for us (not to mention the South Park guys can make jokes out of it), but also means the chance of any future games taking place there has gone down.

Also, it should be mentioned that Max’s former chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel is still around, and Quintus has dropped all pretenses. Now he just wants to conquer the rest of the chapters, and he’s going to use a superweapon that fans of Fallout 3 and 4 should be familiar with: Liberty Prime, a 40-ft tall robot with lasers for eyes that can throw nukes like footballs.

But where does this leave us for a third season? And what about the outcome of New Vegas being decided? I have no idea.

Unlike at the end of Season One, from this point on, I have little understanding as to what comes next for the Fallout show. Most of the plot threads are left open-ended and could go a number of different ways. Maybe we’ll see Lucy and Maximus help the NCR establish themselves in New Vegas. Mr. House seems to be offline again, and it’s not made clear if the cold fusion diode is still in his casino. We could see the Vault residents become super mutants. There are so many factions in play at this point that things could become very chaotic. But that is generally how life is like in the Wasteland. And while war never changes, as the ending points out, there are some things worth fighting for. Like the chance for a better tomorrow that Lucy and Max represent.

As for solving the ending to New Vegas, I’m afraid to say that we may never know the canon ending. At least not in its entirety. Maybe the Courier helped Mr. House, but bailed on him. Maybe they turned on everyone and left for parts unknown. At this point, though, does it really matter what happened? I don’t think it does. It was just another war in the long history of wars in the world. And war, war never changes.

I Give “The Strip” a 4.5/5