I suppose change, and the chaos that goes with it, was the theme of the episode.
This was another fun one, even if some parts feel a little padded out. It gets half a star for just how well-rendered the Deathclaws are in live-action.
So Much for Brotherhood
Picking up where the last episode left off, Maximus goads Thaddeus into posing as the dead commonwealth emissary. I like that he essentially forces Thaddeus to do what he did last season: impersonate a veteran Brotherhood knight. While I wasn’t totally sold on this character’s return to the plot, it does lead to some humorous moments.
Maximus, our ever conflicted anti-hero, has no choice but to act in order to stay ahead of the civil war that’s about to spread across the Wasteland. He's successfully stealing the cold fusion relic and unsuccessfully attempting to kill his quasi-father figure, Quintus.
I like that Maximus and Quintus are both kind of baring their souls in that scene, and that it’s the closest they’ve come to meeting each other on the same level. Yet, in doing so, they reveal how irreconcilably different they are. Maximus’s confessed rescue of the ghoul children triggers the Elder Cleric’s culty xenophobic programming. Max hesitates, gets into an unconvincing shootout with Quintus and makes his escape with Thaddeus as the Brotherhood factions at Area 51 all turn on each other after the relic goes missing.
It didn’t take long for the Brotherhood to mess things up so soon after gaining what is effectively absolute power.
“Future Enterprise Ventures”
Civil wars seem to be catching this season, with mounting hints of infighting among the residents of Vaults 33, 32 and 31. You know, the ones that were supposed to be all about management and population control.
The Overseers of 33 and 32, Betty and Steph, are in trouble. Betty is struggling to deal with resource shortages, now exacerbated by Reg’s ridiculous incest support group. And Steph’s facade is starting to get picked apart by people like Woody and Chet, the latter of whom discovers a pre-war Canadian ID hidden in her room.
As if that’s not bad enough, Betty and Steph are now butting heads. Betty seems to appreciate how dire things are below the surface, while Steph is maintaining a chilly Darwinian outlook on their situation.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Norm’s little adventure with the pre-war Vault 31 residents seems to be going surprisingly smoothly. That is, until Bud Askins’s personal assistant, Ronnie, presents himself. This smug coffeeboy throws a wrench in Norm’s haphazard plan to lead these people, since Ronnie knows a bit about Vault-Tec’s nefarious plans. It looks like Norm’s gonna be facing some fatal decisions soon, like his sister.
Fear and Loathing in New Vegas
Lucy and Cooper’s personalities rubbing off on each other is one of the more interesting parts of this season.
Last episode, the wicked Ghoul showed a more diplomatic and heroic side. Now we have this episode, in which Lucy becomes a drug addict and gleefully engages in a little ultra-violence. As far as the show including roleplaying elements from the games, this was an excellent idea. And hilarious; Ella Purnell must have had fun with Lucy’s mood-swinging, going from chipper to surly to bloodthirsty and back again.
Fittingly, the two druggie misfits finally make it to New Vegas. I, like Cooper, knew something was off right away. The Kings, one of the more likable factions in New Vegas, have been reduced to feral ghouls, and the only visible Securitrons are totally destroyed. Then they find the Strip looking like a ghost town.
This is when the show properly introduces Deathclaws, one of the deadliest enemies in the games. These things were once lizards, mutated by the military industrial complex into becoming the demonic, roided out beasts that are a terror to all Wastelanders. Even a seen-it-all type like Cooper is afraid of them.
Not only that, he’s one of the first people to ever be afraid of them. The start of the episode is a flashback to his military service on the Alaskan Front. Due to malfunctioning power armor, Cooper is nearly killed by communist soldiers… and then nearly killed by the Deathclaw that slaughters them. Ironically, one of the communists was waxing philosophical about how the power armor is a technological evolution of war that all soldiers will be forced to adapt to eventually… right before she is killed by a Deathclaw, an evolution of biological warfare. One that remains a scourge over 200 years later, with New Vegas — once one of the most secure locations in the Wasteland — now somehow reduced to a Deathclaw den. That’s not a bad cliffhanger to end on.
Caps and Rads:
* Maximus is carrying a laser pistol in this episode. I believe that's the first laser/plasma weapon appearance in the show thus far.
* The Kings — a New Vegas gang inspired by an Elvis Presley impersonator school — had all become feral ghouls. These were amusing side characters from Fallout: New Vegas, so it was kind of sad to see Lucy gun them all down.
* We learn that Steph is from Canada, who had been at war with the U.S. shortly before the end of the old world. That might account for her coldness toward her fellow vault-dwellers. Betty is from Solvang, California.
* Bud Askins made it sound like his “Buds” in Vault 31 were part of some elite executive training program. Only to find out that most of them seem to be somewhat dimwitted low-level drones. The most assertive out of the bunch Norm releases is Ronnie, a personal assistant who brought the real executives coffee. And this tracks with Hank and Betty as well, who had previously been Barb Howard’s assistant and secretary, respectively. The most egregious case is Martha, a girl who had only been working at Vault-Tec for about a week before the bombs fell and she got cryogenically frozen.
* Buffout, the drug Lucy gets hooked on, is a pre-war drug that basically works like steroids. Its addictive quality and the effect it has on Lucy makes it seem more like cocaine or speed, though.
* Music: “Cocaine Blues” by Roy Hogsed, as Lucy kills the Kings. Also, “He’s a Demon, He’s a Devil, He’s a Dog” by Betty Hutton.
Quotes:
Lucy: “They seemed nice.”
Cooper/The Ghoul: “You think they’d be nice to you if they find out what your daddy did?”
Lucy: “I wasn’t gonna stay, if that’s what you’re worried about. All I saw in there was more matching jackets.”
Lucy: “What the fudge are you stopping for? Sorry. Whew. Gosh, why am I suddenly so grumpy? Am I— Am I dying?”
Cooper: “No, you ain’t dyin’. You addicted to drugs.”
Lucy: “What? No, I— No. It’s not possible.”
Cooper: “Two days on a steady drip of Buffout’ll do that to a body.”
Lucy: “Well, then I… hereby quit drugs. There.”
Cooper: (starts rummaging through his saddlebag)
Lucy: (fiending) “Whatcha got there? Oh, gosh, it didn’t take. I’m still addicted to drugs.”
Betty: “I woke up 40 years ago, and I’ve learned a lot in that time. What matters, what doesn’t matter. The company we work for isn’t coming to save us. This community and how we conduct ourselves in it… that’s all we have.”
Steph: “The experiment’s over, Betty. We have to make our decisions now.”
Lucy: “I am done with all of the sidetracks and the detours. I saw we just run on through. Who fudgin’ cares?”
Cooper: “That’s the drugs talking! Truth be told, I like what they’re sayin’.”
Quintus: “What is your great plan?”
Maximus: “… There was no plan. I don’t have a plan. You have plans. But out there, you can’t! I don’t choose to do the things I have to do, they just keep happening.”
Lucy: (over a huge egg shell) “How big do the chickens get out here? Boc-boc, boc-boc, boc-boc!”
Cooper: “Those aren’t chickens.”
Three and a half out of five Deathclaw eggs.
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