[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the season two finale of Fallout, “The Strip.”)
If the house always wins, what happens to the game when you burn the whole thing down?
That’s not the exact situation Fallout faces as it closes the book on season two of the Prime Video series, but it’s pretty close given the series of game-changers unleashed in the season finale.
The finale, titled “The Strip,” sees old friends reunited — like Lucy (Ella Purnell) and Maximus (Aaron Moten), who find each other after an epic battle on the titular strip of New Vegas.
“There are these moments where he’s a truly heroic person,” Moten told The Hollywood Reporter at the finale’s Las Vegas screening about slugging it out on the streets, and activating Maximus’ most heroic moment yet. “It’s when he overthinks things that he ends up being in these overly chaotic situations. And there’s this moment when he breaks through the barrier into the strip where he says, ‘Oh no.’ Because he knows what he has to do: he has to sacrifice himself for all these people.”
Mercifully, Maximus makes it through the fight alive, and he’s not the only gunslinger with some newfound pep in his step. Look no further than the Ghoul Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), who scores a major victory in the finale. After searching for his family all series long, the Ghoul reaches a cryo chamber where he finds evidence that his wife Barb (Frances Turner) is not only likely still alive, but likely living in Colorado. It’s a moment that’s guaranteed to change how the Ghoul operates; typically a loner who lacks much regard for his fellow traveler, now changed not just by the time he spent this season with Lucy, but also by the hope he has for the search for his wife and daughter.
“It really sets us up where I think we’re headed,” Goggins explained to THR. “Cooper and the Ghoul are finally going to meet, now that he has what we all have: hope. That’s what makes us human, the trait we all have in common.”
Speculating on the eventual meeting, Turner added: “If or when [Cooper] finds [Barb], what state will she be in? What will have happened to her during that time away, and what’s happened to him to get to her, wherever she is? But there’s also a lot of road to cover [in the past] from when they are separated from one another, to the bombs dropping.”
Dropping bombs is exactly what happens in this finale, as far as the villains are concerned. Look no further than Lucy’s father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), who spent all of season two building an army of brain-washed wastelanders at the behest of Robert House (Justin Theroux), himself reborn as a veritable Wizard of Oz type figure, a ghost in the machine. For his own part, Hank ends up executing on his plans for House, thanks in no small part to collaborating with his wife (his wife!) Stephanie Harper, the Canadian killer pulling a fast one on her fellow vault-dwellers.
“I believe in Hank and his mission,” MacLachlan said about the enigmatic “phase two” both Hank and Stephanie put into effect at the end of the season. “He’s the guy who brings a gun to a knife fight. But it’s always for a purpose. There’s always a reason and a rationale. That’s what happens in season two, as he follows this device he believes will change the wastelands. He’s operating from a place that I believe he believes is altruistic.”
Certainly not operating from an altruistic place is Michael Cristofer’s Elder Cleric Quintus, who gets the final beat of the season. The Brotherhood of Steel figurehead owns the post-credits scene, heralding the arrival of “Liberty Prime,” which promises fire and brimstone on a level that only fans of the Fallout games can truly anticipate.
For those who don’t know, Liberty Prime is the massive combat robot that makes the Brotherhood of Steel’s signature power armor look like a suit made in a cave from a box of scraps.
“Giant robots,” said a giddy Todd Howard, the Bethesda Game Studios veteran who has led the Fallout games over the years, reacting to the Liberty Prime reveal. “It was always a matter of how and when, not if. We’re so excited the show’s going to tackle that one.”
***
Fallout season two is now streaming on Prime Video.
Read the full article here
