(Image credit: Prime Video)

Please note: major spoilers for Fallout Season 2 Episode 2!

I praised the continuing use of flashbacks in my Fallout Season 2 review, and this episode opens with a perfect example. We've seen Shady Sands at its peak in Lucy's memory, as she realized her childhood recollection of an idealized cornfield actually took place during the brief time she spent there with her mother, but now we get to see it through the eyes of young Maximus.

He's the same age as he was in last season's flashback to the immediate aftermath of the bombing, so we know something's likely to go wrong even as we tour idyllic suburbs patrolled by NCR troopers—one in veteran ranger armor complete with duster and gas mask.

Max's father investigates the caravan, revealing an atom bomb counting down. Sending young Max home, his father attempts to defuse the bomb but a failsafe activates, accompanied by a cheerful Vault Boy thumbs-up on the display. With only three minutes on the timer, he runs home to pack his son into the refrigerator and have a teary goodbye with his wife just as the explosion goes off.

That Hank, what a prick. Doesn't he know how much time we spent helping Shady Sands get on its feet in the first game? I cleared a cave full of radscorpions for that town at low level, you absolute asshole. And here he is, receiving a "detonation successful" notification on his Pip-Boy then settling down to read The Wind in the Willows to young Lucy.

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Like the first season, Fallout Season 2 sometimes goes a whole episode without checking in on one of its protagonists. The lack of Maximus in the previous episode is made up for here, and we see him in full power armor, now a knight of the Brotherhood, on a mission that involves taking down feral ghouls with detached efficiency.

At the end of the mission Maximus recovers an artifact that Elder Cleric Quintus calls "the key to our new home" as he uses it to unearth Area 51. That's right, the place Fallout has been joking about since the random encounter with an alien ship in the very first game is going to be scavenged for cool tech by the Brotherhood. Quintus is so pleased he calls Maximus, "my son."

(Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

Lucy's attempts to instill manners into The Ghoul have extended to reciting the plot of A Christmas Carol as they cross the Mojave. When they hear a scream in an abandoned building called Affordable Al's Discount Hospital (where lobotomies are "HALF/OFF!") he's happy to continue on but Lucy insists they investigate.

In a dark basement beneath the Orthopedics and Environmental Storytelling department they find an injured man and woman in tunics The Ghoul recognizes. "Folks in them outfits don't deserve saving," he says, but Lucy's got one stimpak left and some karma points to earn. The Ghoul disagrees, slitting one's throat and declaring him "dinner". But dinner disagrees with him, and The Ghoul coughs up the first morsel he tries. The man was poisoned by a radscorpion, and the swarm quickly returns.

Though the juveniles are dealt with by gunshot and frying pan, when a full-grown adult arrives it's a tougher customer. The Ghoul resorts to using the injured woman as a shield, though he gets poisoned anyway as soon as Lucy drags her away, and he resorts to feeding the radscorpion a grenade. "Fuck you, sweetheart!"

(Image credit: Prime Video)

Lucy's faced with a videogame-esque Tough Decision. Tunic and The Ghoul are both begging for help and she's only got one stimpak left. Reasoning that The Ghoul will eventually recover on his own, Lucy heals Tunic and offers to help her home. When The Ghoul reminds Lucy about the Golden Rule she mentioned in season one ("Do unto others as you would have done unto you"), she says that rule is for people, not whatever The Ghoul is.

Though she still swears to come back for him after dropping off Tunic, because Lucy really is committed to her paragon playthrough. The extent of her idealism is going to be tested though, as the home she helps the woman back to is clearly a Legion camp.

Hank's experiments at Vault-Tec continue, and after going through a bunch of white mice, he moves on to members of the Premium Elite. Meanwhile, Norm tells the thawing junior executives of Vault 31 that it's Reclamation Day, though they panic on being told Bud Askins is dead and they're all trapped.

(Image credit: Prime Video)

He calms them by offering merit dots (actually sticking plasters) if they help continue the Vault-Tec corporate strategy by finding a way to escape, and as Johnny Mercer sings Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive they form a human ladder to reach a ventilation shaft. As they climb out onto the surface, Norm has his first glimpse of the ocean and is overcome with the beauty.

"Aw, man," complains one of the junior executives. "The mall's gone."

Back in Area 51, the Brotherhood of Steel examines a treasure trove of technology. Two of them unearth a refrigerated alien corpse and gaze in awe. "Holy shit," one says, turfing the alien. "A real fuckin' icebox!"

While the Brotherhood bros are having fun, Maximus doesn't seem satisfied to be ensconced within the Brotherhood at last. He has to tell the knights not to play with grenades indoors, and explains to a junior why bathing is worthwhile. (I bet these guys have the crustiest butts.) He tries to explain why he's sticking around to Dane, saying, "The Brotherhood is as good as it gets. I'm just trying to make it better."

(Image credit: Prime Video)

At which point a bunch of airships from the other chapters arrive. (The sentry is on a toilet when they show and pulls his pants up without wiping, see what I'm talking about? So crusty.) Maximus is a member of the Knights of San Fernando, and now we meet the heads of the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Coronado chapters.

As Coronado points out, the Commonwealth is missing from this party. Elder Cleric Quintus says that's because the Commonwealth would just take their shiny new cold fusion relic away and give them nothing in return. He thinks it's time the other chapters banded together and took them down a peg, and though they have their differences a gift basket that's actually a crate full of fusion cores for each changes their minds.

Later, the chapters celebrate their alliance by watching two knights have a power-armor fistfight, which Maximus is deeply unmoved by. Then he's challenged by a gigantic brute, though this fight will be "bareback". Before Max can even get his jacket off, his opponent immediately begins kicking the shit out of him.

What he doesn't know is that Maximus has a perk that powers up when he takes a beating, and the fight soon turns. The giant escalates by pulling a boot-knife, which Max stabs him with. As the man dies almost everyone cheers, except disapproving Dane.

Then a vertibird arrives bearing a surprise guest: Paladin Harkness, a liaison from the Commonwealth played by Kumail Nanjiani, who heard they were planning a civil war and didn't even think to invite him.

Pip-Boy Pointers

(Image credit: Garry's Mod)

👽 Area 51: Like Vault 24 in the previous episode, Area 51 is cut content from the videogames. It was intended to be a location in Fallout 2—Joanne Lynette would have been found there instead of Vault City, leading a band of scientists.

As well as the alien corpse and a variety of statues, the artifacts in Area 51 include the Ark of the Covenant and the US Constitution. I'm sure the Brotherhood will take good care of them. At least they've got something to wipe their butts with now.

🪖 Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter: This bark, repeated at random by NCR troopers, is so commonly heard in Fallout: New Vegas it's become a meme. There's even a mod to punish any NPC who utters it.

PATROLLING THE MOJAVE - YouTube

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🚢 Brotherhood airships: In Fallout 4, the Commonwealth Brotherhood has an airship called the Prydwen. Though a pre-release article about the Fallout TV series in Variety said the show's airship was called the Caswennan, in season one the name Prydwen could be made out on its hull. Now we've got confirmation the Brotherhood maintains multiple airships. Are they all "Prydwen-class" ships? Is one of these the Caswennan?

🍿 Revenge of Brutus: The costume shop in the credits has a poster for this movie, starring Cooper Howard. Maybe it's one of the "gladiator holotapes" Arcade Gannon watched.

🚘The car: Given how impressively it detonates after being shot, the car the Brotherhood find at Area 51 is probably a Corvega model with a nuclear fusion engine. Maybe an Atomic V-8? I can't recognize a car on sight, I write about videogames for a living.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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