All the factions converge to secure the secrets of the head as the truth of Lucy's past is revealed.
Tropes:
- After-Action Villain Analysis: When Lucy reaches Moldaver at the Observatory, the latter reveals the Awful Truth about her parents.
- Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: When leaving with the Ghoul, Lucy drops her "Okie-dokie!" catchphrase but this time in a much darker tone and more weight to it.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The Ghoul, having personal experience with the older T-45d power armor, identifies a weak point in the chest armor and correctly guesses that the newer model has not repaired that defect. He also tosses a grenade into the collar of one to blow the poor guy's head off.
- Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: Lucy picks up Maximus's sidearm and seemingly levels it at the Ghoul, only to then shoot her ghoulified mother in the head to end her miserable existence.
- Bittersweet Ending: Practically every major character leaves the season with major victories and losses:
- Moldaver has finally seen her dream of cold fusion infinity energy become a reality, just in time for the Brotherhood of Steel to destroy her home, kill her and her followers, and take the repowered Los Angeles for themselves.
- Lucy has found her father, only to find out what a despicable monster he is. She becomes wiser for it, however, and seeks to hunt him down for more answers, teaming up with the Ghoul, who also seeks to find his family.
- Maximus has been declared a hero of the Brotherhood, his ascension in the ranks assured, but only after he's lost his faith in the organization as a result of his journey. He stays only to honor Moldaver's Last Request to try to guide the Brotherhood into using the cold fusion reactor for good.
- Hank flees the scene in power armor and makes his way towards New Vegas, likely to seek out Mr. House. For now, he has evaded responsibility for all the destruction he caused, but both Lucy and The Ghoul are hot on his trail.
- Booby Trap: Discussed when Lucy tells Moldaver that she considered trying to stuff a grenade up Wilzig's neck stump, but ultimately decided to be the better person and didn't go through with it.
- Brain in a Jar: Bud has spent the past two centuries as a simplistic Robobrain ("Brain-on-a-Roomba", as the subtitles and audio description put it), overseeing Vault 31.
- Broken Pedestal: Lucy's respect for her father is destroyed when she discovers his complicity in Vault-Tec's experiments and role in Shady Sands' destruction.
- Call-Forward: The Vault experiments proposed at the meeting, some of which can be visited across the game series. Among the suggestions are a Vault to create Super Mutant soldiers and a Vault where drugs are introduced into the air filtration system - Vaults 87 and 106, located in the Capital Wasteland.
- Capitalism Is Bad: The Mega Corps starting the war is a great example of how far they are willing to go to maintain an endless stream of profits and/or control over everything... even if it means the deaths of billions.
- Chekhov's Gun: Cooper Howard previously complained to Bud in a flashback about the faulty T-45d power armor getting a lot of his friends killed in the war. This allows him to deduce that the newer model likely has the same defect, allowing him to kill several Knights with precision shots.
- Cliffhanger: Norman's fate at the end of the episode. He is trapped in the cryo-storage unit by the disembodied brain of Bud Askins, who gives him a Sadistic Choice — either he hops into his father's old cryo-unit and waits to be awoken with the other Vault 31 members, or he stays outside and eventually starves to death. It's not shown what choice Norman takes before the scene transitions.
- Continuity Cameo: RobCo's representative is an unnamed Robert House. Big MT's representative, meanwhile, is Frederick Sinclair.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In comparison to the NCR remnants who, while putting up a hell of a fight, cannot stop the advance of the Brotherhood into the Observatory, the Ghoul steamrolls through an entire squadron of Knights and Squires, most of the former in full Power Armor, like they were made of paper, which shows just how deadly he is.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: The NCR remnants are hopelessly outmatched by the Brotherhood detachment sent after them, but they kill several soldiers in power armor and don't go down lightly.
- Desert Skull: In the last scene, Hank comes across a deathclaw skull on his way through the desert towards New Vegas.
- Digital De-Aging: Kyle MacLachlan gets a digital facelift for the scene where he met Cooper 219 years ago.
- Easily Forgiven: Maximus gets off surprisingly easily for having stolen Titus' armor and identity and bringing in a decoy head to the Brotherhood elders. Quintus implies that it's not the first time an ambitious squire has pulled a stunt like this, and Maximus' knowledge of where to find Wilzig's head also buys him some leeway.
- Emerging from the Shadows: When the Ghoul enters the room to (re)introduce himself to Hank, he comes out of the shadows with the line "Feo, fuerte y formal", the quote that Hank loved from his cowboy films before the Great War.
- Enemy Mine: There's no love lost between Lucy and the Ghoul, but they end up teaming up to track down Hank when he flees to New Vegas.
- Flawed Prototype: The T-45d Powered Armor used at Anchorage had a weak point in the welding on the chest plate that got many marines killed unnecessarily. The Ghoul demonstrates that this flaw still remains uncorrected for the later T-60c variant by hitting the exact weak point in several suits of Brotherhood knights, taking them out with single shots.
- For the Evulz: While they are mostly bought by the idea of having the world in the palm of their hands, a lot of executives are more amused by the idea of treating the survivors of the Vaults like their own personal toys.We could intentionally overcrowd a Vault, so people have to compete to survive inside it.We have been developing a robot that delivers milk to the front. It's quite intelligent. I would like to see a Vault governed by it.What about using a Vault to develop a super-mutant soldier using illegal immigrants?
- Gory Discretion Shot: Petty Officer Shortsight gets shot in the chest by the Ghoul, whose bullets tend to make people explode, though due to the lights being off we only see a glimpse of it.
- Heroic BSoD: Lucy takes the truth of her father's actions hard, being too speechless to warn Maximus not to free him.
- Hope Spot: When listening to Barbara speak up at the meeting, Cooper is confident that she'll "set them straight" on how to handle things... and then Barbara calmly puts forward the idea of starting the nuclear war themselves and letting the rich carve up their own societies.
- Human Popsicle: The experiment of Vault 31. Norm, suspicious that every Vault 33 Overseer (including his father) came from 31, enters to find it filled with Vault-Tec employees in cryo-sleep, encased to direct the Vaults according to the will of Vault-Tec.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: This episode contains so many examples that it's appalling, including the Mega Corps starting the Great War and killing billions of lives just for a little more money, and humans being happy to destroy their own kind for no real reason... even after they've been provoked into doing so for centuries prior to any nuclear blasts.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Hank explains to Lucy that he did what was necessary to save his people.
- Insane Troll Logic: The Mega Corps rationalize that by starting the Great War and killing most of the world population, they'll eliminate their competition, create a true monopoly, and "win" the game of capitalism. With most of the population dead, they would have a very small pool of individuals to market their products to, and thus their ability to profit from their monopoly would be extremely limited, certainly in comparison to the investment they're making to eliminate all other choices. Mr. House even points out they're banking a lot on a possible nuclear war that may not even happen, which leads to Barbara countering with her proposal that Vault-Tec drop the bomb itself.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When Norman invades Vault 31, Bud tells him he will never find out about his father's origin. Cue Norman turning on the lights, revealing a hall full of cryo-pods.
- Ironic Echo: The first time Hank met Cooper, he quoted Cooper's line from his last western and asked him for his autograph. After a ghoulified Cooper shoots Hank 219 years later, he repeats that line and asks if he wants another autograph.
- Irony: In the previous episode, Lucy told Maximus "If my father knew I destroyed an entire community to save him, it'd break his heart." In this episode, Lucy learns that her father destroyed an entire community to, in his view, save her. And it breaks her heart.
- I Will Find You: Said by Lucy to Maximus before she leaves him to go after her father with the Ghoul.
- Kill the Lights: The Ghoul takes out the lights first during his shootout with the Brotherhood.
- Kill the Ones You Love: Lucy gives her feral ghoul mother a Mercy Kill.
- Matricide: Lucy ends up killing her own mother, albeit as a Mercy Kill as she's become a feral ghoul.
- Medal of Dishonor: Dane mistakenly thinks Maximus killed Moldaver and leads the other knights in a chant of "All hail Knight Maximus!" Maximus clearly isn't happy about it.
- Mercy Kill: Lucy takes Maximus' 10mm pistol and shoots her mother in the head after realizing she's become a ghoul as a result of Shady Sands' destruction.
- Monumental Damage: The Hollywood sign Lucy and the Ghoul pass by at the end is damaged and missing an "O".
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: Moldaver keeps Rose at the dinner table even though she's a feral ghoul.
- Mythology Gag:
- The place where Lucy finally finds her father and Moldaver—a bombed-out building overlooking the ruined Los Angeles skyline at sunset—looks incredibly similar to the opening scene of the original Fallout. The scene of Los Angeles powering up due to the cold fusion reactor is also similar to the slide used in the good ending for Necropolis (formerly Bakersfield).
- When the cold fusion reactor activates, the terminal makes the classic "level up" jingle.
- Hank's code for the cold fusion reactor is 101097. 10/10/1997 was the release date for the original Fallout.
- Both Barb and later the Ghoul delivers the iconic "War never changes".
- A scientific project poised to change life for the better for the inhabitants of the wasteland is activated just as power-armored troops storm the facility to seize it for themselves. Although unlike the Enclave storing Project Purity this time it's the Brotherhood of Steel.
- Each of the executives' proposals for Vault experiments are based on actual Vaults that can be found throughout the Fallout games.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: When Lucy enters Moldaver's lair, she finds her sitting at a dinner table inviting Lucy to join her for a meal.
- Obviously Not Fine: Cooper is so shell-shocked by what Barb and Vault-Tec are planning that it takes him some time to respond to Betty's calls for his attention; he awkwardly attempts to assure her that he's okay, despite sounding like he's about a heartbeat away from a nervous breakdown.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Having no other way to keep Norman from ruining his experiment, Brain in a Jar Bud instead traps him inside the cryo storage part of the vault and tells him in no uncertain terms that the only way he is going to make it out of Vault 31 is if he gets in his father's cryo pod and waits to emerge with the rest of the Vault-Tec executives. The episode ends without showing whether he took the offer.
- Once More, with Clarity: Previously, Lucy recalled a memory with her mother where she believed she felt the sun shining down on her, only to chalk it up to nostalgia for happier times when her mother was still around. Here we see that memory in full, and Lucy was in the real sunlight with her mother and brother in Shady Sands.
- One Nation Under Copyright: Underneath the Hollywood sign we see at the end there is a neon sign saying, "Sponsored by Nuka-Cola".
- Poor Communication Kills: Lucy is rendered so shocked and speechless upon learning the truth about her father's many horrific crimes that she's unable to warn Maximus not to free him until after Maximus has already done so.
- Powers That Be: Representatives from Big MT, REPCONN Aerospace, West Tek Corporation and RobCo Industries attend Vault-Tec's meeting, ostensibly to gather the necessary resources and support for Project Safehouse's true goal. However, the meeting is overseen by a shadowed figure who directs Barbara to get them back on track after the discussion gets heated.
- The Reveal:
- Dane, Maximus's friend in the Brotherhood who suffered a razor blade to the foot in the first episode, reveals that they did it to themselves; they were too scared of going out and potentially dying in the wasteland.
- The device Dr. Wilzig inserted into his neck is the catalyst for a cold fusion reactor. Moldaver kidnapped Lucy's father because she needed his Vault-Tec employee password to activate it.
- Vault 31 is a cryogenic storage facility containing Bud's pre-war manager trainees, who have been selected to create a managerial class for the new world. They're unfrozen to run the other two vaults.
- Vault-Tec and the other Mega Corps propose they start the Great War by dropping the bomb themselves. Whether or not they actually did is up in the air, but the implication is that they did.
- Lucy's mother, Rose, took her to Shady Sands after finding out the Awful Truth of the Vaults and discovering that life was thriving on the surface. Hank retaliated by re-taking his children, then having Shady Sands nuked. All that remained of Rose was a decrepit feral ghoul.
- The reason the Vaults have varied (and seemingly pointless) experiments is that Vault-Tec allowed corporations to run experiments as a twisted test of who could make the best society.
- A younger Betty Pearson is revealed to be Barb's secretary at Vault-Tec.
- Riding into the Sunset: The move ends with a shot of Hank walking into the sunrise and in the direction of New Vegas.
- Shell-Shock Silence:
- In the Flashback B-Plot, Cooper is shocked when he hears his wife suggesting dropping the bomb. The sound around him is muffled out and he only hears a ringing sound from the earpiece.
- Later Maximus experiences this effect on the battleground in front of the Observatory when a bomb hits near him.
- Shoot Out the Lock: Maximus opens Hank's cage by shooting the lock.
- Stress Vomit: We see a Squire, either airsick, afraid because of the upcoming battle, or both, upchucking in their helmet as the Brotherhood airborne assault begins.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: A dark example when Dane mistakenly proclaims that Maximus killed Moldaver, and Maximus rolls with it as the rest of the Brotherhood cheer him and it is mentioned that he'll be made a Knight for this. Maximus is clearly not happy with this turn of events, but recognizes that this is the only way he'll have any influence over how the Brotherhood will use Moldaver's game-changing cold fusion.
- Trick-and-Follow Ploy: The Ghoul demands the location of his family from Hank. After a pause, Hank turns and flees through the hole in the wall. The Ghoul could have killed him, but as he explains to Lucy, it's easier to follow a wounded pig to its home than to figure out where it would have gone after killing it.
- Turbine Blender: An unlucky Brotherhood Squire falls out of a Vertibird and is minced by another's propellers during the attack on the Griffith Observatory.
- Viva Las Vegas!: The episode ends with a shot of Lucy's father, clad in a stolen suit of Power Armor, escaping California to make his way towards New Vegas.
- We Can Rule Together: Quintus utterly confounds Maximus, who has decided he wants to leave the Brotherhood and was prepared to make a Heroic Sacrifice for Lucy, when he offers Maximus the chance to overthrow the Brotherhood's leadership and start over with him. Maximus' decision is not revealed in this episode.
- Wham Line: When asked how Vault-Tec can ensure that the nuclear war they're planning for will come to pass, Barbara drops a metaphorical (and soon to be literal) bomb.Mr. House: We're making a huge investment based on a hypothetical. How can you guarantee results?
Barbara: By dropping the bomb ourselves. - Wham Shot:
- Back in 2077, Cooper Howard meets his wife's personal assistant... who's a younger Hank.
- Lucy asks what happened to her mother. Moldaver believes that Lucy knows the answer already, as the camera zooms in on the horribly scarred and burned ghoul wearing her mother's pendant.
- One that is very significant for fans of Fallout: the final scene of Season 1 is Hank retreating to New Vegas, with the Lucky 38 towering over the city as always.
- When Things Spin, Science Happens: When Moldaver inserts Wilzig's chip into the power device, it starts spinning up before the power starts flowing.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Lucy pulls a gun on her father after he uses power armor to knock out Maximus. Hank is confident that she won't shoot him; the Ghoul, however, has no problem doing so first, grazing his cheek.
