As we pass through the mid-point of Fallout’s eight episode run, it seems we’re very much in the eye of the storm or that section over very videogame where you’re just wandering aimlessly, searching for shit. The last episode saw both the eternally optimistic Lucy and the ruthless Ghoul have a little stop over at the side-mission hotel as they dealt with the noseless gunslinger’s ailing heath, so I guess its only fair that Maximus gets the same treatment as the secrets hidden within Wilzig’s severed head go unanswered for another episode. To be fair, Maximus can more than hold his own when it comes to the tragic backstory stakes and his desperate attempts to prove himself are slowly being eclipsed by the ruthless acts he’s repeatedly been asked to perform in order to keep his secret. However, after finally getting to spend time with the thoroughly decent Lucy, can Maximus finally live up to the potential he’s set himself?
The last we saw of Wilzig’s head, it was being forcefully removed from the gullet of a carnivorous Gulper (that’s a giant salamander to you and me) along with a torrent of internal organs and in the wake of their triumphant victory, Maxuimus and his squire, Thaddeus, celebrate in front of a campfire. However, there’s a fair amount of backstory going on here that the squire isn’t aware of and it all involves Maximus’ ongoing subterfuge – you see, he isn’t a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel anymore than Thaddeus is and has only taken the identity and armour of the Knight Titus after letting him bleed out after a fight with a mutant bear. Worse yet, Thaddeus was instrumental in the beatings Maximus used to take back in training to be a squire, but after bonding after their recent success, the wannabe knight decides to reveal his true identity to his former enemy.
Unsurprisingly, it turns out to be a bad move and Thaddeus takes this revelation about as bad as you’d expect, so once again Maximus is forced to pull off some unknightly behavior in order to keep his secret – however, not only does Thaddeus manage to remove the suit’s power source, leaving Maximus trapped inside the thing, but the squire takes the severed head, intending to complete the mission himself.
It seems that Maximus’ goose is cooked until the arrival of Lucy McClane, who requires medical attention after swinging irradiated rain water in the last episode and after helping each other out, the two form a union to take back that pesky head. However, once again, it seems that Lucy is about to receive some harsh lessons about life on the surface that mirrors the seismic discoveries her brother, Norm, is making back in Vault 33. After Betty is voted in as new Overseer, he notices that every single Overseer before her, including his own father, was originally sent here from Vault 31. What significance does this hold, and what does this have to do with Betty wanting to populate the decimated Vault 32?
So, as we find ourselves deep in side-mission territory, there’s an ever so slight feeling that Fallout has briefly gone off the boil. Yes, the continuing conspiracy that’s unraveling between Vaults 31, 32 and 33 is still percolating nicely and a proper union between Lucy and Maxumus is long overdue, but the problem with The Past is that it’s really just similar beats to the previous episode just bring replayed, but without the benefit of Walton Goggins’ intensely entertaining Ghoul. Essentially, Norm discovers some more clandestine shit while Lucy gets more hard lessons about life on the surface, but while the last episode had Lucy tangling with a soft spoken medical robot who wanted to harvest her organs, here she simply strikes up a friendship with Maximus and has to negotiate a bridge with a couple of unsavory characters – so it’s basically the same thing, just way less cool.
The relationship between Ella Purnell’s heroine and Aaron Moten’s truth avoiding Knight is fine, but it does feel weirdly derivative of the Ray/Finn relationship from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and it certainly isn’t as fun as the hate/hate relationship between our lead and the callous Ghoul. Once again, Lucy has her ideals tested by a couple of Fiends (cannibals, in case you were wondering) who prove to be as untrustworthy as the Vault Dweller is honest and while Maximus has to show her the hard way that no one is to trusted in this vicious world – which is painfully ironic, considering his own complicated relationship with the truth.
However, the whole escapade just feels a little too vanilla and simple, especially compared to all the freaky shit we’ve already seen up to this point and it’s fairly obvious it’s only here to set up other stuff down the line as Thaddeus now has the head and Lucy and Maximus end up in an entirely new Vault by the end of the epidode.
However, keeping the epidode burning is the subplot involving Norm trying to uncover the mystery behind the mass deaths that occured within Vault 32 and after newly crowned Overseer, Betty, trounces her opposition (Woody only put up 10 posters in order to secure votes), she immediately declares that the population of Vault 33 be split in half in order to refill Vault 32. However, what’s really creepy is that when Norm goes back to the scene of all that madness and despair after secretly sneaking in the epidode prior, all the skeletal corpses and eerie messages scrawled in blood have already been disposed of and painted over. To make things extra creepy, it helps that the current face of all this conspirital action is the kindly visage of Leslie Uggams who is probably most recognized these days for playing the cocaine loving Blind Al in the Deadpool movies, but as intriguing as this plot thread is getting, it still doesn’t distract from the fact that this episode is just way too similar to the last.
However, the ending hints that we should be getting something different after the ending sees Lucy and Maximus stumble on another Vault and I’m sure what they find here will somehow be disturbing, messed up and will no doubt mirror what’s currently going on with Norm. But truth be told, The Past is a rare misstep from a show that usually moves with impressive momentum that’s suddenly going round in circles like a busted gamepad.
Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon…
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