Fallout (2024): The Innovator - S02E01 - RECAP

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skiptvads20 days ago10 min read

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Fallout Season 2 Episode 1 and I miss it at first, aside from holidays and a personal project I have been off Hive for about over a month but as the new year comes in and I now have a bit more free time have decided to start posting again, I really enjoy writing and giving out my opinion so why not. Even though I have never play the games and know nothing about its lore this is a series I enjoy very much and honestly the best part of watching this whole thing was seeing Lucy and the Ghoul walking through that desert together, Walton Goggins was absolutely born to play this damn character and the way him and Lucy contrast each other is perfect because she is still trying not to kill anybody while he is out here finishing people off without even thinking twice about it. The flashback scenes with Cooper Howard before the bombs fell were really good too just as on Season 1, you get to see how diferent he was back then compared to the broken ghoul he became after 200 years of surviving hell, that shot where Cooper and his wife Barb both know about the bombs and they are just sitting there pretending like everything is fine was heavy as shit. You can tell Ghoul learned from his mistakes of keeping quiet when he should of said something, now he is just blunt and harsh about everything because staying silent cost him his family and turned him into this messed up dude holding on to hope that his daughter is still alive somewhere out there in the wasteland. The vault scenes with Norm and the other people inside were kinda boring but I guess its a setup for a bigger part, during this scenes I just kept zoning out because it felt like a slow burn that was not going anywhere yet, Reggie trying to find his purpose was fine but nothing crazy happend there. I must say the 1960s vibe in the flashbacks had this gloss to it that reminded you this was actually the future not the past and then when it cuts to present day Nevada desert you can feel how brutal and unforgiving that environment is with all the gore and head explosions they are not holding back at all on the violence.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12637874/
Platform: PRIME VIDEO

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The episode opens with Mr House played by Justin Theorough doing experiments on these construction workers with mind control chips that he puts on the back of there necks, this dude is absolutely ruthless and does not care about people at all he just sees them as guinea pigs for his sick experiments. The workers are protesting against Robco because robots are taking away there jobs which feels very timely with all the AI stuff happening in real life right now, Mr House walks into this bar and starts talking shit to these workers basically calling them dumb for not seeing that robots will replace them eventually and technology is the future. He offers them 31 million dollars in cash if they let him attach this experimental chip to one of there necks, one guy agrees because who wouldnt take that much money and at first the chip works perfectly Mr House can control the guy like a puppet and makes him attack his own freinds which is disturbing as hell to watch. The problem is when Mr House tries to crank up the power the guys head just explodes into pieces, this sets up the main mystery for the season because later on we find out Hank is trying to continue this research in Vegas and wants to perfect the technology so he can get a promotion from Mr House. The cold open was really well done and it sets the tone for the rest of the episode showing you that Mr House is not someone to mess with, he has been planning this apocalypse thing for a very long time and he knew exactly what was going to happen when the bombs droped, reminds me a lot to "Silo" and what Fallout call the ultimate weapon in Season 1, "Time", time they will control during the apocalypse, they actually monetize the hole thing but then we know it didnt turn around that easy. The whole idea that Vegas survived because Mr House had a misile defense system that shot down the bombs before they could hit the city is crazy, meanwhile the rest of America got completely destroyed and millions of people died but Vegas is still standing there looking exactly like it did before the war becuase one rich guy wanted to protect his investment.

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Lucy and the Ghoul are traveling together after Season 1 and there relationship is one of the best parts of this whole show, she is still trying to be a good person and follow the golden rule while he is just done with all that bullshit and wants to survive no matter what it takes. The scene at the Dino Delight Motel in Novac was fkn awesome even though it was short and you can tell its sole purpose was to be humor with tons of shooting and explosion, this was no secret mission type of scene, Lucy tries to reason with the Great Khans who have the Ghoul tied up and she actualy explains there entire plan to them hoping they will just let them go peacefully which is such a Lucy thing to do, but then when that does not work she has to shoot the rope to free him, thing I doubt she wanted to do anyways and then he goes on this absolutely insane killing spree taking out every single one of them in the most violent and creative ways possible, one guy gets a grenade shoved down his shirt and then kicked into an empty pool which was brutal but also kind of funny in a dark way. Lucy is shooting people in the kneecaps and the ass because she does not want to kill anyone, the Ghoul calls her out on this saying that wounding people is not really helpful for there cause and she needs to start finishing the job if they are going to survive out here in the wasteland. The song Big Iron by Marty Robbins plays during this scene which is a classic from Fallout New Vegas; that I had to look up because I did like the song though didnt know the name, it just fits perfectly with the Ghouls cowboy personality, you can tell the show is leaning into that western vibe type wild wild west every man for himself.

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The flashback scenes with Cooper are where the episode really shines for me, we see him overhear that meeting where Barb suggests dropping the bombs themselves and he immediately goes home to grab Janie and try to escape to Bakersfield before everything goes to hell. There is this emergency broadcast test that happens while he is driving around and you see all these Vault Tech reps going door to door signing people up for the vaults, that vibe of everything looking normal on the surface but you know something terrible is about to happen. Cooper meets up with Lee Moldaver at a diner and she tries to convince him to use his fame to get close to Robert House and kill him before he can drop the bombs, she explains that House is building the missile defense system for Vegas and that he has enough power to carry out Barbs plan to start the nuclear war. Cooper is not on board at first because he is just an actor not a spy or a killer but you can see the seed being planted in his mind about the trip to Vegas that is coming up soon. The best scene of the entire episode is when he goes home to make dinner and you see both him and Barb pretending like everything is fine, they both know what the other one is thinking but neither of them says anything and they just put on fake smiles and act normal. That wall between them in the kitchen was such a good visual metaphor for how they are emotionally separated now even though they are standing right next to each other, well at list on his head for sure, its heartbreaking to watch because you know there relationship is never going to recover from this and eventually he is going to lose everything including his daughter.

The ending of the episode shows Hank making it to this underground Vault Tech facility in Vegas and he is so excited to be back at work its actually kind of pathetic, then the episode plays this song "Working for the Man" while he puts on a suit and cleans up the office getting ready to restart his corporate life. He sends a message to Mr House saying that he is still alive and that he wants to continue the research on the mind control chips so he can finally get his promotion, you can tell Hank has been loyal to Mr House this whole time even before the war and he was just using his position at Vault Tech to serve Houses interests. The message reveals that Hank does not really care about Vault Tech or the experiments or any of that, he just wants to climb the corporate ladder and impress his boss which is such a selfish and pathetic motivation for doing all these evil things. Meanwhile back in Vault 31 Norm is starving to death and Bud the brain in a jar is trying to convince him to get in the cryo pod but Norm decides to do something irrational instead and thaws out all the other Vault Tech employees which is going to cause major problems moving forward. Overall this first episode was solid and really builds up a foundation for the rest of the series with a lot of interesting stuff, I am excited to see Lucy toughen up and maybe the Ghoul gets a bit softer as they keep traveling together, the might or might not, I think its inevitable after spending so much time together. The violence and gore during the episode is fkn awesome, better than Season 1 in my opinnion, the flashbacks add real emotional weight to the story and the mystery around Mr House and what he is planing keeps you hooked, I would give this episode a solid 8 out of 10 because it does everything an Episode 1 of a season should do without feeling rushed or boring.