Over the last couple of installments, I’ve been picking holes in the Fallout’s decision to limit its focus to only a couple of plot threads per episode when it has around four or five going at only one time. While I have to urge that none of the last three offerings have been examples of bad television, the decision to drop whole threads for an episode or two means that the overall pace of the show suffered a little – want to call in to see what Walton Goggins’ Ghoul is up to? Not this week, sorry. Curious about what conspiracy Norm is going to uncover in Vault 32? Maybe next episode, guy. Desperate to find out what Thaddeus has done with Wilzig’s head? Better be patient, citizens.
However, with its penultimate episode, Fallout goes back to the rapid-fire intercutting that made the pace of the earlier episodes move like shit off the proverbial shovel – but is the switch to catching us up with virtually everything that it’s set up so far mean that matters are going to get somewhat crowed as Fallout rounds the final corner?
After discovering the human experiments that lurks within the bowels of Vault 4, Lucy has to face the repercussions for her violent actions, but after Maximus manages to shake his attraction to sitting around on a bathrobe and nibbling on popcorn, he manages to fire his power armour up and go on a rescue rampage. However, in a rather embarrassing faux par, Vault 4’s grim retribution is merely to banish Lucy with two weeks of rations and after making the appropriate apologies, the two leave. However, after all she’s been through, Lucy is still determined to stick to her honest ideals and convinces Maximus to return Vault 4’s power core before it causes their home to break down, even though it means that the two will have to continue without that deeply useful power armour.
Meanwhile, the Ghoul still is having flashbacks to a time before the bombing, and after meeting with Moldava (who we know is somehow still alive 200 years later when she kidnapped Lucy’s father), is convinced to bring a listening device into his home in order to get the dirt on Vault-Tec via his wife. Why is Moldaver targeting Vault-Tec? Because they shelved her cold fusion project in the face of dwindling oil supplies and shes convinced that the company is trying to privatise the end of the world in order to have a monopoly on everything. However, on the bright side, he gets reunited with CX404, the intelligent hound that once belonged to the owner of the severed head that’s gotten everyone so riled.
And what of Thaddeus, former squire of Maximus and current holder of said severed noggin? Well, he’s not doing so good after drinking a mystery elixir to help with a managed foot and after he realises that he’s turning into a Ghoul, he knows that a return to the Brotherhood of Steel is impossible.
Finally, Lucy’s brother, Norm, finally takes the plunge and hacks his way into Vault 31, where hopefully he’ll find evidence that connects everything together into one, neat, dystopian package.
So, while the influx of plot threads means The Radio provides something of a garbled recording, it is nice to get that faster pace back in action once again, evening the result can sometimes be a little bewildering. After all, in just one episode we cover two Vaults, two macguffins, 200 year old flashbacks, a belated reappearance of an animal character and at least three different angles of the same conspiracy, so if you haven’t been paying attention the last four episodes, things get quite dense.
And yet, despite a few wobbles (random cameos from Fred Armisen and Erik Estrada are fun but a little distracting), this seventh episode does a fairly good job of pushing through a lot of information while still finding time for little character beats as it goes. The main one is the highly sexed Lucy shooting her shot with Maximus, sharing a kiss and asking him to join her in Vault 33 if they ever make it back. While this outpouring of love does seem a little sudden (the two haven’t spent that much time together) it is within character – especially Lucy’s – and it’s nice that the two get a little moment before things will probably go straight to hell.
Goggins’ Ghoul gets a less great shake of the stick as his case of flashback-itis means that he’s more of a gateway to some much needed backstory than the swaggering gunslinger that’s become such a fan favorite. Still, he gets to do some cool, cold-blooded, spaghetti western shizzle at the start of the episode and he’s finally reunited with CX404 at the end of it – a partnership I’ve desperately wanted more of.
However, the most mesmerising moments in this installment belong to both Thaddeus and Norm, arguably the two members of the cast that a pure opportunists for very different reasons. Firstly, Thaddeus reveals how small time he really is after finally securing that severed head, but is brought low by the fact that, for all his bluster, he’s no better prepared for this world than Lucy or Maximus. I get he’s got a horrifically mangled foot thanks to Maximus, but chugging down a mystery liquid from that con-artist from the first couple of episodes is about at smart as going shark fishing in a rubber ring. Still, as his fate as a Ghoul-to-be is all but set – bright side: it helped him survive an accidental arrow to the neck – at least he does the decent thing and voluntarily give up the head to Lucy as he flees the approaching Brotherhood.
That leaves us with Norm, who weirdly has become the show’s (literal) underground hero as his attempts to crack the Vault conspiracy finally pays off after the plan to repopulate Vault 32 gets well underway. With Stephanie nominated as the new Overseer – yet another leader born from Vault 31 – and the raiders poisoned by a mysterious killer, Lucy’s brother finally has the opening he needs to crack the computer system, contact 31 under the identity of Overseer Betty, he finally convinces the shadowy Vault to open its doors. What does he find? We’ll find out next time, but no doubt it’ll be something that not only blows this conspiracy wide open, but will link up everything our disparate characters have discovered so far.
The only question left now is, is it going to be worth the wait? Well, seeing as Fallout has already been granted a second season, I’m certainly not expecting everything to be tied up in a tattered, raggedy, irradiated bow, but it would be nice to get a little closure. But with that bring said, it’s not like fellow video game adaptation Halo bothered to give a simple, contained ending, so anything goes, I guess.
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