Fallout – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review

The Trap

Episode 6 of Fallout begins with Cooper Howard’s advert for the Vaults being played on a black and white background. Specifically, we’re focusing on Vault 4. This place is entirely occupied by scientists and there will be 80 in total, conducting a 5 year trial. This is a hint at where Maximus and Lucy are being kept but for now, we follow Cooper as he’s living the high life and enjoying his role as the face of Vault Tec.

Remember the voice of Snip Snip? Well, this belongs to none other than Bartholomew Codsworth. He’s an old friend of Cooper and he sold his voice rights to make this happen. He points out that the end of the world is a product unto itself and they need to be ready to sell that.

The war is coming though, and Cooper is disillusioned to what’s happening. He does see everyone around him start to believe in the Vault and doing what they can to protect themselves. This includes Barb, his wife, who does what she can to get their family a place in one of the Vaults. You see, Cooper went to war to defend freedom and believes the Vaults, with their conformity, blue jumpsuits and rules that include “no dogs” ,are infringing upon that.

Back in the future, The Ghoul finds himself caught at the hands of government agents, who show up and take him to their boss. The bounty hunters bring The Ghoul over to a guy called Sorrel. He’s heard of The Ghoul, of course, and as they sit together inside this bar, The Ghoul is able to sew his finger back on again.

They sit together, and The Ghoul brings up Moldaver, who is apparently super dangerous. Sorrel is a self-proclaimed President here, and he makes the mistake of trusting The Ghoul and telling his subordinates to put their guns away. Quick as a flash, The Ghoul stands and kills them both.

Now, up on the wall of the bar happens to be a Wanted poster for none other than Moldaver. It turns out Cooper actually recognizes her, which stems from flashbacks where he introduced herself as his biggest fan.

Meanwhile, Lucy and Maximus are kept in the Vault and patched up. Apparently it’ll only be a few hours just so they know they don’t have radiation. Lucy is naïve about this and decides to hunker down, but nonchalantly asks Maximus if he wants to have sex. He declines and… that’s the end of that. However, as the camera pans out, we see that they’re inside a room called “Test Subjects”.

Lucy and Maximus meet the Overseer, who clearly has his eye on them. However, it soon becomes clear that a good chunk of the residents inside this Vault also appear to be some sort of hybrid humans. Lucy is pretty surprised by the Vault and she speaks plainly to the Overseer in his office. He mentions how they call the Surface Dwellers “surfies” and doesn’t like conforming to their ideas. When Lucy brings up Level 12, which the Overseer earlier mentioned was off-limits, he immediately tells her to leave after spitting his drink out.

Maximus is also curious over what this Vault may be holding and he discovers plenty of Fusion Cores powering the place. He’s soon encouraged to head over to Unit 428 for a hot shower and to revel in what the Vault has to offer, and he gladly obliges. There’s a hamper there, with plenty of standard Fallout gear and items like Sugar Bombs. For those who played the games, you’ll certainly recognize this!

Meanwhile, Lucy stumbles upon the classroom and finds a model for Shady Sands. She actually finds a timeline written up on the chalkboard too, and realizes that the Vault has been taken over by the NCR – the New Californian Republic. The music crescendos here with the familiar motif from the Fallout theme and it’s a really nice moment overall.

Anyway, Lucy and the other Vault Dwellers are called over for a meeting, given there’s a “Surface Dweller” tradition. This tradition includes everyone stripping down and worshipping the “Flame Mother”, including ritualistic chanting and covering themselves in the ashes of those taken from them. They also drink blood too and it all becomes rather shocking, especially for Lucy who’s just here for the ride.

Getting nowhere with Maximus, Lucy heads up to Floor 12 to prove that there’s something amiss here. Lucy is determined to smash his idealistic perception of this Vault, which is very clearly not the utopia he expected. Unfortunately, when one of the scientists shows up, Lucy is outed and she struggles to fight her way out. Birdie, the leader here, manages to subdue Lucy while Maximus is none the wiser in his room.

The Episode Review

Alas, the plot thickens. It seems like Vault 4 hides more than a few shocking surprised and Level 12 looks like the place where they turn either Surface Dwellers into monsters, or mutate those within the Vault to keep them in compliance. Either way, the mystery of the Vaults are partly what make this show work so well.

Meanwhile, we learn a bit more about the past through the eyes of The Ghoul and Cooper, who manage to flesh out more of the world and help to show the downfall of society. We also get confirmation at the end about the NCR taking control of the Vault, another nuke going off (which explains Maximus’ history with the Brotherhood) and also a nod toward Fallout 3 with the mission involving detonating a nuke (or not) depending on your choices.

Fallout has been a decent watch so far though and the ending certainly leaves everything open for the final two episodes.