It's been a wild ride through the Wasteland in Fallout season 2, but the time has come to say goodbye for now. After seven episodes of quirky post-apocalyptic fun, outrageously bloody shootouts, and mind-bending sci-fi twists and turns, the Fallout season 2 finale has arrived. All the cards are on the table as Lucy (Ella Purnell), The Ghoul (Walton Goggins), and Maximus (Aaron Moten) try to survive the horrors of New Vegas. Will Cooper Howard be reunited with his family? Can Lucy untangle the intricate mind games of her father? And can Maximus withstand the onslaught of an entire pack of Deathclaws?
We don't need to wait any longer to find out! While the Fallout season 2 finale does answer those questions and more, in many ways it almost feels more like set up for season 3 than a proper finale in the vein of the first season. We've got a lot to talk about.
FULL SPOILERS ahead for Fallout season 2 Episode 8, "The Strip."
I am Caesar!
"The Strip" kicks off in an unexpected place: with the Legion, who we haven't seen since Episode 203. They're still fighting their civil war over who will become the next Caesar (pronounced kai-czar, because it's the Legion), but it finally reaches its end when Macaulay Culkin's Lacerta Legate drags the body of the previous Caesar back to his tent. This entire battle was being fought because the old Caesar had a note pinned to his body, which both factions of the Legion believed contained the identity of their next leader.
But when Lacerta Legate finally opens the note, all it says is "I am Caesar, I am Legion, it ends with me." Guess the Legion isn't big on succesion plans. Lacerta takes this as his cue to seize power, murdering the only witness in his tent, eating the note to hide the evidence, and taking the Caesar's crown. He's hailed as the new leader of the Legion.
It's great to see Culkin back in the show; I wish we'd gotten more of him this season. In a way, this Legion segment is indicative of some of the Fallout finale's larger issues. We only see them again at the very end of the episode, marching on New Vegas. So essentially, this is all just set up for season 3. We'll find that to be a running theme.
Radroaches attack!
Let's skip over to Norm (Moisés Arias) next, since his story remains neatly siloed off by itself away from the main action in New Vegas. After being released from captivity in the previous episode by Claudia (Rachel Marsh), Norm quickly found himself recaptured once again in the finale, and with his head on the chopping block. As the management trainees from Vault 31 prepare to kill him for deceiving them, Claudia gets in the way. She's shoved aside into the door to open one of the elevators, which unleashes a horde of radroaches onto the unsuspecting Vaultdwellers.
The Radroach attack is brutal and effective, as they tear through people left and right. Norm manages to fight his way to the room where everyone's trying to hole up for safety, even saving another Vault 31 management trainee along the way. But when he reaches the door, Ronnie (Adam Faison) shoves him back, leaving him to die to the Radroaches. Norm scrambles under a table, but Ronnie's callous act meant that the door was not closed in time to keep the monsters out. They storm the room, murdering everything they can sink their mandibles into.
When the dust settles and the roaches leave, Norm goes into the room and finds a bloody and battered Claudia amidst the carnage. He helps her out of the Vault-Tec offices, and begins pulling her back toward safety on a sled — though where that safety may be is anyone's guess.
While I always enjoy Moisés Arias as Norm, it really feels like the writers didn't quite know what to do with the character this season. What was the point of his excursion? It's a far cry from season 1, where he became the lowkey most intriguing character by the end. Here, he treads water, getting captured and recaptures again over the course of a handful of scenes in three separate episodes. The best part of the season for Norm was the beginning, when he was stuck in Vault 31.
Of course, I'm sure Fallout will expand on Norm and Claudia's journey in season 3. But for now, it feels fairly incomplete and puzzling.
Maximus versus the Deathclaws
Another character who feels like he's treading water in this finale is Maximus, who spends nearly the entirety of the episode in a pitched fight against a massive pack of Deathclaws. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of thrilling moments and nervewracking close calls as Maximus takes down one Deathclaw after another, getting more and more battered along the way, and the brief sidebar where the people of New Vegas fall into the comfortable routine of betting on the outcome even as their own lives are on the line is a lot of fun. But there's just not much movement to Maximus' story here, and that's a problem in a season finale.
Ultimately, I suppose this story is most about Max stepping up and becoming the sort of heroic man he always hoped he could be with the Brotherhood. This time he does it wearing the power armor of the NCR, and it's hard to deny how inspiring his example is.
We also don't learn anything new about Thaddeus' (Johnny Pemberton) condition either. He exists in this episode almost solely to give a bit of comedic relief and light back-up to Maximus, as he snipes one Deathclaw using his foot to hold the rifle, since he's missing an arm. Again, I enjoy Thaddeus and Maximus together, but after the intriguing set up that something was seriously wrong with Thaddeus in the previous episode, it feels a little unfulfilling to not circle back to that at all in the finale.
It's all made even more unsatisfying by the way it ends: not with Maximus overcoming the Deathclaws through any quick thinking of his own, or even with the reluctant help of the citizens of New Vegas, but rather with the random arrival of a New California Republic army. It turns out that the couple of survivors we met earlier in the season weren't all that was left. Sure, I enjoyed seeing the NCR sniper wearing the iconic Fallout: New Vegas armor from the video game artwork as much as anyone, but it felt more like random deux ex machina saving Max than anything, since it was barely foreshadowed at all in the season.
We get a final bit of Max near the end of the episode where he reuintes with Lucy, but let's check in with our Vaultdweller for that part.
The reckoning of the MacLean family
We left off in Episode 207 with Lucy discovering that the severed head of Congresswoman Diane Welch (Martha Kelly) was powering the brain-computer interface in the basement of the New Vegas management Vault, which was an excellent cliffhanger. "The Strip" quickly resolves that, revealing that Welch had no say whatsoever in this development as her severed head begs Lucy to kill it. Despite her reluctance, Lucy does so.
As she stumbles out of the room for air, she comes face-to-face with her father once more. Hank (Kyle MacLachlan) reveals a few key pieces of information, such as that he used Welch's head for the machine because he wanted people to have her innocuous personality traits. He also hints that he's not working for Vault-Tec, or even Robert House, as we assumed earlier in the season. As we find out, Hank is actually working with the Enclave, the true power brokers behind the apocalypse who are backed by the United States government. I sense a big bad for season 3 on the horizon!
As Lucy tries to reject Hank's logic for mind controlling people, he unveils his latest invention: a miniaturized version of the device, which would be impossible to detect on a person. He's already equipped some people with these devices and sent them out into the Wasteland to do his nefarious bidding, which smacks of the Institute storyline from Fallout 4, where you never knew who was a synth. Given how cool that story was in the game, I'm all for the show attempting it's own version of it.
Hank tries to force one of the devices into Lucy with the help of his former Legion office worker, so that he can have her back as the obedient daughter he remembered her as. But just before the deed can be done, The Ghoul arrives, killing the guard and shooting Hank in the leg so that he can't get away. He tosses Lucy a gun, and tells her that Hank's fate is up to her.
One of the most compelling storylines of Fallout season 2 has been how Lucy's morality has been tested time and again. We've seen her go from an optimistic-to-a-fault Vaultdweller, to a seasoned wanderer of the Wasteland with more than a little blood on her hands. Here, she tries to find a middle path. She puts the new chip in Hank's neck, and walks him outside so he can get one last view of the surface before she lobotomizes him.
However, Lucy can't quite bring herself to do it. Instead, Hank surrpetitiously pulls a second activation controller out of his pocket, and hits the button himself. Lucy collapses beside him, and when he stares at her blank-faced, gently wiping a smudge of her cheeck before gazing into the middle-distance, it's heartbreaking. Yes, Hank was a monster, but this feels even more tragic than him dying outright.
It's all helped by the fact that Purnell and MacLachlan turn in incredible performances in this scene, perhaps some of my favorites from them each for the entire season. They really sold Lucy and Hank's goodbye. Even though Hank isn't actually dead, it feels like he's gone for good.
As Lucy wrangles with the implications of all this, and how far down the grisly rabbit hole she's traveled, Maximus finally arrives at The Strip. The sun rises behind him, which is a nice bit of visual reinforcement for the way that he's bringing a glimmer of light and hope back into her life, just like she did for him in season 1. Their tearful reunion is another great moment of the finale.
Lucy and Maximus end season 2 standing in Robert House's office overlooking New Vegas, while the NCR sets up in the city and the Legion marches toward it. They hold hands. It feels like a mirror to the end of season 1, where the lights came on in the Wasteland while the Brotherhood watched, except this time Lucy and Max are staying together together instead of going their separate ways.
Of all the characters in the finale, Lucy's story feels the most full to me. She started this season hunting her father, and ended it with his mind wiped and her reunited with the man she's come to care for in the Wasteland. I'm really looking forward to seeing what lies ahead in season 3 for these two. Curiously, this set up makes it seem like that may involve New Vegas. I'd assumed that the setting would primarily be used for season 2, as a sort of "New Vegas season," but now it's starting to feel like this setting will become a more permanent fixture for the series. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled for any sort of comments from the creative team about that while we await season 3.
Cooper Howard finally finds answers
That brings us our last major plotline of the Fallout season 2 finale: The Ghoul a.k.a. Cooper Howard. "The Strip" picks up right where the previous episode left off, with him chatting with the digital version of Robert House that was restored when the cold fusion relic was placed into his hidden machinery. House knows The Ghoul's true identity, and the two converse about their previous meeting, where House hinted at another player on the board.
It's refreshing to hear The Ghoul talk openly about his previous life as Cooper Howard, and House is a perfect sounding board for it. Ultimately they agree that The Ghoul will leave House with the cold fusion relic, so long as House guides him down into the Vault to where his wife and daughter are frozen in their cryo-pods.
The banter between these two is excellent, touching on a lot of the deeper plotlines that go right back to the pre-war period of the show. As The Ghoul makes his way down into the Vault, helping Lucy along the way, we get flashbacks to his last scenes in Las Vegas in the past. There, we find out that Steph (Annabel O'Hagan) is actually Hank MacLean's wife, after they got married in a shotgun Vegas wedding. That explains how she ended up so entrenched in the Vault program — and Vault 33, once Hank became Overseer.
As Cooper and his wife Barb (Frances Turner) go to leave the city, a line of pay phones ring next to them. It's a creepy effect that forces Cooper to finally pick one up. House informs him that what happens next is not at his bidding, and we have mere moments to find out that Cooper took the fall by himself to protect Barb as government agents come and arrest him. Looks like the President was not as kind and forthright a person as he seemed at first blush. Considering he's almost certainly the one pulling the strings on the Enclave, that shouldn't be a surprise from here on.
It does raise an interesting question: how does Cooper Howard get from this point, to where we see him at the start of season 1, where he's performing at a birthday party with his daughter and flees just as the bombs drop? I always enjoy the Cooper Howard flashbacks, but I do worry that Fallout is making them more and more convoluted in a way that will be harder to tie all the way back around for continuity's sake.
Back in the present, House leads The Ghoul to the cryo-pods for Barb and Janey. Overcoming his nerves, The Ghoul asks for them to be opened...only to reveal that they're both empty. Barb and Janey are gone. However, Barb left a clue behind: a post card for Colorado, with a handwritten note that aludes to Barb and Janey going there. And The Ghoul smiles; for the first time since the apocalypse, he knows for certain that his wife and daughter survived the bombs.
Fallout's make-up for Goggins is always great, but in this scene we see an extra bit of humanity shine through The Ghoul's expression as he processes all this information, and ultimately leaves the Pip-Boy with House behind to head back into the Wasteland toward Colorado. Goggins' subtle transformation back from a hardened survivor to someone with a bit more humanity in the final few episodes of the season has been fantastic television. If Fallout is going to continue with that story in the future, it could get even better.
We end the season with The Ghoul staring off into the Wasteland, before he begins the next leg of his long trek, his dog companion at his side.
Initiate Phase Two
There are a few final plotlines we need to touch on here at the end, and the first of them is Steph and Vault 32. We last saw her locking herself in the Overseers office after Chet (Dave Register) outed her as a secret 200-year-old Canadian to the rest of the Vaultdwellers. We've learned a lot about Steph in the past few episodes, and just how brutal and calculating she can be.
Near the end of the finale, she opens Hank's keepsake box to reveal a black Pip-Boy. This provides her with a direct line to the Enclave. She orders them to begin Phase Two — something we heard referenced earlier in the season by Bud Askins' personal assistant Ronnie. The scene cuts to a snowy base, where a floating machine begins broadcasting Steph's message. It's a solid stinger for season 3 that sets up the Enclave as a larger threat, though I do wish it had given us just a bit more information about what Phase Two entails and why it should feel threatening.
The Brotherhood of Steel's new weapon
After the credits roll, we get one more tease for the road in the form of a post-credits scene dedicated to the Brotherhood of Steel. Yes, characters like Dane (Xelia Mendes-Jones) and Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer) survived the destruction of the Brotherhood blimp a few episodes back. Dane brings Quintus an ancient relic, which turns out to be a schematic for a giant robot that should look familiar to anyone who's played Fallout 3.
Quintus declares that he's done being "Quintus the Unifer." Now, he's ready to become "Quintus the Destroyer" and wreak vengeance across the Wasteland. And that's not ominous. I like that we touched base with the Brotherhood of Steel one last time in the season, and unlike some of the other bits of set up for season 3, this feels both substantial and warranted given the Brotherhood's more prominent role earlier in the season and the way they fell off the map after their larger story of civil war began. Plus, Quintus remains equal parts charismatic and unhinged, which is just right for the Brotherhood.
So now we have the Legion, the NCR, and the Brotherhood all setting up to make major moves as we head into season 3. It sounds like a larger war is coming, and I have a feeling our Vaultdweller Lucy, former-Knight Maximus, and gunslinger Cooper Howard are going to find themselves right in the middle of it.
Verdict
"The Strip" is a hefty episode of Fallout that ties up some plotlines while leaving a lot of loose ends. For as engaging as some parts of the finale were, I can't help but feel like it was sacrificed somewhat to serve the larger picture of the series. It's nowhere near as conclusive and satisfying a finale as season 1, and I think a big part of that is because the show has already been greenlit for season 3, which is currently filming.
As such, the end of season 2 feels like the end of part one of a bigger tale, with plotlines like the Legion, the fate of New Vegas, the reunion of Lucy and Maximus, and even The Ghoul's hunt for his family still hanging. And that's not even getting to the copious amount of set up the show has done for its future seasons, like the introduction of Ron Perlman as a super mutant in Episode 206 who has yet to reappear in the series.
I enjoyed watching this episode, but it's not as strong as some of its predecessors, and its lack of resolution for certain storylines makes the season as a whole a little weaker. It feels like the show had no idea what to do with some characters, like Norm and Maximus, and so it found ways to string out their story that didn't quite pack the punch I wish they did. Obviously I'll still be excited to watch season 3, but I'm a little disappointed by the season 2 finale, in spite of some excellent performances from its cast.