REVIEW: 'Fallout' Season 2 Episode 1 Begins The Hunt For Hank MacLean And Doesn't Slow Down
- Christopher Mills
- 9 hours ago
- 8 min read
This article contains spoilers for 'Fallout' Season 2 Episode 1.
The return of Fallout Season 2 on our televisions is exactly what we've been wanting to see from TV, and that's a quick turnaround between seasons. Fallout Season 1 began streaming in April 2024, with filming for its second season taking place in December 2024, and now just a year later, we've got Season 2, and just from the first episode, it doesn't seem like the show still retains its high production value despite returning back to our screens so soon.
Fallout Season 1 left us with Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) finally finding her father, Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan), but discovering that her father was responsible for the destruction of Shady Sands. After realising that her father has been lying to her for her entire life, she decides to tag along with the Ghoul, aka Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), to find her father, who's heading in the direction of New Vegas. The Ghoul is searching for clues about his pre-apocalypse life and trying to learn about the whereabouts of his daughter and wife. Maximus (Aaron Moten) gets sworn in as a Knight after the Brotherhood is led to believe that he killed Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury). Norm MacLean (Moisés Arias) discovers that Vault 31 is holding cryogenic pods containing Vault-Tec executives who were planned to be released over time as Overseers for both Vaults 32 and 33. In the past, Cooper discovered after listening to his wife that she plans to drop the first nuclear bomb on themselves and finds out that her assistant is none other than Hank.
The Past
We open up in the past in New Vegas, giving us our first look at how the city looked pre-apocalypse with people on the street protesting against RobCo and taking down robots. In a bar we see a television interview of Robert House (Rafi Silver) that infuriates one of the customers, who goes by the name of Bill (Christopher Matthew Cook). A mysterious man (Justin Theroux) in the corner questions them by asking his trade, to which he responds that he's in construction. It's clear that by aggravating this man, from asking his trade to asking him to get punched in the face, he's testing to see if he's the right candidate for his little device.
He asks Bill to put this device on the back of his neck for the price of $31 million. Bill threatens to steal the money, but before things get out of hand, the mysterious man forcefully places the device on the back of his neck, hands him a baseball bat and orders him to take out his friends, which he does in a brutal fashion. The dial for the device malfunctions, and Bill's head proceeds to explode. Despite not gaining full control in Bill, the mysterious man states, "The world may end, but progress marches on." This short scene highlights the importance of the small device, which returns much later in the episode but also brings the attention of this mysterious man to our attention, who we already know is playing Mr. House, but the show omits that information from the audience. Whatever the reason for why we have Rafi Silver playing him on the TV who also previously played him last season, is still yet unknown but hopefully it's something this second season touches on instead of looking past it.
We return to Cooper's past and the exact moment he found out about his wife revealing that the plan is to drop the bomb on them. His trust in his wife has completely changed after discovering her intention, and just before we see him reach Moldaver to deliver the intel, a test nuclear announcement is run, which sends the nearby residents into a spiral mess. It's possible that Cooper in this moment realises that Vault-Tec's plan to make money out of the residents will work and this insane plan of his wife's to nuke themselves might not be that insane after all, despite him still not agreeing with it.
At a diner, Cooper gives Moldaver all the intel that he heard but finds out that she was already aware of their plans and only needed him to know so that she could use his fame to get close with Robert House. It's here we learn that House owns half of Las Vegas but is also building a privately owned missile system in Vegas that will have enough firepower to follow through on his wife's plans. With his Hollywood fame, he'll be able to get close enough to House and stop him from pressing that button. The only issue is that Cooper will have to play nice with his wife to get on that trip to Las Vegas, where she'll be selling Cold Fusion to House, the last thing he needs to set off those nukes. Cooper at first seems against this entire plan, but after hearing on the radio that House said in an interview, "The question might not be whether the world might end but who will push the button." With the knowledge that he has, hearing this over the news and knowing that he might be able to save the world from nuclear destruction, he decides to play along.
The Vault
In the vault, it always feels like a completely different world from what takes place outside and in the past. Reg (Rodrigo Luzzi) is asking around about Norm, who simply just gets told that he's gone for a leadership exchange programme at Vault 31. While Reg doesn't know the dark truth of what Norm is going through, he feels like he's not making any progress, and Betty Pearson (Leslie Uggams) encourages him to start a group to talk about any feelings. Redge decides to host a support group for products of inbreeding but soon comes to realise that he's losing the few members he has and that he must cater to them to feel like he has a purpose.
In Vault 32, we see Steph (Annabel O'Hagan) taking on the task of being the Overseer. There's still a lot that's yet to be known about Steph or what her intentions are, but with her behaviour towards Chet (Dave Register), who simply just wants a job assignment and to not be burdened with a child that's not his, it's clear that with the power of an Overseer, she may be unstoppable as she puts fear into Chet.
Over at Vault 31, Rollerbrain, aka Bud Askins (Michael Esper), is still trying to get Norm to go into a cryotube, and despite Norm running out of food and only surviving on water, he still refuses to go inside. There aren't many options for Norm, as Rollerbrain reminds him that they have protocols for everything, including missing people, meaning Norm only has the two choices of dying or going into the cryotube. Rollerbrain tells Norm what his father was like, describing him as ambitious. Norm begins to slowly realise that he can sabotage their plan that has been 200 years in the making by thawing all the Vault-Tec executives despite the regular 30-year interval.
The Present
Lucy and the Ghoul are on the hunt for Hank, and we find them trying to steal food and supplies from some bandits, which doesn't go well when Lucy tries to politely ask to keep the caps they got given and to be let go. Lucy frees the Ghoul, and together they take down the bandits, but unlike the Ghoul, Lucy isn't willing to kill and instead incapacitates them. This irritates the Ghoul, as he needs to ensure he's not pulling along dead weight or a liability, which she almost proved to be during that scenario.
They see Las Vegas in the distance, which Lucy describes as looking like all the old photos, and that's because House protected it as best he could by shooting down the nukes that were targeting it. Lucy and the Ghoul begin to come across a body that Hank most likely dealt with, and it's clear that Lucy still seems to be in disbelief that her father is capable of such violence. Instead of shooting guns, Lucy asks Old Woman Gretch (Susan Berger) nearby the whereabouts of where her father might've gone next, but not before eating flea soup (which looks as vile as it sounds).
The two come across Vault 24, which they head into as Hank took a detour on his journey. It's here we learn that the Ghoul only ventures into Vaults to try to find his daughter and wife, constantly having to make peace with the fact he may find them dead or much worse (alluding to experiments that take place within some of the Vaults). They go further down into the Vault, coming across deceased bodies. The Ghoul spots a device on the back of the neck of one of the deceased. They learn that the Vault was turning Americans into communists via some sort of brain hypnosis experiment. Lucy learns that her father has taken the drive from the computer at the Vault and is placing these devices on people he comes across, causing their heads to explode. This bloody scene seems to settle into Lucy's mind and begins to hint that Lucy's psyche might change over the course of the season. While she may want to bring him to justice now, she very well may want to kill him by the time we reach the final episode.
The episode ends as we witness Hank reach Las Vegas, change out of the power armour into a suit, and send a message to who we believe to be House that he's survived and is ready to get back to work. He plans to complete the work that was started in hopes of getting closer to House. It's still unclear by this end what the real end goal of these devices is, but the key to getting them to work as intended might be to miniaturise them.
Overall Thoughts
Fallout Season 2 Episode 1 feeds the audience with a lot of information and speeds up the story while still managing to leave us in the dark regarding a few things. We're formally introduced to Robert House, who remains mysterious with his goals unknown but by the end we find out that they align with Hanks, who manages to make his way to his destination by the end which was not expected for the first episode.
The pacing with which the first episode moves highlights that this second season has a lot that it needs to get through and thankfully there weren't any pacing issues present but what was absent was the inclusion of Maximus. There could be a slight possibility that once he returns the season may struggle to juggle all these storylines, but as of now, it's doing just a fine job.
The only downside to this episode comes from the Vault section of the episode where we spend time with Reg. As of now, it's the least interesting part of the Vault storyline and it's hard to see where this could lead to in the future but Reg and his attempts to find a purpose is not a storyline that I'd like to spend time with in future episodes. Here's to hoping it leads somewhere worthwhile, otherwise those scenes will become a drag to watch.
The production and costume design of Fallout remains outstanding and the performance highlight of the episode does come from both Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins as we get to see both them slightly show their vulnerable sides, with Purnell tapping into that hidden rage from Lucy. While Purnell and Goggins are star players in this first episode, that very opening scene ensures that we're to keep an eye on Justin Theroux, who is bound to surprise everyone not only with his performance, but his character.
About Fallout Season 2
Premiere Date: December 16, 2025
Episode Count: 8
Executive Producer/Showrunner: Graham Wagner, Geneva Robertson-Dworet
Writer: Graham Wagner, Geneva Robertson-Dwore, Chaz Hawkins, Chris Brady-Denton
Director: Frederick E.O. Toye, Liz Friedlander, Stephen Williams, Lisa Joy
Production: Kilter Films, Big Indie Pictures, Bethesda Game Studios, Amazon MGM Studios
Distribution: Prime Video
Cast: Ella Purnell, Walton Goggins, Justin Theroux, Kyle MacLachlan, Aaron Moten, Moisés Arias
