Warning: Spoilers ahead for Fallout
At the start of the Season 2 finale of Prime Video’s Fallout, everything is in shambles. Lucy (Ella Purnell) is trying to shut-down the infrastructure her father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan) has helped create that wipes out a person’s memory and turns them into a bidding servant. Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is closer than he’s been in 200 years to finding his wife and daughter. And Max (Aaron Moten) is fighting for his life against a clan of vicious Deathclaws. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that the Wasteland is on the precipice of war, while rival factions are all descending upon New Vegas.
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It may leave us with more questions than answers, but it’s a satisfying finale that’ll have you anxiously anticipating the start of Season 3. Let’s break down the twisty ending of Fallout Season 2.
What’s happening in New Vegas?
In the final episode, Ghoul is very close to reuniting his family. Inside Robert House’s (Justin Theroux) place of residence in New Vegas, Lucky 38, he’s used the diode (an all-powerful device with the power to harness infinite energy) to power up the computerized House, because only he can help Ghoul access his family. If House agrees to let him into the vault so he can see his family, he will have to leave the diode in, keeping House alive. If Ghoul destroys it, it could destroy the entire world. The only way to get into the vault, however, is to wear a Pip-Boy, giving House the ability to constantly communicate with Ghoul.
“Like it or not, Mr. Howard, everyone works for me eventually,” House threatens.
Outside Lucky 38, Max is fighting for his life against the Deathclaws, and Thaddeus tries to lead the people of New Vegas to safety. Max discovers his robo-suit can launch rockets, which he uses to great effect, wiping out the Deathclaws with a smile. But he soon runs out of ammo and is in danger.
Max hears the voice of his father, who told him in their last moments together that he would grow up to be a good man. He exits the suit and gets some nearby debris to use as a sword and shield. As his death seems all but certain, a mysterious sniper appears, killing the remaining deathclaws with remarkable ease. The shooter is part of the army of the New California Republic, who come to rescue Max and the people of New Vegas.
It becomes increasingly clear throughout the finale that House may not be the biggest threat in the Wasteland. He speaks of how someone out there was one step ahead of him, suggesting he’s not the genius pulling all the strings. In a flashback, Ghoul receives a call from House, warning him that there are far worse people out there than him. “I commend you for trying to play the hero—I really do,” he says, respecting Ghoul’s decision to give the diode to the US President instead of House (seen at the end of the previous episode). We still don’t know who these people are that House is referring to, but he seems to be telling the truth. If one of the world’s most powerful men isn’t the big bad in Fallout, we can’t wait to see who—or what—is.
Lucy and Hank face off
Lucy has been on a quest all season to find her father Hank, who fled to New Vegas at the end of Season 1, and is finally in a position to get answers from him. She wants to know what he’s really been doing, and to understand just how diabolical his plan is. Turns out, it’s tremendously diabolical. Hank has been perfecting House’s original invention of a device that implants into the back of the neck, creating amnesia in a person to the point where they lose their entire personality and become mindless machines. But Hank didn’t like that aspect of it: “Who wants to live in a world of robots?” he asks Lucy.
Hank then explains why the mainframe of the entire brainwashing system was routed through the head of Representative Welch (Martha Kelly). “What I was trying to do was to add a little personality to his product,” Hank says. “Welch had the right social profile, which made her perfect. Well-meaning, sweet, non-threatening.” He reveals that he’s made a miniature version of the device, one so small that you won’t be able to tell if someone has been implanted; all it leaves behind is a tiny scar on the neck. Tired of his daughter rebelling against him, he wants to use it on Lucy. She calls him insane, to which he eerily replies, “You don’t mean that. And if you do, very soon you won’t.”
But just as Hank is about to implant Lucy, Ghoul intervenes, shooting and wounding Hank. He doesn’t stick around long—he’s too focused on getting his family back—but he makes amends with Lucy by saving her. He also lets her decide what to do with her father, saying that if it were up to him, Hank would be dead.
Lucy implants Hank with the very device he helped perfect. But she’s still not satisfied with his explanations, and feels her father is hiding something. Before activating the device, she presses him on why he’d create such a plan.
“You think this is the real world,” Hank tells her. “The surface is the experiment, not the Vaults.”
This is a major twist that shocks Lucy, though it’s unclear just how truthful it is, as it could be Hank’s last-ditch effort to convince her to go back to the Vault and leave this pursuit of the truth behind. He tells her that he’s already unleashed countless undetectable brainwashing devices throughout the Wasteland.
“Unbeknownst to everyone, they’re following orders laid out centuries ago,” Hank says.
“Orders for what?” Lucy asks.
But neither Lucy, nor the audience, gets an answer. Hank activates the device, erasing his personality from the world and becoming part of something bigger. What that something is is still unknown.
As Lucy is at her lowest, Max appears. After being apart since the end of Season 1, the two share a tender embrace, unable to contain the joy that they’re finally with each other again.
What’s happening in the Vaults?
Meanwhile, things are going terribly in the Vaults. We learned in the previous episode that Stephanie Harper (Annabel O’Hagen), overseer of Vault 32, is actually Canadian (in larger Fallout lore, the US annexed Canada) and 200 years old. She’s locked herself in her office after this revelation caused the vault dwellers to rebel against her. The finale reveals something about Stephanie that’s even more surprising, though the Vault dwellers don’t discover this. She’s actually Hank’s wife, and they got engaged before going into the Vault. Her quick engagement and subsequent marriage allowed Stephanie to secure her place in the Vault. Given Hank was also supposedly married to Lucy and Norm’s mother Rose (seen in Season 1), his relationship with Stephanie raises a lot of questions. Perhaps Rose was a decoy wife, so people in the Vault didn’t catch on to whatever mysterious plans Hank and Stephanie had for their underlings.
Outside Stephanie’s office, the vault dwellers demand she open the door, chanting “Death to management.” Instead, Steph opens Hank’s old keepsake box, revealing a Pip-Boy. She uses the device to communicate an ominous message: “If you can hear this, initiate phase two.” It’s received in an imposing new location. In an enormous labyrinthine fortress hidden within snow-covered mountains, a computer receives Steph’s message loud and clear, and her request to activate the next phase is logged. Snippets of other messages can be heard, suggesting that any message sent from the Valuts ends up here. Just as New Vegas was teased at the end of Season 1, this imposing facility will likely play a major role in Season 3 of Fallout.
The Ghoul’s next journey
Returning to the surface, after two seasons of searching, Ghoul makes it to the vault holding his wife and daughter’s status chambers. House opens their chambers, but both are empty. Ghoul’s extraordinary journey to reunite with his family comes up devastatingly short. Though it feels doomed, he finds a postcard in his wife’s chamber that has a picture of Colorado on it. “Clorado was a good idea,” it reads.
After a moment of heartbreak, Ghoul is suddenly galvanized. “For the first time in 200 long-ass years, I know my family is alive,” he says. He takes the Pip-Boy off his arm, ending communications with House, and sets off to Colorado to find his family. Then Lucy and Max enter Lucky 38, and see “Signal Lost” on the screen where House was (it’s unclear whether or not Ghoul took the diode out of the machine that powered up House’s computer). They look out onto the horizon with dread.
What’s next for the Wasteland—and what that post-credits scene teases
Chaos is coming to the Wasteland. The Legion, now led by the bloodthirsty Lacerta Legate (Macaulay Culkin), is determined to take over New Vegas and build Caesar’s Palace (pronounced “kaisar”), and as Season 2 comes to an end, they’ve almost made it. The New California Republic’s army is already there. And the Brotherhood of Steel is reeling, but they’re still out there. And all of them want control of the Wasteland.
“We could have prevented this. There’s going to be a war, and it’s all my fault,” Lucy says.
“Yeah, well, welcome to the Wasteland,” Max responds.
They hold hands and look out at a deeply uncertain future. As the camera pans out, the screen flickers, and House appears for a second. It appears the ruthless mastermind isn’t quite dead yet.
That’s where Fallout ends—except it has one last surprise up its sleeve. In a post-credits scene, Dean (Xelia Mendes-Jones) meets with the leader of the Brotherhood of Steel, Quintus (Michael Cristofer). Dean delivers the “remnants” Quintus requests. “What is it?,” he asks the leader.
Quintus responds in riddles: “Out of the virtue in my heart, I tried to unify the brotherhood. Look what it got me. Quintus the unifier is dead. Quintus the destroyer is born,” he says, revealing the blueprints for Liberty Prime Alpha. For those unfamiliar with the games, Liberty Prime is considered the most powerful of all the combat robots and plays a key role in both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. If the Brotherhood can successfully build a Liberty Prime robot, the war in the wasteland is going to get ugly—and extremely violent—fast.
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