‘Fallout’ Finale Recap — Time to Meet Your Makers

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Fallout Episode 8.

The Big Picture

• Fallout
  ‘s Season 1 finale reveals major character developments and sets up a compelling second season.
• Lucy confronts her father’s dark secrets, unleashing chaos in a post-apocalyptic world.
• The series explores larger themes like war, consumerism, and resilience in a familiar yet fresh way.

It makes sense that Fallout would end its first season with quite a few bombshells. Not only does this eighth and final episode reveal so much about our characters and this world that they’re in, but wraps up their season-long arcs in ways that set up a second season beautifully. And for fans of the games, the final shot of this last episode is also an exciting glimpse at a major locale potentially coming to this adaptation. In its first season, Fallout managed to expand the concepts of the game through this narrative in an impressive way, showing the Wasteland through different perspectives and making the larger subtexts of the games into the text, diving into the larger themes that the games simply couldn’t in this way. Fallout continues the recent trend of great video game adaptations with its first season, and fingers crossed this isn’t the last we see of the Wasteland, as there’s so much more to explore.

‘Fallout’ Episode 8 Is About Building a New Brotherhood

The final episode of Fallout starts after the Brotherhood of Steel has picked up Maximus (Aaron Moten), who keeps thinking back to his last moments with Lucy (Ella Purnell), when they decided to live together in Vault 33. He’s brought a false head with him, which he’s hoping to play off as the decapitated head of Wilzig that everyone in the Wasteland is looking for, due to what it contains inside. The Brotherhood is escorting Maximus to Filly, which they’ve now taken over. Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer) is waiting for him, and he asks why Maximus is wearing the knight’s red. Maximus replies that his knight died, to which Quintus replies that this isn’t the first time a brother in his company has fallen into misfortune. Quintus is referencing back to the first episode, when the recently promoted Dane (Xelia Mendes-Jones) had their leg cut open by a razor in their boot, which was assumed to be placed there by a jealous Maximus.

Quintus says that he fears Maximus lied then and that he lies now. It only takes a quick scan of the wrong head for Quintus to discover that Maximus is, in fact, lying. As a soldier moves to kill Maximus where he kneels, Maximus pleads, crying out that he can take them to the real head. But before it’s too late, Dane admits that they injured themself, and Maximus leading them to the head is a display of his loyalty. Once the two are alone in Quintus’ quarters, he questions Maximus about how Knight Titus died. Maximus says he died running, to which Quintus points out that the Brotherhood has lost its way. They once ruled the Wasteland, but as Maximus knows now, power is taken, not given. Quintus says that is Maximus can bring them to the head, the two of them will lead a new Brotherhood together. Quintus will be the head, and the likes of Maximus will be the sword. Maximus has been looking for a home, and he can build one with this new Brotherhood and Maximus.

Meanwhile, Lucy has arrived at her destination: the camp of Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury), which is the destroyed remnants of the Griffith Observatory. As Lucy walks into the camp with Wilzig’s head, we people say, “It’s her!” The camp looks almost as if Vault 33 had been on the surface, with large crops surrounding the communal area where humans, children, and even ghouls all get together.

Making America Great Through Corporations in the ‘Fallout’ Finale

We cut back in time to before the bombs fell, as Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) drops his wife Barb (Frances Turner) off for her job at Vault-Tec. Cooper has planted a bug on Barb’s Pip-Boy as Moldaver asked him to, which has caused her Pip-Boy to start acting strange. While still in the parking lot, Cooper once again runs into Barb’s coworker, Bud (Michael Esper), who tells him about a new training program he’s running for up-and-coming executives called Bud’s Buds. Bud mentions that the biggest obstacle to achievement is the brevity of the human lifespan, as projects that can take centuries can’t be kept on track. As Bud walks off, he says it’s a big day today for him and Barb. Still in the parking lot, Cooper can’t hear anything from the bug on his wife’s Pip-Boy, so he heads into Vault-Tec to get a clearer signal.

At the observatory, Lucy finally finds Moldaver, as well as her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), being kept in a nearby cage. Moldaver sits at a table full of food, next to a heavily decayed ghoul. Lucy says she’s had a lot of time to think about this moment and that she considered putting a grenade in Wilzig’s head, blowing everyone up, but that’s not how she was raised. She’ll instead keep things civil: she’ll give the head to Moldaver for her to take whatever the device is out, and she’ll get her father back. Moldaver agrees to these terms, but first, she wants to tell Lucy who her father really is, letting Lucy know that Hank wasn’t born in a Vault, like Lucy and her brother, Norm (Moisés Arias) were.

Speaking of Norm, he’s made his way into Vault 31, where we find out that what he discovered at the end of the last episode was… a talking brain in a jar, attached to a small robot. The robot is stuck, and when it scans Norm, it mentions that he’s not Betty or Hank. Norm replies that he’s Hank’s son, which makes the robot attempt to stab Norm with a syringe—an attack that is easy to just sidestep. The brain robot ends the scene by saying that the secret must be guarded.

Back in the flashback, Cooper is inside the Vault-Tec offices waiting for Barb. Her assistant points out that there’s a new guy in the office named Henry who’s a big fan of Cooper, and Cooper says it’s fine if he wants to come on by. While Henry waits, he listens in on the meeting Bud and Barb are having. This duo is meeting with several other corporations, in a discussion that is called “a collaboration between like-minded corporations that make America great.” One of the heads of a corporation says that Vault-Tec’s sales aren’t up to snuff and that they need money. But the pair says that they want to collaborate with these corporations on their vaults. They are asked what happens if people are still alive on the surface, to which they reply that their competitors—everyone else—will be dead. Bud takes over, saying that the ultimate weapon of mass destruction is time. That is how Vault-Tec will win in capitalism: not by outfighting anyone, but by outliving them. As the companies discuss, Barb looks up at a person in the shadows watching over the meeting. Barb then says that when she thinks about the future, she thinks about her daughter, and how she wants to provide her with a better future.

In Vault 31, Norm learns that the brain is the overseer of this Vault, and there’s hardly any Vault at all. However, once the lights come on, we see that the Vault is full of tanks with people in them. The brain says that these are his Bud’s Buds. The brain of Bud tells Norm that America outsourced the survival of the country to the private sector, and that they’ve kept Vault-Tec alive, as the people in these tanks are executive assistants from his program. The Bud brain says that the future of humanity comes down to one word: management. Back at Barb and Bud’s meeting in the past, they discuss that the spirit of competition that makes their companies great can be used in the over 100 Vaults spread across America. Every company can claim several, where they can play out their ideas about how to create the perfect conditions for humanity. They can do whatever they want, no one needs to know, and may the best idea win.

There’s Limitless Energy in the Wasteland in the ‘Fallout’ Finale

Within the Vault, Norm asks the Bud brain what the point of Vault 33 is, to which he replies that it is their breeding pool, where they can create a breed of super managers that will inherit the earth once they’ve washed the surface clean. As we cut back to the meeting, the corporations go wild with their ideas for the Vaults. What if one Vault was run by a milk-delivering robot? How about they intentionally crowd one so people have to compete to survive? What if they made super-soldiers out of illegal immigrants, or separated parents from their children? But one corporation points out that they’d be making a significant investment in the hypothetical idea that the United States is destroyed by bombs. To this, Barb replies that they can guarantee results if they drop the bombs themselves. It naturally crushes Cooper that his wife would think this way, as he continues to listen in on the meeting. Barb continues that a nuclear event would be a tragedy, but also an opportunity. If they’re the only ones left, there will be no one to fight—a true monopoly. While Cooper still reels from this revelation, Henry comes out to meet Cooper. It turns out that Henry is Lucy and Norm’s father, Hank.

At the Griffith Observatory, Moldaver tells Lucy that her father has been around a very long time, that he was part of an organization that thought they had all the answers. Moldaver points out that Hank never even told his wife where he was from. But Moldaver says Lucy is like her mom—that she was kind and loving. We cut to the Brotherhood of Steel again, where Dane reveals to Maximus they’re sending them to the observatory as punishment for what they did to themselves. Dane was scared, and they’re sorry they blamed Maximus. Maximus confides in Dane about Lucy, saying he met someone and that she’s walking into danger, but he’s come back to rescue her, and he’ll leave with Lucy back to her Vault. But Dane points out that nowhere is safe, and there’s no leaving, even if they wish there was.

Moldaver continues talking to Lucy, saying she’s clever like her mom, Rose, who discovered that something was siphoning the Vault’s water away, and that’s how she figured out civilization had returned to the surface. When Rose told Hank, he told her it was a ridiculous idea and that she should tell no one. Rose knew Hank was hiding things from her, so she ran away, took Lucy and Norm with her, and found a wonderful city to live with them in. But then, Hank came after her, and when she refused to return home, Hank took the children and burned that city—Shady Sands—to the ground. Moldaver was also at Shady Sands, and she says that’s how Vault-Tec deals with competition: by destroying it. Moldaver says that what was in Wilzig’s head was Cold Fusion, which would provide limitless energy, but only a Vault-Tec minion can activate it. Lucy asks what happened to her mother, and Lucy realizes that the ghoul at the table is her mother. Eventually, Hank enters the code (the code is 101097: the release date of the first Fallout game), which unlocks the sought-after Cold Fusion.

After learning about what happens in Vault 31, Hank says he has to go back home, but the Bud brain says that he can’t, not with what he’s learned. But, Norm can either wait until they’re all ready to go to the surface—which could take hundreds of years—or, he could wait it out in his dad’s tube. As we leave Norm, it looks as though he’s choosing the tube.

In the observatory, Hank pleads with Lucy, saying he did what was necessary to save their people, and that Moldaver is no different from him. Hank says he loved Lucy’s mother, but that she stopped being her mother when she left home and took her into danger. Brotherhood ships are heading directly to the observatory, and the Griffith Observatory fires rockets at the incoming soldiers. Hank continues that Lucy can see what it’s like up here, that everyone is equally afraid and miserable, and that he was forced to do horrible things to survive. He had to make a choice between their violent world and his peaceful one, and he knows he made the right choice. At the entrance to the observatory, Moldaver’s team and the Brotherhood of Steel are in an all-out war. As we watch this fight, Hank says that if the problem with the world is endless factions at war, what’s wrong with getting rid of the factions, giving them a world that they can shape?

As the Brotherhood fights their way into the observatory, we find that The Ghoul has also made his way inside. He points out that back in the day, when he was Cooper, he also used to wear one of the massive metal suits the Brotherhood wears. But back then, there was a flaw in the welding that led to many deaths. The Ghoul wonders if they fixed that flaw, and shoots one of the Brotherhood members, easily killing him. The Ghoul then knocks off the lights and gets to use this weakness to kill a bunch of Brotherhood of Steel members.

Meanwhile, Hank pleads for Lucy to let him out. Maximus finally makes his way back to Lucy, and finding her father in a cage, shoots the lock to let him out. Lucy begs Maximus for them to leave, but she doesn’t want to go with her father. She tells Maximus that her father was responsible for the destruction of Maximus’ home, Shady Sands. As Lucy tells Maximus the truth, Hank has put on one of the Brotherhood of Steel suits and demands Lucy come with him. Maximus tries to fight back, but Hank easily knocks him out. Lucy pulls a gun, and Hank says this is what this place does to people, and that she hasn’t come all this way to hurt her father. But it’s The Ghoul who shoots Henry, asking him if he wants another autograph like he did back at Vault-Tec.

The ‘Fallout’ Finale Offers Shocking Revelations

The Ghoul says that when Lucy said her last name was MacLean, he wondered if she was related to the kid who used to pick up his wife’s dry cleaning. But with Hank right in front of him, The Ghoul asks the question he’s been waiting to ask for 200 years: where’s his family? Before he can answer, Hank flies away in the suit. Lucy tries to wake up Maximus, but he won’t come to. The Ghoul points out as he looks over the horizon that war never changes, that you can look out over the Wasteland and it might look like chaos, but there’s always someone behind the wheel. The Ghoul wants to talk to that person, and wherever that person is, that’s where Hank is headed. The Ghoul says that everything about Lucy’s life was decided over 200 years ago, and that she can stay here with Maximus as his friends take over the place and kill everyone there—as we see even more reinforcements on the way—or she can come with The Ghoul and meet her makers. Lucy again grabs a gun, but points it at her mother and puts her out of her misery. Lucy tells the unconscious Maximus that she’ll find him, then leaves with The Ghoul.

When Maximus wakes up sometime later, he calls out for Lucy, but she’s already gone. Moldaver returns from battle, bleeding, and activates the Cold Fusion. She goes over to Rose, holds her hand, saying, “We did it.” Lights start to come on all over the Wasteland. Moldaver asks Maximus what he thinks the Brotherhood will do with infinite power. She says that maybe Maximus can stop them, or maybe he can’t, but all he can do is try. At that moment, Moldaver dies, as the Brotherhood enters the room. Dane sees the dead Moldaver, and proclaims that Maximus killed her, as the Brotherhood praises him, chanting, “All hail, Knight Maximus!”

The first season of Fallout ends with Lucy, The Ghoul, and the dog on their way to find Hank. They pass by the now-illuminated Hollywood sign, which says it’s sponsored by Nuka-Cola. In the episode’s final shots, we find Hank in the armor traversing a desert, as we see what looks to be the skull of a Deathclaw. Hank looks out into the distance to what we can only assume is his destination: New Vegas.

In its first season, Fallout took a beloved video game universe and explored it from several different perspectives: the vantage point of a Vault Dweller seeing the surface for the first time (or what we thought was the first time), a Ghoul who had explored the Wasteland for over 200 years, a member of the militant Brotherhood of Steel, and a Vault Dweller who remained behind. In doing so, Fallout told a rich story in a way that the games, with its choose-your-own-adventure nature, couldn’t quite render. As the final season concludes with the end of Lucy’s mission feeling somewhat like the end of one of the game’s installments, there’s an emotional resonance to this conclusion that isn’t there in the game.

As we see the true direction that these characters are heading now in their search for answers, it feels like they’re being thrown into an entirely different situation, a collaborative story that is unlike the games themselves. Fallout has been able to touch on larger ideas that are simply subtext in the games, like the never-ending nature of war, the abundant consumerism in this world, and the dark humor of a world that continues after life should’ve ended. Even as the series seems ready to head to New Vegas, giving fans of the game a familiar locale that they love and recognize, Fallout has found a fascinating way to adapt this story for television. As one mission ends, another begins, and while that’s the normal nature of Fallout, this next journey feels like Fallout as a property exploring this universe in an entirely new way, and we can’t wait to see where this story picks up in Season 2.

Fallout’s first season is available now on Prime Video.

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