Introduction
Another cold open that brings the heat and the story. And, the rest of the Fallout episode 15 keeps up that pace. If you read the plot summary, you will read my gushing comment, “This show is so fucking good. I want it to go on forever.” If not, consider yourself warned. I love this show and everyone involved. Consider that I’ve only given one other show, Marvel Zombies, the deep dive treatment. And, that was more about Halloween content than the actual show. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Marvel Zombies. But, I’d have never written that if it wasn’t October.
Plot Summary and Analysis
For the plot summary, click here.
Fallout Episode 15 is where things all start to come together while simultaneously falling apart. Lucy spends time with her father. He again tries to manipulate her into seeing his point of view. On some level, she understands. She, too, wants to make a better world. However, his version removes people’s free will and that’s something that she can’t let happen. But, as viewers, we still need to draw our own conclusions. I land mostly on Lucy’s side, especially when she comes out with the “same sides” argument that we hear so much in our politics these days. Meanwhile, The Ghoul manipulates his way, with Thad and Max, to Vegas and a date with Robert House. Well, his computer version, that is. He still needs to negotiate with the man to find his way to his family. However, this time he might just hold all the cards.
Norm’s group continues to abuse him mainly because they’re scared because he represents an outside force thrust into their tight knit group. Even though his ideas got them to a place of sanctuary, they still refuse to acknowledge that his leadership is legitimate. Only Claudia, who joined the team late, can see that Norm is probably their best chance at survival And, back in the Vaults, Stephanie is watching her fantasy fall to pieces. Chet discovered two of her secrets; her Canadian citizenship and her possible role in Woody’s disappearance. He then uses that to turn the rest of the vault against her. None of this is going to end well for anyone in the vaults. I promise you that.
Character Profiles
Stephanie: Steph gets the Barb treatment this time around. They give you a foundational part of her development in the escape from Canada and her mother’s advice to find a place to fit in and ride out the wave of war that’s coming. Her defense mechanism, too, involves manipulation. However, she pulls the strings in a much more obvious way.
Thaddeus: Our comic relief, and occasional guardian angel, undergoes some severe metamorphosis in this episode. Thought to be turning into a ghoul, his arm falls off. The new fan theories have him becoming a centaur. While that would give Max an interesting storyline, I hope they have something else up their sleeves.
World Building and Setting
We get a bit of a view of prewar Canada in the cold open with Stephanie and her mother. There’s not anything in the traditional sense of setting. That is, they don’t show us any actual countryside other than the forest they use for the escape. But, Stephanie’s mother gives her a final piece of advice that colors how she lives the rest of her life. Canadians, at least this one, hates Americans. And, they probably have a point. We are getting a side in the show that the game can’t always provide. We see the face of those that the American hubris consumed. By setting this part of Cooper’s life in the Lucky 38, we get the building in two different eras. The hey day of Vegas and the nest of real life monsters in the Deathclaws. The figurative again becomes the literal.
The big reveal at the end of the episode with the congresswoman’s head as the mainframe gives us both the mundane and the horrifying. The games often drop little nuggets like this into the flow of the story with little to no explanation. I’m sure the show will go into what happened and how she ended up here. Even if they didn’t, this nod to the horror of the games is appreciated. It also serves as a counter to Robert House’s own life as a computer. Those of us who have been waiting for the fall of Vault 33 finally get our moment. The thin veneer on every vault is always fake, but it’s still satisfying to see that veneer drop every single time.
Themes and Social Commentary
By following Stephanie from Canada, we get the most obvious example yet of the United States as enemy. When you grow up in this country, you get constantly bombarded about how great we have been and how great we can yet be. But, somehow, we are never great when reminded of those things. A discussion for another time perhaps. For now, I just want to point to the current policies and where we will be in 50 years if the bombs don’t drop…or, I guess, even if they do.
We see the inheritance of evil and trauma over and over in the series. This time, Stephanie carries on this violence thanks to her mother but also thanks to the world around her. They backed her into a corner, killed her mother, and then wonder why she kills. As things start to unravel in the vault, she wants to cover that up with a happy family. However, the past returns and begs the question. Are you ever truly free from that past? And, as Max said, “You always end up where you started.” He has done so much and grown so much from what he was. He, too, tried to run from his past. The Ghoul, as he does, shows him that part of him is still good and necessary if he’s to get back to Lucy. Just because things are bloody or violent, that doesn’t always mean that they are bad. Even so, sometimes you have to make that deal with bad in order to do good.
Narrative Structure, Pacing, and Soundtrack
The episode tells three parallel stories through the story. Yes, they check in on Norm, but his little group isn’t a main part of the episode. Stephanie’s past coming back to haunt her, Max’s past coming back to help him, and Lucy and The Ghoul’s pasts both coming crashing into their presents in very real ways. As a result, this episode is a master class in pacing. They start with the sprint of the cold open, the slow and deliberate place of Hank and Lucy’s parts offer both a break, but also a different kind of tension, and then Max and The Ghoul come in to give us the feel good release valve.
Things ramp back up with Norm, the vault, and the final series of scenes. Norm may have brain damage, the vault dwellers are going to kill Stephanie, Lucy is frantically trying to get to the mainframe to destroy it, Cooper is giving the diode to the president, and The Ghoul is giving it to House. How do you write an episode with multiple cliffhangers and multiple resolutions simultaneously? I honestly have no idea, but this show consistently nails the landing on all of them.
The Verdict
I loved Fallout Episode 15. If my earlier comment didn’t convince you, hopefully the gushing review that I just spent the better part of an hour and a half writing will. I’ve always enjoyed the lore and stories of the games and they now bring so much more of that into the show. In addition, the characters all have their own stories that, truly, could keep this show going for several seasons if Amazon just keeps writing the checks.