I’m not a big fan of the limited episode format that so many modern prestige TV shows have adopted over the last decade or so. With that in mind, I do appreciate that a show as expansive as this packs as much as it can into those eight episodes.
It’s not covering a lot of ground between them, but there’s enough entertainment value and catharsis within their limited time that I can’t really be too mad at any of it. Still, there are criticisms to be made.
I think the show is kind of thin in terms of plotting. Season two especially is leaning hard on the still rotting corpse of Fallout: New Vegas more than it is developing its own narrative. Luckily, it balances this out by having some compelling original characters who fit right into this world.
Cooper Howard may be the best example. 'The Wrangler’ is all about his past and present forays in New Vegas, and how his steely resolve is compromised in both cases. Ghoul Cooper hopes finding Hank MacLean will finally lead him back to his long lost wife and daughter, while the untarnished Cooper of yesterday is trying to keep his family (and world) from falling apart by stopping the deal between Mr. House and Vault-Tec without any bloodshed.
On a purely technical level, the show and its production team earns high marks for bringing New Vegas to life. I’m not sure which is more impressive: the sandy, dilapidated and game-accurate look of it in the future or the glossy, retrofuturist opulence of it in its heyday. The juxtaposition is exquisite. It's also good to see Justin Theroux rocking the Mr. House role, even down to affecting some of the same grandiose cadence that René Auberjonois brought to the character in the game.
The scene in which Cooper formally meets House in the Lucky 38 sheds light on some things, thankfully. He dismisses Vault-Tec as a mere “collision of bureaucrats,” which definitely appears to be the case so far. And though he is creating a bit of a techno-fascist despot in New Vegas, he’s not the bad guy, either. The show made it appear as if he was the main antagonist in the beginning, but that was apparently a red herring. House hints at a greater threat that goes beyond him or Vault-Tec, though he claims to not know who.
Whatever the truth is, the Howard family is at the center of it. House likens Cooper to himself, two showmen of one kind or another who happen to find themselves dead in the center of the overextended, trigger-happy, fatally arrogant capitalist clusterfuck that was brewing in America before the war. More alarming, House’s calculations first projected that the world would end on the day Cooper’s daughter was born, and have changed with Cooper’s recent actions. These revelations, and his reluctance to face them, drives the normally even-keeled young Cooper to make a drunken spectacle of himself.
Centuries later, the Ghoul that once was Cooper drowns his sorrows in The Atomic Wrangler after finding The Strip infested with Deathclaws. First, he’s down because of another seemingly insurmountable obstacle standing in the way of him finally getting back to his family. Then, it’s because he’s confronted with another difficult choice.
Earlier in the episode, Hank perfects the mind control device on that rapacious Snake Oil Salesman who kept popping up last season. On Hank’s behalf, the controlled Salesman gives Cooper an ultimatum. Hank’s new Vault does contain the cryo-pods for Cooper’s wife and daughter, but he will terminate both unless Cooper gives up his pursuit and brings Lucy back to Vault 33.
And Lucy was already having a bad day. First, she's forced to run for her life from the Deathclaws. Then her desperation to avoid a painful drug withdrawal leads her to rob a Freeside store for medicine and she ends up impulsively killing her first relatively average human; though, not one she should feel too bad about, since the guy was a deranged killer, but still a turning point for her. And finally, betrayed by her traveling companion.
To be fair, it’s a betrayal she should have seen coming. But Lucy still hasn’t quite lost the bright-eyed optimism she began with. Despite all he’s done to her, Lucy thought she and Cooper were becoming friends. And the crazy thing is, they were. Cooper is clearly broken up about selling her out; I believe he even calls her by her name for the first time. But his family has been his priority a lot longer than he’s been bonding with Lucy. I love the way the editing combines Lucy’s drugging and loss of control with Cooper’s bender in the past. Once again, highlighting that he was once a person much like her.
And the episode has a solid cliffhanger ending, with Lucy falling into her father’s hands, but not before using her stolen power-fist to send Cooper flying through a window and getting him impaled on a broken sign post. Quite a… fallout… to that relationship.
Caps and Rads:
* One of the Deathclaws cuts down an old palm tree with the swing of its tail. Cool detail.
* I like that they came back around to Diane Welch in the pre-war flashbacks. Previously, she was introduced as an insultingly uncharismatic congresswoman hosting the veterans event Cooper attended. Here, Cooper witnesses her get dragged and thrown to the ground by Mr. House’s goons for protesting Vault-Tec and RobCo’s influence over the U.S. government. This was a sympathetic look at a character the audience was primed to be very annoyed with. The ones standing up for what’s right aren’t always going to be the most galvanizing people, but that does not and should not devalue their efforts or their causes.
* Before trying to rob Sonny’s Sundries, Lucy stands in front of a wall with a faded ad for Dean Domino. Dean Domino was a pre-war celebrity singer who later became a ruthless ghoul, and he’s one of at least three other New Vegas ghoul characters that clearly served as inspiration for the Cooper Howard character.
* Norm and Bud's Buds update: The gang arrives at the local Vault-Tec HQ. Dale Dickey's Ma June makes an appearance again (along with her girlfriend, Barv), which I liked. I also like the little flirtation between Norm and the cute time-displaced girl Martha. Sucks that Norm got overpowered by Ronnie, but it wouldn't have been believable if he'd put up a better fight; Norm's a thinker, not a fighter. Both Lucy and Norm end the episode unconscious and at the mercy of a Vault 31er.
* Norm discovers that “Future Enterprise Ventures” is actually a pet name for the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). Without delving too deep into it, FEV is responsible for quite a few Wasteland monstrosities. The Deathclaws being just one example.
* This might just be me, but seeing the Lucky 38 looking brand new and filled with people merrily partying felt like another nod to The Shining. I’m used to the Lucky 38’s mystique from the game, which is that of an old empty fortress that no one has set foot in since the Great War began. Seeing it in this episode was like Jack in the Overlook Hotel seeing the Gold Room alive with reveling ghosts.
* Cooper drunkenly riding the nuke-shaped mechanical bull was another clear shoutout to Dr. Strangelove.
* Music: “Rags to Riches” by Tony Bennett. “You Always Hurt the One You Love” by The Mills Brothers.
Quotes:
Lucy: “Do you have any more drugs? I really think I need some more drugs?”
Lucy: “Where are you going?”
Cooper/The Ghoul: “To get fucked up.”
Hits the bar after sending Lucy to get sober.
Bartender: “Guess you saw them Deathclaw things come up from Quarry Junction. They fartin’ around the Strip. Big whoop. Just another fuckin’ round o’ change in management’s all it is. Like one of ‘em merry-go-rounds. NCR, Legion, NCR, Legion. Fuckin’ robots. No matter to me.”
Young Hank MacLean: “Oh! I’m suddenly a very important person, and a possible assassination target.”
Cooper: “I’m really sorry about that.”
Rep. Diane Welch: “No, it’s fine. Fighting the good fight is mostly a series of humiliations.”
Cooper: “… Keep at it.”
Hank: “How would you like to forget everything you’ve ever known? Everyone you’ve ever known? Your language and motor skills will remain intact. But every choice you’ve made, every moment you’ve cherished, will be completely and utterly removed from your memory.”
Snake Oil Salesman: “Please. Yes.”
Ma June: “Let’s go, Barv. If you idiots need supplies for the trip home, help yourselves. But don’t you touch my roach farm.”
Lucy: “Sir, don’t touch that gun. If you touch that gun, I’m gonna have to maim you.”
Cooper: “What are you, a fortune teller now?”
Mr. House: “I am a mathematician, a roboticist, and a casino owner. And I don’t know yet how you figure into all of this, but you most certainly do. And I don’t like unknown variables. Irksome.”
Mr. House: “As you see, I live my life by one simple maxim.”
Cooper: “The House always wins, right?”
Mr. House: “And it does. I’m making sure of it using every single piece of technology at my disposal. But what if I’m not the House? What if someone else is?"
Cooper: “What if you’re just a fucking lunatic?”
Lucy: “We were actually beginning to get along.”
Cooper/The Ghoul: “Couldn’t be helped. Family’s a fucked up thing.”
Four out of five rusted poles through the torso.
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