The journey through the Wasteland continues! After getting off to a promising start with its season 2 premiere, Fallout is back with another solid episode this week that sees Lucy (Ella Purnell) and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) get sucked into a side quest, while Norm (Moisés Arias) makes some daring choices in his attempt to escape Vault 31. "The Golden Rule" also finally catches us up with Maximus (Aaron Moten) and the Brotherhood of Steel, and my have things changed for our former squire since Fallout season 1.
Let's get into all the details. FULL SPOILERS for Fallout season 2 Episode 2 beyond!
The destruction of Shady Sands
"The Golden Rule" begins with a scene steeped in history for Prime Videos' Fallout TV show: the destruction of Shady Sands. We learned all about this horrific event in season 1, when it was ultimately revealed that Lucy's father Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) bombed the surface settlement after her mother tried to run away there with their children. Shady Sands was the first functional settlement in this part of the Wasteland, providing a glimmer of hope that civilization could return...and Hank snuffed it out.
Seeing the final moments of the settlement is absolutely brutal. Maximus is the sole survivor of the bomb, and here we meet his father and mother, who are charming and wholesome and deserved so, so much better. Maximus' father, Joseph (Bashir Salahuddin) has just perfected a water system that provides fresh drinking water that isn't polluted by radiation. The New California Republic is still strong.
It all goes tragically wrong when a zombie-like guy wanders into town with a lumbering merchant cart, murming that "patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter." That's a Fallout: New Vegas Easter egg, but it also holds a hint as to where this guy came from. The episode doesn't make it explicit, but Hank seems to have made his move on Shady Sands with the help of Robert House. A second clue to this is the fact that when the man collapses in town, he has one of House's mind control devices on the back of his neck.
The bomb itself is a stylized warhead which is straight out of the Fallout games. Maximus' father tries to disarm it to no avail, and ultimately he and Maximus' mother, Julia (Shinelle Azorah), force him into a sturdy refrigerator to weather the impending blast. It's a heartwrenching scene that made me tear up, which is cut brutally short as the bomb detonates.
This whole sequence caught me totally flat-footed. When the destruction of Shady Sands came up last season, I think the obvious assumption was Hank had some kind of bomb dropped there. That he had it wheeled in on a cart and detonated in such fashion almost feels worse, because the people there had time to panic and recognize what was happening before the town was wiped off the map. It's a really compelling scene.
""You are a good boy. And one day, you will be a good man.""Joseph, to his son Maximus
Then we cut to Hank MacLean. Credit where it's due: I think of all the shows I've seen with de-aging, Fallout has some of the best for Kyle MacLachlan. Hank sets down his Pip-Boy confirming the bomb went off, then goes to read The Wind and the Willows to Lucy and Norm. She asks about her mom, who was in the town when it blew. The contrast between Maximus' and Lucy's childhoods in this one sequence is sobering.
All hail Knight Maximus
After the title card, we see Maximus and his fellow Brotherhood of Steel knights in action, easily murdering a bunch of feral ghouls in their power armor. The dead look in Moten's eyes as well as the action do a great job of conveying how much Maximus has changed since season 1. I missed Maximus in the premiere, but "The Golden Rule" gives him a very solid good introduction between the flashback and this first scene. Ramin Djawadi also does excellent work here as well, and the vertibids and blimp are excellently realized once Maximus' squad completes their mission.
Dane, played by The Wheel of Time's Xelia Mendes-Jones, is one of the few who looks conflicted about Maximus' return. It's nice to see them in the show more in this episode, after sitting out mos of the back half of season 1. Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer) wants to unify the different chapters of the Brotherhood, and it's revealed that the item Maximus found in the raid on the ruins is the key to unlocking a bunch of windmills, which in turn blow away the sand of the desert to unearth and old military base. Quintus calls Maximus "my son," which should be endearing but it feels off, even if it makes Maximus smile a little. He wants so badly to have a home. This interaction gives a good contrast from seeing Maximus' actual father and what he lost in Shady Sands.
It's eventually revealed that the base the Brotherhood uncovered is none other than Area 51. The Brotherhood moves in and sets up shop, with a surprising amount of comedy along the way as power armor-clad knights play with grenades and blow up cars, while a few grunts find a frozen alien corpse, only to throw it on the ground and geek out over the real-life icebox instead.
The Brotherhood uses this base to power up the cold fusion that they got from Moldaver at the end of season 1. This leads into an interesting scene where Maximus imparts wisdom to a young recruit, and subsequently has a conflicted conversation with Dane about the direction the Brotherhood's newfound power might take them. Quintus has called for a conclave, but he excluded the Commonwealth — the most powerful chapter of the Brotherhood. The Commonwealth is the Boston area, which serves as the primary setting for the Fallout 4 video game. Including them in the show in this way is a nice touch that serves as both an Easter egg and an intriguing expansion of the overall canon.
The Brotherhood plotline serves as the centerpiece of "The Golden Rule," and it wastes no time speeding it along into the conclave between Quintus and the other elders. He's invited leaders from the Coronado, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon branches of the Brotherhood of Steel, but excluded the Commonwealth because he expected them to just try to seize the cold fusion relic. This scene does a lot of heavy lifting for establsihing the clashing personalities of the Brotherhood factions, as well as how formidable the Commonwealth is, since none of them want to challenge it alone. Quintus wants to unite these disparate groups, despite the fact they bicker over total nonsense in the meeting — good humor as well as good worldbuilding.
Ultimately, however, the other leaders are swayed when Quintus has cases of fusion cores brought out. He brags about being able to make a near-limitless amount of them with the cold fusion technology. Each of the Brotherhood leaders is charasmatic and fun to wach in their own ways. But there's also a subtle undercurrent against the meeting betwen Dane and Maximus, neither of whom look thrilled at all the talk of civil war against the Commonwealth.
The final Brotherhood scene serves as a capstone to the episode. The gathering provides a perfect opportunity for Brotherhood knights to duel in their power armor, which in turn leads to Maximus getting challenged by a hulking soldier who wants to beat him since he was the one who killed Moldaver and secured cold fusion. Quintus silently encourages Maximus to fight the guy, who insists on a showdown "bareback," a.k.a. without power armor. The ensuing fight scene builds up Maximus as a survivor against the odds, when he ultimately ends up killing the guy rather than getting killed himself. But any triumph is short-lived, as Dane leaves and the recruit Maximus spoke to earlier blindly cheers on the bloodshed.
The scene ends with the arrival of Paladin Xander Harkness, the liaison to the Commonwealth who is played by the always excellent Kumail Nanjiani. Nanjiani's brand of humor feels perfectly suied to the world of Fallout. In this one scene alone, he exudes quirky confidence as he confirms the Commonwealth knows about the potential insurrection, while giving an amused nod of approval to Maximus as he stands over the body of his foe. I'm so excited to see what he does with the character.
Lucy and The Ghoul get sidetracked
While the Brotherhood is laying plans, Lucy and the Ghoul are getting sucked into a side quest. These two odd traveling companions remain a blast to watch, right from their first scene of the episode, where The Ghoul is rude to Lucy and she subsequently tries to convince him to be a bit kinder. Which he promptly ignores, as they walk by a hospital where someone can be heard screaming for help. The Ghoul wants to carry on, but Lucy is determined to do the right thing. This whole set up is mildly amusing to me as a gamer, because it recalls the unending nature of the side quests from the Fallout video games.
The set for the interior of the hospital is creepy and atmospheric, similar to Vault 24 in the premiere. They quickly find the survivor, but The Ghoul makes an interesting observation about the woman's clothing, saying "Tunics. You awful far west, ain't ya?" We find out at the end of the episode that these folks are Legion, but this is a nice bit of foreshadowing to catch on a rewatch. He doesn't explain what the outfits mean, but tells Lucy that those who wear them don't deserve saving. He then slits the throat of the other survivor and eats a bit of his throat, which is gruesome. But as he advances on the woman, Lucy steps up to stop him.
It's then that The Ghoul starts hacking up the flesh he just ate, and realizes it has been stung by something venemous. This set up is a fantastic segue into the Radscorpion attack. The creature effects during this action scene are excellent, mixing digital and practical effects in a way that feels like it will stand the test of time.
When the dust settles, both The Ghoul and the woman Lucy was trying to save are stung by the Radscorpion. She uses her las stimpack on the other human, rationalizing that The Ghoul will survive anyway, and she'll come back to pick him up laer after delivering the woman to safety.
But obviously things aren't going to be that simple. This woman calls Lucy a "kindly profligate," and if you've played New Vegas, you know exactly what that means. Lucy's story ends with her being captured by the Legion, despite her best efforts to convince them she's actually a nice person and should therefore be spared.
The final test of Bud Askins
Not all the excitement happens above ground in "The Golden Rule." Lucy's brother, Norm, successfully wakes up all of "Bud's buds" in Vault 31, totally ruining the program which would have saw them unthaw one every few years to rule the Vaults. Norm tells these new recurits that Bud Askins is dead — he neglects to tell them that Bud's brain is in the nearby trash, however. He tells them it's Reclamation Day, when they're all supposed to head to the surface.
Despite some hilarious panicking by the freshley awoken humans, Norm manages to bluff them into listening to his instructions by saying he's part of a race of super-managers, built by over 200 years of genetic engineering. He turns the predicament into a corporate exercise, convincing them that "Bud's final test" was to find a way out of the Vault. It's some interesting quick thinking from Norm, who gives his new employees "merit dots" (a.k.a. little bandaids) if they find a path forward. It's a fun couple of scenes.
Ultimately, they do find a ladder out, and encourage Norm to go first as their leader. He does, and subsequently sees the surface for the first time in his life. I like that this moment holds more meaning for Norm than is explicitly stated, and Moisés Arias acts it so well. The employees may grumble about there no longer being a mall, but Norm is just struck by the beauty of it all.
Hank goes to work
While other plotlines are moving at breakneck pace, Hank is still hanging around the big Vault-Tec headquarters Vault. He's trying out brain interfaces on mice...which end up making their heads explode. There's a fun montage of him doing it over and over, with lots of splatter effects on the glass. It really feels like composer Ramin Djawadi is having a blast here; there are funny accents in the music each time a rat head explodes.
Having no luck with the mice, Hank stops by a section labeled "premium elite plus," which has frozen humans. He starts waking them up to experiment on them, and the first man he chooses to test it on only bought a ticket for himself and left his family behind. So Hank doesn't feel too bad about popping his head like a melon. There's a solid conversation and acting from MacLachlan in this scene, made all the better by Hank's resigned sigh of "Try, try again," when the guy's head finally pops. I really like that the show opted for the glass splatter rather than just showing all the gore. It makes the episode feel much more rewatchable, which is a good thing, since it's an all-around excellent episode of television.
Verdict
"The Golden Rule" takes the groundwork lain by the Fallout season 2 premiere and runs with it. From re-introducing viewers to Maximus, to the odd couple pairing of Lucy and The Ghoul, this episode perfectly balances humor with action and intrigue. Throw in some of the best practical creature effects a show has had in recent memory, and this episode has become a total pleasure to watch and watch again.