Fallout Season 2

SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.

201: The Innovator 2025 December 16
(First watched On the one hand, seems like a bit of time has passed since Lucy and the Ghoul have been traveling a while and seem to be getting used to working together. On the other hand, seems like no time has passed since Norm is still stuck in the same room and hasn't starved to death yet.

So... what is Hank up to? Was his message to House? Considering how cultily dedicated to Vault-Tec all of Bud's buds seem to be, what's with him seeming to be working with a major figure outside of Vault-Tec?

The episode opened up at Novac, so right away we get into familiar locations from New Vegas even if not New Vegas itself.

This show has way more exploding heads than most shows I watch.)

202: The Golden Rule 2025 December 24
(First watched 2025-12-26) I wondered what Norm's no-plan chaos would result in. Tricking them into thinking they were his underlings being put to a test... simple and efficient.

This season they're really dipping into the New Vegas well, but haven't done much significant with it. Oh, there's an NCR Ranger! Oh, there's some members of Caesar's Legion! But uhhh something's got to HAPPEN with these guys soon enough, yeah?

I'd forgotten I'd seen somewhere that Kumail Nanjiani was involved in this season, but he showed up right at the end there. Which makes me realize Macaulay Culkin still hasn't shown up, whoever he is.

203: The Profligate 2025 December 31
(First watched 2025-12-31) OK, Macaulay is... a Legion dude. Who may or may not be dead after this episode, though I'd lean to Not since I doubt they'd have made such a big deal over him in the cast for a single episode?

Kumail is also out now. Maximus seems to take the Brotherhood like... a player like me. Appreciating the good they do but not so much the "kill a bunch of ghoul kids" side of them.

They're really playing loose with the post-New Vegas fate of the factions, but given we knew Caesar was dying anyway, the idea of the Legion splitting up over who should be next in charge makes enough sense. Having them literally next door to each other... that's a bit silly to believe.

Cooper Howard / The Ghoul continues to be one of the most interesting things to see. A man at vastly different ages with a lot of time and events in between changing his very nature. But as a viewer I'm always left unsure how much he's changed. How much of the good is still in there? How much of the "do whatever is necessary" has replaced it?

204: The Demon in the Snow 2026 January 7
(First watched 2026-01-07) So Thaddeus impersonates Xander... this explains why they had to set things up with Maximus going out with one of Xander's spare power armors rather than his own.

I feel like the show is beating one particular point over the audience's head many many times so we can't possibly miss it. Various groups see the conflict in the world and come to the conclusion that the solution is to make it so they're the only group out there. Conflict solved forever! But of course in reality one party left to its own devices long enough will have internal divisions, so the hope of ever having One Group is a fool's quest. We're seeing this with the various chapters of the Brotherhood of Steel fighting. We're seeing this with Vault 32 and Vault 33 being in conflict over resources. We're seeing this with the two factions of Caesar's Legion.

We see deathclaws in this episode, and they're portrayed pretty impressively I think.

205: The Wrangler 2026 January 14
(First watched 2026-01-14) Escaped from those deathclaws relatively easily. Given that they seem confined to that section of the city, I wonder what keeps them fed and happy in there?

Pre-War continues to be some of the most interesting stuff. I don't know how many seasons they're thinking about for this show, but it seems like they'd naturally run out of stuff for that section first if things went on too long.

So the lady Howards are indeed frozen in the Vegas Vault that Hank has taken over.

206: The Other Player 2026 January 21
(First watched 2026-01-21) I thought that Super Mutant voice sounded familiar. And yep, in the credits, Ron Perlman.

So uhh, Michael Emerson from early last season was also present pre-War? This all seems very complicated.

Also pre-War, Coop gets into the case Hank is guarding, and it seems to be the injector we saw used to store the cold fusion in Michael Emerson's head last season. But when used on Hank it instead seemed to produce the cold fusion vial thingy--but with fewer lights. Do they have to collect various Vault-Tec people to unlock the full thing?

207: The Handoff 2026 January 27
(First watched 2026-01-28) I'd seen people theorizing that Thaddeus was something other than a ghoul but... I'm afraid dude is just one particularly messed up ghoul. Extra mouth near his shoulder, and his damn arm fell off.

So past Cooper Howard managed to get cold fusion to President Clancy Brown, but clearly this did not save the world.

Virtual Mr. House is inconsistent with the game. I was wondering if they'd use the same image from the game or an image based on the current actor, but instead they just have video footage in green. That's definitely a different thing altogether--the original game could've used a 3D model tinted green if that's what they'd wanted.

I've sometimes said this show has more stories going on than it will show each week so it feels like each story is getting a 5 episode season. But this episode actually had some time for all the major parts, I think. Lucy and Hank, the Ghoul, Maximus, Norm and Bud's Buddies, continuing events back at Vault 33.

I'll just paste this that I wrote in a chat with Josh Teeters rather than rewriting: "Something in the Fallout show I've been wondering about: How important really was Vault 31-32-33? At first glance it seems like a lot of effort put in to have these groups controlled for centuries by Vault-Tec employees. But as time goes on we've seen that a lot of the people who were frozen don't seem like the cream of the crop. We've also seen that they could tell which water chips would go bad, and so knew that 33 would be getting a faulty one. And the leader of this project was only important enough to get a damn Roomba for his brain. So was this yet another weird project, but this one played on employees? How well can a series of inexperienced middle managers do when faced with real problems?"

208: The Strip 2026 February 3
(First watched 2026-02-04) This did not feel... finale enough. Most of the plot threads were just left hanging. I thiiiink we're mostly done with the New Vegas setting? There's fighting between the NCR and Legion coming (again), but I'm not sure if this is something Lucy and Max will be involved in or it's just part of the cyclical nature of things.

Still no further insight into what's up with Thaddeus beyond just being one messed up ghoul.

Macaulay Culkin ending up as the new Caesar I was kind of expecting; they made too big a deal of him in the cast for his appearance in one episode to be it, and what more notable thing could happen to a high-ranking Legion guy?

So the show's next setting is Colorado... I think that's pretty fresh territory. At least, I don't think it's been featured in any of the five major games or their expansions. The Ghoul seems pretty sure about his family being alive, but uhhh I'm not sure a two-hundred-year-old postcard about a new destination would convince me of that. Maybe "Oh, they lived and died in Colorado a long long time ago!"

Also coming next season: giant robot.

Fallout Season 3

Fallout Season 2

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