ONE
Gunfire, snow, and vertibirds.
Title card: The Alaskan Front
It’s the pre-apocalypse Battle of Anchorage. The Marines wear the janky T-45 power armor. Charlie’s left arm starts sparking and malfunctioning. Cooper orders him to return to base. Instead of following him, though, Coop continues his search for the missing unit. Falling snow and burning equipment in the dark make it hard to see.
TWO
Gunfire and approaching troops. Cooper tries to return fire, but his left leg armor sparks and locks up. He falls over like a tree. The Chinese soldiers approach and mock him as he lies helpless. Behind them, through the flames and snow, Cooper sees a beast approaching. We know what it is, although Coop doesn’t. He tries to signal with his eyes as the deathclaw comes up and eviscerates the troops. He’s terrified as the deathclaw breathes on his face. It leaves without touching him, though, and word comes over the radio that the battle is won. Cooper tries to say that it wasn’t the soldiers that routed the Chinese, but no one is listening.
Title card: Fallout
An overhead shot of Cooper lying on his side, helpless in the snow, is mirrored here as Max looks down at Xander’s dead body. It’s the moment immediately after Max drove the super sledge into Xander’s head at the end of the last episode.
THREE
Thaddeus pretends he doesn’t hear the approaching vertibird. He’s going to get back to work.
FOUR
Max steps out of his power armor to persuade Thaddeus: You have to come with me. Wear the armor and say your name is Xander. If the Brotherhood comes in here they’ll kill all the ghoul children.
Cut to a Knight outside the building, looking around. Max, in fatigues, comes out the door and tells the Knight that their vertibird broke down. Behind him, “Xander” comically struggles to get the power armor through the doorway. (Moten’s face during this is priceless.) They load into the vertibird and leave the Sunset Sarsparilla factory behind.
Now we’re with Lucy as she’s medically treated at the NCR camp with an IV of Buffout. (It comes in IVs? Lolol. My ghoul toon in Fallout 76 would surely appreciate that.) The remaining duo prepares to break camp and leave, now that the Legion is too busy infighting to notice. Lucy thanks them, sidesteps any mention of her father, who’s responsible for the destruction of the NCR outpost at Shady Sands, and heads out with Ghoul Cooper and Dogmeat. Fade to black.
In Vault 33, Reg’s Shame Group has become extremely popular. Maybe it’s the snack budget, which includes unlimited drinking water. The rest of the vault is rationing, using eye droppers to water the vegetable plants. Here comes Reg, so happy at his group’s popularity, ready to refill his water jugs. Overseer Betty, who’s instigated austerity measures, can’t stop him. She signed off on his budget when she formed his club’s charter.
Lucy, walking with Ghoul Cooper, can’t understand why she’s so fidgety. He must explain that she’s addicted to drugs now. (Two days on a Buffout drip!) For the greater good — continuing to pursue her father rather than taking a week to detox — Lucy decides to pop more Buffout.
Max’s vertibird docks at the airship and he disembarks. Dane comes up to him, giving Max a hard time for disappearing with the Commonwealth emissary. Cut to Thaddeus in Xander’s power armor, backing out of the vertibird like a toddler. Giving Max a burning look, Dane says, “What did you do?” Max’s response: get all the kids to safety.
SWITCH
Bud’s Buds, out in the Wasteland, eat voraciously while Norm counsels them to conserve resources. (The parallel with Reg’s group is well done.) Claudia, the only one not eating, tries to take it all in. She was an employee at Vault-Tec for a mere week before going into cryo. (Clearly, the show is ‘shipping her with Norm.) Ronnie interrupts them. (And he’s clearly Norm’s antagonist.) He follows Norm’s orders. For now.
FIVE
Woody and Davey miss the old vault. (Right and left turns are so confusing in Vault 32, lol.) Meanwhile, Overseers Steph and Betty meet secretly in the vault junction. They’ve noticed that Vault 31, the one holding Bud’s Buds, is now empty. Betty asks for help with her water situation, but Steph plays hard ball. She wants a Keepsake Box from 31 first. Woody, lost and turned around, overhears their conversation.
Ghoul Coop and Lucy have arrived at Las Vegas, but something isn’t right. The Securitrons are destroyed. A ghoul gang of Elvis impersonators guard the entrance to the city. Coop wants to turn around and use the Freeside entrance; Lucy wants the fastest route to her father. Hopped up on Buffout, Lucy takes the direct approach: shotgun blasts to the kneecaps. After that, she goes a little gun crazy, taking pleasure in her ghoul-killing spree.
Back at Area 51, Thaddeus is the only Knight wearing power armor in the mess hall. He gives himself a pep talk, which everyone can hear because of the power armor voice speaker. Meanwhile, Dane has safely segregated the teen Aspirants. Max finds Quintus alone and draws his laser pistol. In the mess hall, the other Clerics confront “Xander”, trying to undercut each other and make a deal with the Commonwealth. Dane enters the deserted tech room and approaches the cold fusion relic.
Quintus, with Max’s gun pointed at him, pulls the “I found you in Shady Sands” card. He asks Max for his plan. How will he keep people from starving? (Great scene for Moten.) When Quintus understands that Max killed Xander in order to save ghoul children, he pulls a gun and starts shooting at him.
SIX
In the mess hall, one of the Clerics realizes the artifact is stolen and blames the others. They start killing each other while Thaddeus ducks his power armor head and beelines for the exit.
SEVEN
Dodging gun fire, Max dives out the door and chains Quintus inside. Dane rushes up and gives Max the cold fusion relic.
EIGHT
Thaddeus, running in power armor as if he’s a character from Toy Story, leads the way as he and Max escape. Cut to the exterior as airships over Area 51 shoot at each other. Max and Thaddeus dash over the dunes and away from the battle. (The visuals are gorgeous.) Fade to black.
Chet folds laundry in the bedroom while Woody meets with Overseer Steph in the living room. A rule-follower, Woody is here to report to the Overseer that the Overseer has violated the rules by entering the Inter-Vault space. Chet listens while finishing the laundry. In the sock drawer he discovers a false bottom; inside is a wallet with Steph’s Canadian driver’s license.
Although the lights are on in Vegas, no one’s home. Ghoul Cooper, unsettled, senses radiation. Something inside the Gomorrah casino starts to growl. Suspense builds. A deathclaw crashes through the door. Stunned, Lucy says, “Okey dokey.”
NINE
Roll credits.
CRITICAL NOTES
I only have one complaint about this episode’s plot structure, which you’ll see below. Every number, except the burp in the Eight, is a solid choice. The Seven is particularly consequential: Max chooses not to kill Quintus, and Dane chooses to entrust the cold fusion to Max. I like clear decision moments in a Seven.
I’ll count that Three/Six Mirror as legitimate, even though it’s sketchy. Thaddeus’ selfish ineptitude is the throughline. He’s a well-written and -acted Fool archetype. The visual Mirror is missing, but his character consistency works. He’s good at dodging responsibility and staying alive.
The Twos and Eights also resonate. From the deathclaw at the Battle of Anchorage with Coop to the deathclaw in Vegas — this is a textbook structure for anticipating the episode’s climax. The same with Max. His action at the Two, killing Xander, reaches fruition in the Eight when Quintus shoots at him for choosing “abominations” over the Brotherhood. Both arcs play out with an expected and satisfying structure.
The addition of Woody’s confrontation with Steph at the Eight is unfortunate. This should’ve been resolved in the Five. I understand why the showrunners carried it over: they had delicious momentum going with Max that they didn’t want to ruin. Shoehorning a Vault scene into the Eight, though, is awkward. Norm at the Switch is a good usage. (The Vault choices have been hit and miss for me all season.)
My biggest fan service beef with this episode: Taking chems like Buffout is an integral part of the Fallout gameplay. Different drugs give different boosts and detriments (usually a loss in intelligence, lol). Buffout grants strength and endurance. Jet slows down time. Their combination, Buffjet, is my favorite if I play a chem-using toon. For about five seconds you can destroy enemies in slowmo. It’s awesome. Why didn’t they give Lucy the game power? It would’ve been visually amazing. They gave her a generic drug addiction instead of tapping into the ridiculous side of Fallout. A chance for fun, missed. So disappointing.
Also, lol: Boy, they really exaggerated the size of deathclaws for the show. For reference, here’s the view from my newest baby toon in Fallout 76 as she kites around a bench. The deathclaws may be smaller in game, but they’re fast.
Yes, I died.