Season 1 of the Fallout TV show is making waves this month, so much so that it’s drawing players back to the Fallout games in droves. Amazon has officially greenlit season 2 after a cliffhanger ending in the series that raised plenty of questions and anticipation for the future. We’re going to list our predictions and theories for where season 2 could go so be warned, we’ll be discussing major spoilers from here on out. That said, let’s talk about New Vegas, deathclaws and more.
The finale of the Fallout TV show ended on a particularly big note. Hank MacLean arrived in New Vegas with Lucy and The Ghoul hot on his trail. Maximus is finally honoured as a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel after mistakenly being credited for killing Moldaver, while Norm MacLean’s fate is still up in the air – did he actually go into cryo-sleep or does he have another plan to escape Vault 31?
Let’s break down each of these major plot points and give our predictions.
Norm’s Escape Plan
The Fallout TV show has a handful of storylines to follow, each interconnected in clever ways. Lucy’s younger brother, Norm, set off on his own quest to unravel the dark mysteries of Vaults 31, 32 and 33, trying to get some answers about the strange events of the show. The finale sees him enter Vault 31 only to discover that nobody actually lives there. Instead, the vault is a cryo-chamber where Vault-Tec employees have been frozen for 200 years. It’s maintained by an employee named Bud, or rather, Bud’s brain in a robot.
Here we learn that Hank MacLean was also formerly a frozen Vault-Tec employee that was awakened before the events of season 1. The last time we see Norm in the season, he’s sealed in the cryo-chamber by Bud and given the option to use his father’s pod to go into cryo-sleep if he’s to survive. However, we never see if he actually does.
If there’s one thing we learn about Norm throughout the series, he put all of his points into Intelligence because he’s one of the smartest characters in the show. We don’t think he’s going to take the easy bait and go into cryo-sleep. He must have formulated an escape plan, whether that involves tampering with Vault-Tec’s pods to negotiate with Bud or, better yet, it’s revealed that The Ghoul’s wife Barb is contained in that chamber too and she somehow awakens, leading to a fateful encounter.
Maximus Turns on The Brotherhood
This is a point that has basically been built up throughout season 1 but Maximus becomes increasingly detached from the ways of the Brotherhood of Steel. In fact, despite starting the show desparate to be recognised as a Knight, his official promotion in the finale shows a troubled, angered Maximus who isn’t too elated about earning the title anymore. The Brotherhood of Steel aren’t depicted as gloriously righteous either and that’s why we predict Maximus will turn on them.
How he turns on the Brotherhood remains to be seen, though we have an idea about his next destination: Vault 33. In episode 7, Lucy tells Maximus to come live with her in Vault 33. This is the only lead Maximus has on Lucy at the end of the season after she runs off with The Ghoul, so it’s only natural that Maximus would make a stop at Vault 33 to look for her. We predict this is how Maximus will get involved in Norm’s storyline and the dark secrets of the three Vaults – maybe he is the one to find and free Norm too?
The House Always Wins
We believe a large majority of season 2’s main story will take place in New Vegas. Lucy and The Ghoul will eventually stumble into Sin City in search of Hank, only to discover that this is a place that operates by its own rules. If we really want to nail down a canon ending for Fallout: New Vegas (or what we think the showrunners will go with), it will be Mr. House’s ending where he has seized control of the Strip and Hoover Dam with his army of Securitrons.
What Lucy and The Ghoul find in New Vegas as a result of this outcome is a cold city dictated by Mr. House. The NCR and Legion have basically been pushed out of the region, so conflict is non-existent (unless, of course, there’s a second attempt by either faction to try and take New Vegas from Mr. House, which is a big possibility in season 2). Hank will likely go into hiding somewhere in New Vegas under someone’s protection, though that won’t be the only challenge that Lucy and The Ghoul will have to face…
This is Deathclaw Country
The Mojave desert is free real estate for many deathclaws. One of the final shots in the finale shows the skull of a deathclaw, teasing the terrifying creature’s appearance in season 2. Hank might have an easier time making the crossing into New Vegas thanks to his Power Armour, though the same can’t be said about Lucy and The Ghoul who will probably learn the hard way how formidable deathclaws are in the region.
Mojave’s surrounding areas will have plenty of pitstops along the way, from small towns to settlements, giving Lucy and The Ghoul some time to breathe and learn more about what New Vegas has become since the events of the 2010 video game. Deathclaws will be a tricky hurdle to overcome and we predict they’ll be big trouble for the duo.
The Fall of Shady Sands
You might’ve noticed the heated debate online about the Fallout TV show potentially retconning Fallout: New Vegas (we recommend you read the detailed breakdown here). To cut it short, Bethesda’s Todd Howard clarified that nothing was retconned regarding the fate of Shady Sands – the capital of the NCR – as the bomb fell after the settlement’s “fall” in 2277, meaning the events of the New Vegas game still happened in 2281.
Season 2 will have plenty of time to elaborate on this matter. What caused Shady Sands to “fall”? A civil conflict? Exhausted resources? Whatever the fall was, it was followed by Hank MacLean’s decision to drop an atomic bomb on the settlement, sealing the NCR’s fate – or at least a majority of the NCR. We imagine there are still remnants and splinter factions of the NCR somewhere out there surviving.
Vault-Tec Didn’t End The World
The finale of the season reveals in a flashback that The Ghoul’s wife Barb, a high-ranking employee of Vault-Tec, suggested the purposeful destruction of the world by dropping the atomic bombs. After all, the end of the world is very profitable. Barb tells this to several partner megacorporations who could all benefit from the experimental natures of the Vaults. It’s heavily implied that Vault-Tec intentionally dropped the bombs on humanity, right? Well, maybe not.
The opening scene of the season shows The Ghoul (back then, Cooper Howard) attending his daughter’s birthday party when the first bombs fall. Firstly, wouldn’t Barb ensure that her husband and daughter were near (or already in) a Vault before the bombs fell? This little detail makes us believe that they didn’t launch the missiles that ended the world. It was certainly Vault-Tec’s intention to do so but someone else beat them to the punch. Who this is, we hope will be revealed in season 2.
The Fallout TV show is now streaming on Prime VideoPrime Video.
