The last episode was very well-done, but didn’t feel like it had a lot of forward momentum. There’s a bit more going on in this one, narratively speaking.
The most obvious bit is Lucy waking up in the Management Vault with Hank. We’ve only seen bits and pieces of what Hank’s trying do, but Lucy gets a pretty good idea. Turns out the Snake Oil Salesman is just the first of many Wastelanders who Hank has kidnapped and mind-controlled. Everyone from the average weirdo to members of big name factions like the Legion have been reprogrammed from unruly savages to cheery office drones. And they’re all busy at work making more devices to control even more people. At the start of the episode, Mr. House’s double refers to the device as the “Automated Man” when selling it to Vault-Tec.
It presents the nobly intentioned Lucy with another unique moral quandary. She intends to bring her malevolent father to justice for his many crimes, while Hank is trying to sway her to his side by acting as if their relationship is the same as it was the last time they were in a Vault together. His perspective on society and humanity’s history of violence, and how he frames his new project through that lens, makes Hank a very good villain for this franchise. The conflict is as much about peace and control vs. freedom and chaos than it is daughter vs. father.
One could make the argument that free will is worth sacrificing if it means a less chaotic world where people are nice to each other and work together, even if you know no one has a choice. Then again, it’s a form of power that could easily be used for nefarious purposes. If people can be forced to be nice, they can just as easily be forced to be unspeakably cruel.
Speaking of power in the hands of morally ambiguous parties, we return to Maximus and Thaddeus. Both are now on the run with absolute power in the form of the Cold Fusion relic. Thad wants to sell it for a quick score, but Max knows it should go to someone who will use it for good, like Lucy. He ends up finding the Ghoul instead.
Present-day Cooper spends most of this episode where he was at the end of last episode: impaled on that jagged metal rod in Freeside, where no one cares to help him, leaving him to suffer and start turning feral. That is, until he’s saved by another Wasteland “abomination.” A Super Mutant.
Super Mutants are a result of the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) intended to accelerate human potential… or create monstrous bioweapons, whichever. They’re one of the most well-known and frequently encountered enemies in the games. I’ve been looking forward to a Super Mutant appearance since the show began.
While I would have liked a little more to this scene, it was still a good start. Super Mutants tend to be hulking ultra-violent brutes, too stupid and insane to be reasoned with. The one who saves Cooper is a rare intelligent and articulate Super Mutant; and his dialogue suggests he might be one of many. And he claims to have saved Cooper because he sees him as a potential ally. Having the Super Mutant be played by Ron Perlman, who provided voice-over narration for a few of the Fallout games, was a particularly beautiful touch.
The Super Mutant also seems to imply that he and his brethren are leading a rebellion against the faction that is apparently behind everything: The Enclave. I guess they’re supposed to be ‘The Other Player’ the title refers to.
Part of me doubts if they are actually the main bad guys; I’ll explain more in the miscellaneous section. They’re treated like a big surprise in this episode, but they were introduced in the show as far back as the second episode of the show; they’re the group Dr. Wilzig (Michael Emerson) stole Cold Fusion from… along with Dogmeat. Wilzig even appears here, revealing that he is another character who was around 200 years in the past. He tells Barb what to say during the big war room meeting from last season. It’s clear Wilzig’s just handing down the order from someone higher up in the Enclave, and he seems to empathize with Barb the way he did with Lucy last season.
I figured there was more to Barb than just a coldblooded company-woman. Well, not more per se. I just knew she wasn’t pure evil. She’s just someone who rose to a level that allowed her to be privy to some very dark truths, and is now simply using her position to protect her family, no matter what it takes.
While it has them finally confront the harsh reality of their world and their own true feelings about it, I like that Cooper and Barb’s marital woes aren’t as bitter as I imagined. Not yet, at least. Their subplot in this episode ends with them working together to steal the Cold Fusion from young Hank.
This season’s doing a lot of building, a lot of hinting and inching toward things, even if what transpires in the set up is entertaining. By all rights, the payoff in the next two episodes should be pretty damn good.
Caps and Rads:
* This episode was written by Dave Hill, a Game of Thrones writer, and directed by Lisa Joy, executive producer of Fallout and co-creator of Westworld.
* Speaking of Westworld, as I tend to do in these reviews, the “automated man” that the mind-control device promises is toying with a similar concept from that show’s final season, in which robots have successfully enslaved humanity through a form of mind-control.
* Vault 33: Betty and Reg are at an impasse over the Incest Support Group that’s eating up 33’s resources. I’m not sure what Reg’s deal is, but I assume he’s just a needy, attention-seeking man-child rebelling against his mommy figure. And Betty’s reasonable, compassionate nature is letting the situation with him deteriorate.
* Vault 32: Steph doesn’t share Betty’s compassion, as she evidently murdered Woody (allowing Zach Cherry to devote more time to Severance and other projects, I’m sure) after he caught on to her and Betty’s lies. But things aren’t rosy for her, either. Chet is clearly reaching his breaking point. After spending most of the show thanklessly caring for Steph’s baby, he learns that he’s now being forced to marry Steph. And he knows what she did to Woody.
* The Enclave is certainly an obvious choice if the show’s going for an overarching villainous faction, but I honestly think that’s a little too obvious. Even more obvious than Vault-Tec, whom we were previously led to believe was the evil group behind everything. Like Mr. House said, there could be a player we haven’t yet accounted for. The term “Management” has been a recurring thing in the show. Maybe that’s the true bad guy at play, using huge and convoluted organizations like the Enclave, Vault-Tec and even Mr. House as proxies. An ominous shadow cabal determined to manage mankind, reshaping us into a more controllable animal.
Quotes:
Mr. House Double: “Spent a lot of time trying to make my machines more lifelike, but hey, works the other way around, too.”
Hank MacLean: (about All Quiet on the Western Front) “What aspect upset you most? To me, the most troubling was that everyone seemed to be fighting over nothing. The French and the German, what was the difference between them, really? I mean, other than the uniforms? I saw the same thing up on the surface. People fighting over the most petty things, like bottle caps. Is that what you saw when you were there? But, you know, some things just never change. People just wanna kill each other, don’t they? I think that’s the only way for people to feel safe. It’s ironic. To feel safe, we have to hurt people, even kill them.”
Hank: “It’s crazy… the war instinct, hm?”
Hank: “You know how I get with all my little projects.”
Maximus: “That armor’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
I like to see Maximus growing as a character.
Thaddeus: “Name a good person, seriously.”
Maximus: “The girl I met.”
Thaddeus: “The Vault Dweller.”
Maximus: “Yeah.”
Thaddeus: “Yeah, ya know, uh, I would be a good person too if I grew up on a mountain of food and supplies, in some cozy little impenetrable home. Wouldn’t look like this, that’s for sure. Wouldn’t have to steal and stab and fib all the goddamn time just to get by.”
Reg: “Our ancestors put themselves first. And you know what? That worked for them. And for us! I’m not ashamed of that anymore.”
You really need to get rid of this guy, Betty.
The Super Mutant: “They call us abominations, but they created our kind.”
Cooper/The Ghoul: “Our kind? I think you and me got bitten by a different motherfuckin’ bug, my friend.”
The Super Mutant: “Ghouls. Mutants. We’re kin, and we should unite against our common enemy. They drove us to the point of extinction and forgot we ever existed. But we didn’t forget them. The people who set all this in motion. The Enclave.”
Hank: “I just wish we could all get along, don’t you, Sugar Bomb?”
Not great, but we’re still making progress. Three out of five uranium rods in the torso.
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