Fallout Episode 107 recap and easter eggs: "The Radio"

The first season of Fallout is out now on Prime Video, and thus far it's done a fantastic job bringing the beloved video game world from Bethesda Softworks and Interplay to life. Revelations began to pile up in Episode 106, where we got a glimpse into The Ghoul's past just as Vault Dweller Lucy made some startling discoveries in the present.

Episode 107, "The Radio," answers some questions while raising others. This is the penultimate episode of Fallout season 1, and there's a feeling the end is fast approaching for characters like Maximus, Lucy and The Ghoul. Read on for our SPOILER-FILLED recap.

Fallout Episode 107 recap: "The Radio"

"The Radio" begins with a beautiful sweeping shot of the wasteland, set to an arrangement of the Fallout 4 theme. We're introduced to a wasteland family that uses metal detectors to scavenge for caps, but it's not long before a familiar face pops up: The Ghoul (Walton Goggins), who's waiting inside their house when they return. He's come to them for information, since the family's eldest son was someone The Ghoul killed, someone who happened to have a letter on him that implicated his younger brother Tommy (Charlie Besso) in the plan to smuggle Dr. Wilzig from Filly to Moldaver. Goggins hams it up in this scene, continuing his streak of excellence. Things don't go well for Tommy, who first gives The Ghoul the information he wants about Moldaver's location before drawing a weapon and being quickly gunned down.

We then cut to the past, where Cooper Howard is sitting in on a meeting where Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) laments the state of the world. She tries to preach about finding a road to peace from the long-running war with China, but Cooper isn't very interested. He tries to leave, which sparks a debate that causes Moldaver to reveal she knows his wife Barb (Frances Turner). Out in the privacy of a nearby hallway she reveals more: Moldaver was working for a research company trying to develop cold fusion, and when they were on the brink of realizing this limitless energy source, Vault-Tec swooped in and bought them up, along with every company Moldaver had ever worked throughout her career. Because Vault-Tec profits from the war, it's in their best interest to make sure that cold fusion energy source is shelved in order to keep the war over resources going.

She gives Cooper a listening device so he can spy on Barb, and while he's hesitant, he keeps it. "I'm not a Communist, Mr. Howard. That's just a dirty word they use to describe people who aren't insane," Moldaver says. I really enjoy how much of Cooper Howard we're getting to see in the past, and how much it lends thematic weight to what's going on in the show's present.

Sentenced to die...by banishment to the surface!

Back in 2296, Overseer Benjamin (Chris Parnell) and Birdie (Cherien Dabis) show Lucy (Ella Purnell) a holotape, where we see the scientists who appeared in Cooper Howard's commercial in Episode 106. It turns out that their idea for a vault run by scientists wasn't such a good idea, since without any moral overview they ended up creating gulpers by combining humans with radioactive-resistant animal species. This ended with the gulpers and other vault residents rebelling, and forming the society as it now exists in Vault 4.

"What was the experiment in 33?" Benjamin asks Lucy — because, as Fallout players know, there is pretty much always an experiment going on in each vault. Lucy doesn't think there is one in hers though. But of course, we've seen that that isn't quite the case through her brother and the other Vault 33 residents throughout the season.

Claiming that Lucy's ignorance isn't an excuse, she's brought before all the residents of Vault 4 to answer for bringing violence into their midst. Meanwhile, Maximus (Aaron Moten) sees her being walked down the hall and finally abandons his popcorn to go help. The trial for Lucy seems like it's about to go badly; she's bound, and a sword rests on a stand in front of her, ready to spill some blood. But lo! The Vault Dwellers only sentence Lucy to die...by banishment to the surface! And they'll give her two weeks of supplies, and even help her carry it up there. It's a fun play on the idea that while Vault-Tec is actually horrible, many of the people they subjugate are actually much better, morally.

Just as the Vault Dwellers are about to let Lucy go, the lights flicker over to auxiliary power when Maximus steals the fusion core powering the vault and uses it to turn on his power armor. He charges in, fighting people and wrecking the vault's mess hall, until Lucy can tell him that actually they're just letting them go. "Sorry!' he says, in the deep voice of the power armor. Once again, the show using the power armor for laughs is fantastic.

The pair safely make it up to the surface, but Lucy refuses to leave with the stolen fusion core. Without it, the power in the vault would only last for a few days; she and Maximus would essentially be dooming a community, and she can't live with that even if Maximus having his armor means she could save her father. They give the core back, and Lucy then makes the pitch to Maximus that if he wants, he could come live with her in her vault after everything is over. But hearing Lucy talk about what a good person Maximus is, he finally breaks down and tells her that he's been lying to her about not only his name (she thought he was "Titus"), but how he got his armor. To his surprise, this doesn't change her opinion of him at all. She's only been on the surface for two weeks, and she's already done a bunch of messed up stuff too. They make eyes at each other — Aaron Moten and Ella Purnell have great, awkward but charming chemistry — and then set off to find Wilzig's head.

It's all about the mids

Elsewhere, Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton) limps up to a Red Rocket gas station with CX404 in tow. He takes off his boot, which is a good reminder that it is mangled from being stepped on by power armor. His toe's hanging off. It's gnarly. But any sympathy I have for Thaddeus goes out the window when he locks CX404 in a Nuka-Cola cooler so that she'll stop following him around. Don't abuse the cute dog, dude! Leaving her and his heavy bag of Brotherhood gear behind, Thaddeus carries on in search of a way to contact the Brotherhood, taking along Wilzig's head and the fusion core from Maximus' armor.

He picks up on a radio station which is playing some eccentric fiddle music — players of Fallout 4 will recognize it as the Minutemen Radio from the game. Thaddeus heads toward the station, and along the way comes across the snake oil salesman from earlier in the season (Jon Daly), who is right about to commit suicide before seeing Thaddeus and realizing an easy mark has just rolled up into his lap. He brings Thaddeus to a place where he's stored a bunch of medicine, and after some threats are traded each way, the Brotherhood squire trades his fusion core for some medicine which miraculously heals his foot, even knitting back together the dangling toe. The snake oil salesman also gives Thaddeus the location of the radio station as they part ways.

But Thaddeus isn't only one on the trail. While he searches for the source of the signal, The Ghoul comes across the Red Rocket station and finds CX404 locked up. He lets the dog out, and we cut to a flashback of Cooper Howard sitting with his dog Roosevelt. He syncs up the listening device Moldaver gave him to Barb's Pip-Boy, but after listening for a few seconds while she talks to her daughter over hot cocoa, he has second thoughts and throws the ear piece out. Later that night, he has more second thoughts and fishes it out of the trash. "No dogs in the vault, huh?" he says as Roosevelt licks his hand in approval. The dogs are very cute in this show, and obviously, we're all gonna love The Ghoul more knowing he's a dog person.

By then, Thaddeus has already reached the radio station and called the Brotherhood for a pick-up. The DJ of this station, DJ Carl, is played by none other than Fred Armisen, who has an absolutely amazing guest appearance where he talks up the fiddle music that he loves so much. Armisen is a comedic genius, so this scene obviously slaps. Fallout has has a great eye for comedian guest stars. The mids!

Armisen's radio station has booby traps all around it, to protect it from "critics." This comes into play when Lucy and Maximus stroll up, causing Thaddeus to unload an entire clip pointlessly into the air because he's such a terrible shot. Then, he accidentally triggers one of the traps and is shot through the neck by a crossbow bolt. But for some reason, Thaddeus doesn't die. It turns out that medicine he took from the snake oil salesmen may have turned him into a ghoul. "I'm so stupid, I should've never trusted a doctor that smelled like that," Thaddeus groans.

Just then, the Brotherhood of Steel shows up in a vertibird. Knowing their hardline stance on ghouls, Maximus offers to cover for Thaddeus if he runs, and in return Thaddeus gives him Wilzig's head. This confuses Lucy, who thinks the Brotherhood are the good guys. "They're a complicated organization," Thaddeus replies, before taking off. But Maximus isn't about to hand over the head to the Brotherhood either; he smashes up another disembodied head from one of the nearby bodies and swaps it, telling Lucy to take Wilzig's artifact and go trade it for her father. Then, they share their first kiss. And in true Fallout fashion, it's a moment which feels like it's trolling the audience. Lucy and Maximus kiss, but the disembodied heads they're each holding also smoosh together like they're kissing, while Fred Armisen opens a peep hole in his radio station door and makes ridiculous faces while he watches them. It's a damn funny scene, which should surprise no one.

Conspiracy in the vaults

The final plotline in "The Radio" revolves around Vault 33, where new overseer Betty Pearson (Leslie Uggams) is making power moves. First, the raider prisoners are mysteriously murdered, thanks to rat poison in their food. Who committed the deed is a mystery, but Betty is keen to remind Norm (Moisés Arias) that his words may have influenced this outcome. She then promptly flips a switch on her Pip-Boy to announce who will be going to Vault 32 to help rebuild it. That includes Woody Thomas (Zach Cherry) as well as Steph (Annabel O'Hagan) and Chet (Dave Register).

None of this smells right to Norm, who stops by Chet's house to say as much. Unfortunately, Chet isn't keen to keep going with the mystery of what happened to Vault 32's previous residents, especially if it leads to problems with Vault 31, where Steph is from. Norm accuses him of being a coward, which gives Chet an opening to deliver one of the episode's best lines: "We all are, Norm. That's why we live in a vault."

However, it seems like even Chet begins to have misgivings by the time the door to Vault 32 opens, and those relocating there are ushered through — in some cases unwillingly. Steph has been named interim overseer in the new vault, which supports Norm's theory that the overseers of Vaults 32 and 33 are always from Vault 31 for some suspicious reason.

With Chet gone, Norm continues the search alone, going to Overseer Betty's office and hacking into her computer in order to message the overseer from Vault 31. Pretending to be Betty, Norm says she needs to return to Vault 31. This causes the mysterious overseer from Vault 31 to ask if she's been "compromised," before telling her to come there immediately.

Norm heads to the door to Vault 31, and it opens to let him in. The practical effects of the vault door are amazing. It's no surprise that the camera lingers on it for as long as it does, because it looks glorious and must have taken a lot of work to build. It grinds closed behind Norm, locking him in Vault 31. We're finally going to get answers to what's goin on in the vaults!

But those answers might be stranger than we can imagine. Norm finds Vault 31 all but abandoned, wandering through empty corridors until he comes across something banging around in a pile of detritus in one of the halls. He approaches, and the episode cuts to credits, accompanied by a reprise of the Minutemen Radio music. Next stop: the Fallout finale!

Easter eggs

• Thaddeus locks up CX404 at a Red Rocket gas station! A Red Rocket station is the very first settlement you gain access to in Fallout 4, and it looks almost exactly like this one. That's also where you meet Dogmeat, the canine companion of the game, which CX404 is clearly inspired by.
• The Ghoul actually calls CX404 "Dogmeat" in this episode as a nickname, when he's reflecting on how she's a good dog but she's not his dog, Roosevelt.
• The fiddle music of the Minutemen Radio is played in Fallout 4 by a specific faction, the Minutemen, who are unique to the Boston region. Since the Fallout television show takes place around nine years after Fallout 4, it's possible that DJ Carl heard the Minutemen's tunes and was inspired to play them on his own station on the west coast.
• There's a sign that says "No Requests" outside the radio station, in front of all the booby traps. Hilarious. Take that, critics!
• The hacking screen that Norm has to go through to get into Betty's computer is the same minigame you play in the Fallout games when you're trying to access a locked computer.

All eight episodes of Fallout are available to stream now on Prime Video. We've been recapping each episode; now, only one more remains. Check back soon for our analysis of the Fallout season 1 finale!

• Fallout Episode 1: "The End"
• Fallout Episode 2: "The Target"
• Fallout Episode 3: "The Head"
• Fallout Episode 4: "The Ghouls"
• Fallout Episode 5: "The Past"
• Fallout Episode 6: "The Trap"
• Fallout Episode 7: "The Radio"
• Fallout Episode 8: "The Beginning"

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