Fallout – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

The Head

Episode 3 of Fallout begins right back at the beginning with a look at Cooper. This is pre-Nuclear war, and he’s on a filmset for a Western. Cooper isn’t so sure on the direction of the film, especially when he’s supposed to kill one of the criminals. When the scene cuts, Cooper speaks to the director who points out that the scriptwriter was let go for his communist views. Instead, they’re going for a “New America” style.

We then cut back to the present. Or, well, the future. The Ghoul catches up to Wilzig, accompanied by CX 404, where he finds the severed remains of his target. He now needs to find Lucy and he suspects that she may be off in the direction of the city. Of course, Lucy’s footsteps can be seen on the ground so that’s probably a dead giveaway over her direction too!

As for Lucy, she continues to march across the wilderness, closer toward the irradiated city in the distance. She continues to ignore Wilzig’s advice too, lighting a fire up late at night. She observes his head and notices something in the side of his neck.

Meanwhile, Maximus finds himself having to adopt Titus’ voice as he sets out to dispel the concerns of his superior, who chatters over the radio, Unfortunately, when he mentions that his “squire” (that being Maximus) has died, he’s sent a replacement. Maximus hurriedly destroys the radio and then pays to get extra parts, which cost him more than bottlecaps, given he also loses some teeth too.

When he returns to the armour, Maximus finds himself surrounded by raiders. They beat him down and leave him a mess on the floor. Unfortunately, they also manage to get into the armour but before they can take control of it, Maximus returns and manages to crush the skull for one of their comrades using the Brotherhood armour. It does the trick but unfortunately, reinforcements fly in.

Maximus has no choice but to don the armour and pretend to be Titus. Thaddeus is the new Squire, one of the guys who used to bully Maximus, and he also brings a message from the Elder Cleric. Apparently this target is a number 1 priority because whoever controls it, will also control the wasteland.

Lucy makes it down to the coastline, where she finds herself confronted by a mutant, which drags her away. She manages to hold her own though… until The Ghoul shows and holds her at gunpoint. Unfortunately, in the scuffle Wilzig’s head is stolen by this mutant. The Ghoul knows that this creature is a “gulper” and it’s bad news.

Down in the Vault, Chet is being reassigned and no longer the gatekeeper. As for Norman, he’s not reassigned but given rather demeaning tasks to take part in within the Vault, including bringing food to the locked up raiders in the jail cells down below.

Speaking of demeaning tasks, Maximus makes the most of having Thaddeus with him, forcing the guy to do his bidding, climbing a tree to get an apple and eventually coming across the body of Wilzig. They’re very much on the trail now, and not far behind The Ghoul and Lucy.

With this in mind, The Ghoul decides to use Lucy as bait to lure the mutant in so he can get the head back. It seems to do the trick and we get a look at this mutant first-hand. It’s a massive, nasty creature but after Lucy dispatches it, The Ghoul decides to string her along and take her with him. There’s a line here that basically sums up the Fallout games to a tee, and as they leave together, The Ghoul retorts “Thou shalt get side-tracked by bullshit every goddamn time.”

As I, and many other Fallout players will attest to, this is very true. How many times have you played, going off on a mission, and you end up side-tracked checking out some question marks, only to realize 3 hours have passed and you’re no closer to your target? Anyway, I digress.

As this is ongoing, Thaddeus reveals more about his past. Apparently, Thaddeus himself used to be the regular punching bag with the Brotherhood but when Maximus flew in as a new recruit, he worked to move everyone’s attention across to him. He feels bad for it, unaware that Maximus is inside the suit, and eventually they move on to the area of the Gulper.

In fact, they head right out into the water, where it seems to have revived again and ready to charge in for the kill. As the gulper rushes at Maximus, he and Thaddeus work together to dispatch the creature. In doing so, it also spits up a whole range of trinkets… and Wilzig’s head too. CX 404 is here as well and he begins sniffing around the head.

Meanwhile, Lucy finds herself at the mercy of The Ghoul, who refuses to let her have any water and marches her out into the irradiated remains of a town. As they continue forward, Cooper shoots out the face from a Vault-tec banner. This is personal to him, as we see that he actually used to be the face of Vault-Tec too, doing promotional material before the Nukes dropped.

The Episode Review

As we approach the midway point of the show, this cat and mouse game has just started to get interesting. Quite what Wilzig’s significance to the plot is, alongside the various characters who need his head (and how Moldaver ties into it) remains a mystery but it’s an enticing one and certainly helps to keep things ticking over.

It’ll be interesting to see where the story goes next, especially with the Vault Dwellers. Given their story – and Norman’s inclusion – feels like a bit of a moot point right now given they’re not really significant to the story. However, this is still early days so we’ll have to wait and see. The plot is certainly intriguing though and there’s lots to like with this one.