Episode Two of the Fallout TV series begins . . .
LEFTOVER NINE
Small puppies in a laboratory. A sign on the wall says, “Incinerate newborns less than 10 ounces.” We see one rat-sized pup tossed into the fire. A doctor — wearing round glasses and looking like our bingo man — furtively weighs a pup who is just under the limit. He records a fake weight and brands the pup’s belly with a number, CX404. (For some reason the pups are born blackened as if they’ve been soaked in tar.)
Iris-fade to a proper puppy being weighed. Our Glasses Doctor picks it up, petting it, and carries it out of Behavioral Engineering. He takes it through a security checkpoint and past grown dogs being identically trained. In his office (his name, Dr. Wilzig is on the door) he encourages the puppy with treats and a stuffed teddy bear. (YAY! Dogmeat in game will randomly toss about a teddy.)
Transition to a bigger puppy, and then a dog. Wilzig continues to gently train CX. Behind his office chalkboard is a hole in the wall where CX has her bed. He’s developing something: A blue glowing chip in a glass jar. Taking a swig for the pain, Wilzig injects the chip behind his own ear, then cauterizes the site. CX watches as he writhes. Behind his ear and under the skin we can see the glow of blue from the chip.
He’s just putting CX back in her cubby when another doctor walks in and begins arguing with him. They struggle, and Wilzig is pushed down. Out comes CX, charging and attacking. Blood.
Wilzig leads CX out of the facility, escaping. Just as they get clear, a machine gun turret (YAY!) pops up. He and CX run away. In the background are high, snowy mountains and dim light. (Anchorage?)
Roll title card.
ONE
We’re back with Lucy on the beach at sunset. She walks past a hulking shipwreck rotting in the dunes. A tumbleweed blowing by startles and amazes her. A derelict robot (an assaultron!!) rusting on the ground catches her eye. She enters an abandoned house filled with drifting sand. Skeletons, including a toddler and baby, remain sitting at the dining table. Among the dishes is a bottle marked: Vault-Tec Plan D, Econo Savings Pack. It’s poison for those who couldn’t afford to reserve a vault space. Horrified, Lucy keeps walking.
TWO
In the last light of the day, Lucy builds a campfire. She removes her Pip Boy and lies down to sleep. A dog’s growling wakes her. It runs past and comes back with a radroach (YAY!) that it kills. There’s Wilzig, so this must be CX. He gives Lucy a scientific explanation of roach evolution and warns her against lighting a fire after dark. She asks for information about her father, kidnapped by Moldaver. Wilzig tells her to go home, but she won’t. Calling for the dog (he names her “Four”), Wilzig leaves.
THREE
Daylight and a vertibird flying over a body of water. (It’s a gorgeous shot.)
FOUR
Inside the ‘bird Maximus tries to make chit chat with the inscrutable Knight Titus. Titus tosses him the loin armor and tells him to clean it.
(The voice from the power armor is modulated to be deep and unspecific. We realize that anyone — man, woman, big, small — could be inside the suit. It’s purposely unnerving.)
The vertibird now flies over land. Maximus tries to replace the cleaned loin piece, kneeling in front of Titus and looking very unsure. Finally, Titus smacks him away. “Set us down,” he tells the pilot. Titus wants to shoot something. Arguing, Maximus says they’re to look for a town called Filly. As an answer, Titus tosses out the caddy bag, hooks Maximus by the shoulder straps, and lowers them both out the door. (BOO! One of the beauties of wearing power armor is that you can survive a jump from any height. I wish they had let him pound to the ground.) The vertibird flies away.
Cut to Wilzig and Four as they take a break from hiking. Wilzig opens a can of Cram (YAY!) and Four moves to investigate a cave marked as hazardous waste. (In the game, Dogmeat is impervious to radiation. I assume Four has the same immunity.) She returns carrying a human forearm. Looking around, Wilzig notices bones strewn about. A roar comes from the cave.
Back to Titus striding through the woods with Maximus struggling behind with the caddy bag. (The locations have similar vegetation, suggesting that they and Wilzig are near each other.) Yes. They arrive at Wilzig’s resting place, his opened Cram can on the ground. Maximus notices it and Wilzig’s discarded lab coat. Their target was here.
Something growls. Maximus looks down with alarm at the bones and Titus drops an f-bomb. While Maximus draws a handgun and follows, Titus enters the cave. In his shiny and impressive armor, Titus stands aside and orders Maximus to investigate.
From the cave, Maximus reports that he sees nothing. Turning to Titus, he and we see a Yao Guai (a mutated bear) rising onto its rear legs behind him. Larger than Titus, the bear bites his rifle in half and mauls the armor’s chest plate. Dropping a million f-bombs, Titus looks at Maximus and runs away.
The bear chases, knocking Titus to the ground face first. Maximus comes from the cave and watches in horror and fascination. It bats Titus around and chews on his head. Finally, Maximus takes the shot and drops it. (I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, but it’s a fairly hilarious scene, like a Monty Python skit.) Titus sits up against the bear and asks for help. Maximus removes the helmet, lingering on the mysterious reveal. Knight Titus is played perfectly by Michael Rapaport. He continues to moan, blame, and curse. Blood coming from his mouth, Titus demands a stimpak. He berates Maximus, who’s digging through the ridiculously oversized backpack. As Maximus finds the med kit and holds the stimpak, Titus tells him how he’ll be executed for being such a bad Squire. (Moten is silent and fabulous during this whole scene.) We get a Young Maximus flashback to that golden moment when he first saw a Knight. “You don’t deserve that armor,” grown Maximus says to Titus. Realizing, Titus say, “They’ll kill you for this.” Maximus replies, “Not if I bring back the target.”
Fade to black.
SWITCH
Fade in on a wastelander in the dunes banging on a bucket of water. Lucy calls out a hello to him. She’s got her tranq gun ready, but she’s mostly waving. Friendly, she approaches. He wears a loincloth made of rags. (He has a tato plant in his sand yard. YAY!) We have no idea how dangerous he is, and Lucy is oblivious. However, all he does is drink her bottle of purified water because she has no idea how precious it is. He asks if she’s headed to Filly, over that hill. Waving goodbye, she walks toward town.
Maximus sports the BoS uniform, clothing designed to be worn under the power armor. The armor stands open, ready to be climbed into. As he pushes his head into the helmet and the hud activates, the armor closes behind him. (YAY! It’s so much like in the game.) Smiling, he tests the suit, punching and dancing. A large claw scrape mars the chest plate and pauldron. He finds two men fighting and intervenes, enjoying the suit’s strength. Inadvertently, he discovers jets at the wrist joints.
FIVE
Back to Lucy as she approaches Filly. Outside of town is a marketplace or a bazaar, with commerce and an odd assortment of people. (It’s also leafy and green, something the game only offers via mods. In theory, everything living died or continues to struggle.) Through a corrugated pipe, Lucy enters the town proper. Like Fallout 4’s Diamond City, Filly has a central square with storefronts around it.
As Lucy stands and admires, we see leather gloves in the foreground. Someone (Cooper, we’re sure) sits in a rocking chair and fondles an empty vial. In her blue vault jumpsuit, Lucy sticks out like a neon sign. She notices a Pip Boy in a supply store window and enters. Across the square we see the back of Cooper’s head as he watches her. Reverse angle and reveal him, in case we were confused.
Inside the store, Lucy sees a Vault Boy bobblehead, her reassuring talisman. She chats up the shopkeep, Ma June, until she can ask about Moldaver. Ma has been laughing at the ridiculous vault dweller in front of her until she hears the name. Everything in her attitude changes. Take your clean hair, nice teeth, and all ten fingers, and get out of here. Lucy, a true believer, starts sympathizing with Ma’s rough life and explaining that the vaults would save America. Ma says that vaults were just a hole for the rich people to hide in. Disillusioned, Lucy leaves the shop.
Coming into town are Wilzig and Four. As Lucy exits Ma’s, Wilzig sends Four in through the door for a bowl of grub. Recognizing Lucy, Wilzig says hello and go home. She replies that no one understands. He identifies her vault (the number is on her clothes) and tells her all kinds of details: you grow corn, your projector loops the Nebraska countryside, you live in a meritocracy where people do the right thing.
Ma comes out. “You Wilzig? Come inside.” As he steps toward the door, from across the square Cooper calls out his name. People fear Cooper and shy away from him. Lucy, seeing her first ghoul, stares. Ma, unafraid, says she won’t serve his kind.
“A bounty came in through all six agencies,” Cooper says. A hefty price is on Wilzig’s head. Ma argues that she’s already been paid to protect him and get him safely out of Filly.
Cooper blows away Wilzig’s lower left leg.
Ma dives for cover, and the shooting begins. Everyone’s gunning for Cooper and he’s gunning back. Lucy dashes into the shop. During the commotion, she looks through Ma’s bookkeeping until she finds the name Moldaver.
Ma takes a bullet and goes down. Cooper, having cleared the town, approaches Wilzig, bleeding on the ground. From the shop, Four growls and charges Cooper. He takes his knife and stabs her in the side. (What? DOGMEAT, nooo!) Hearing, Lucy turns back to the books, but the Vault Boy bobblehead on the desk is watching. Unholstering her tranq gun, Lucy steps out and confronts Cooper, diplomatically addressing him. Cooper, amused, takes a step forward and she shoots him. “That is a very small drop in a very large bucket of drugs,” he says, pulling out the dart. He points his gun at her.
SIX
From behind, Maximus flies in with his wrist jets and lands, telling Cooper to back off. Lucy looks at him like a hero. He introduces himself as Knight Titus. Laughing, Cooper prepares to shoot. Maximus dives forward, rescuing Lucy and landing with her in the shop. As they look at each other, he opens the armor face plate, showing his real self. He tells Lucy to save Wilzig while he takes care of “the ghoul”.
SEVEN
A little clumsy, Maximus still manages to punch Cooper and send him flying into a staircase. Ma and Lucy help Wilzig. In the back room Ma looks for a replacement foot. Meanwhile, Lucy watches the Knight, impressed. Finding the right box, Ma attaches some kind of grinder onto Wilzig’s leg, and then screws on a metal foot. They agree that the only person they can trust, Lucy, is the one who should take Wilzig to Ma’s client. She refuses until she learns that the client is Moldaver, and Wilzig is her leverage to get close. Ma inputs the coordinates into Lucy’s Pip Boy. She helps him onto his feet and sends the pair out the back door.
EIGHT
In the square, Maximus continues to fight Cooper, tossing him like a rag doll. Maximus smiles in his helmet when he sees Lucy and Wilzig escape. He flies over to finish off Cooper and lands on a board, breaking through. With his heavy suit and oversized metal boot he’s stuck. Laughing, Cooper mocks him: You drive this like a shopping cart. From behind, Cooper slashes the helmet’s intake hose. (Remember, pre-apocalypse Cooper was a Marine and probably used one of these very suits.) Maximus tries to fly away, but the suit won’t function properly. Cooper lassoes him with a tow truck hook and whip-shots him out of town.
Meanwhile, Lucy and Wilzig exit through the corrugated pipe along with everyone else. He is obviously in pain, but he limps on. Maximus, flying overhead out of control, lands hard in a dump.
Cooper enters Ma’s shop. He sees the blood pool on the floor and the “Jim’s Limbs” box, empty. (Never heard of it, but YAY! Good prop invention!) Leaving the shop, he looks around. Lying in the square, giving a small whimper, is Four. Cooper notices her. He brings her into the shop and administers a stimpak. And she’s up! (YAY! for the dog and YAY! for the Fallout science of miraculous healing.) Cooper smiles. They leave town together while business in the square resumes.
NINE
Lucy and Wilzig hike through the dust of the Wasteland. They rest at a downed Soviet satellite. Collapsing, he says, “I’m not going to make it.” Lucy gives a perky, can-do answer. He’s just taken cyanide, though. Vault-Tec Plan D. “You can change the future if you can bring me to Moldaver.”
Not his whole body. Just his head. He has a portable chainsaw in his bag. (Haha!)
Trying to persuade her, he says, “Okay, Ms. MacLean?” How do you know my name, she asks? But he’s dead. After staring out at the vast nothing (except for the ruins of a Slocum Joe’s donut shop — YAY!) of the Wasteland, she fires up the saw. “Okey dokey.”
Roll credits.
CRITICAL NOTES
I’ll count the Three/Six as functioning beats. We see heroic flying, basically. Visually, the Three is spectacular and the Six is mundane, but to Lucy the arrival of an airborne Knight is exciting.
Everything else is structurally in order. However, I think the Switch choice was unfortunate. It’s a look at everyday wastelander life from our two protagonists’ perspectives. I didn’t find the scenes amusing or particularly true to Fallout. Why didn’t they just pluck a couple of fun characters from the game? (Remember Moira from Fallout 3 and her insane quest to have you use a stick on a rabid molerat while she cheerfully warns you not to die?) We spend way too long with the guy in the rag loincloth. Lucy’s a cock-eyed optimist; we get it. The Wasteland will eat her alive if she doesn’t wise up; we get it. And why does Maximus need to meet a chicken-using degenerate in order to find his wrist jets? Neither of these scenes is something I want or need to watch in order to advance the story and characters.
Other than that, though, a lot of YAY!s in this episode. Dogmeat/Four is introduced beautifully. Wilzig and his knowledge of the vaults is intriguing, advancing what I believe will be the main story for this season: what is Vault-Tec up to? It’s always been a fascinating topic in the games and it has a lot of potential here in the series.
And our three main characters have crossed paths and begun to intertwine. Good storytelling.