In typical Fallout fashion, all it takes is one failure on a skill check to cause chaos to break loose. After last week’s episode set up civil war within the Brotherhood, this week’s episode set up larger scale warfare throughout the Mojave as the current political backdrop of New Vegas continues to clear up. Or rather, not clear up. Our main characters are caught up in, and in most cases causing, another big brawl in the desert.
Let’s talk about the mayhem unleashed in “The Profligate.”
A common feature of any Fallout story is the struggle between multiple factions to control a region, and this show is certainly no different. To recap the end of this episode; the Legion has crossed from factional stalemate into bloody succession crisis over the body of the dead Caesar. The Brotherhood civil war is going to kick off following Max’s impromptu hammer bash of Paladin Xander’s skull. The NCR are still kicking about in unclear numbers. Some version of House or his will is still pulling some sort of strings in Vegas, and Hank may or may not be working with him, or Vault-Tec, or himself.
Also in typical Fallout fashion, our main characters all played a role in beginning all this conflict.
Lucy and Maximus largely started all of this mess just by having the best of intentions. Lucy wanted to help an injured woman go home and her reward is landing on a cross, left to die, until the Ghoul comes for her. Maximus wanted to stop Xander from murdering a bunch of kids, and in turn started the civil war he was explicitly warned would result from the paladin’s death.
Many feel the same way the Ghoul does, that this is validation for the belief that doing good in the Fallout world is punished, that the wasteland is a cesspool of evil requiring one to be evil or drown in the muck.
Both characters are already struggling in the aftermath of season 1, and the events so far of season 2. I think this shows most obviously with Maximus. He was already a more jaded, detached character last week, disillusioned by the Brotherhood and looking for meaning again. Xander offered this meaning, and it was sad to see Maximus so easily falling for it. He saw in Xander the Brotherhood that he used to know, the version that inspired him once upon a time. Their little day trip was exactly what he needed, until the moment it went horribly wrong.
I wonder if he can even go back to the Brotherhood, or if he will just make a run for it. Going back to Quintus seems like a surefire way to be punished at best, and killed for his mistake at worst.
Lucy was not even afforded that moment where she felt rewarded for her decision. The Legion immediately punishes her by murdering the woman she saved and leaving her to die on that crucifix. The Ghoul saving her probably feels like he’s gloating, and like she proved once again that she cannot survive outside a Vault, no matter how much cousin sex she wracked up or how many books she read.
What is happening, or at least what I expect to happen, is that both Lucy and Maximus are planting seeds that will bear fruit eventually, and in Lucy’s case already is. I didn’t expect the Ghoul to come for Lucy, and it shows that despite his anger at being abandoned, his travels with Lucy have already begun to bring out the inner Cooper Howard lost to time.
Unfortunately, Cooper Howard learned his own cruel lessons a long time ago and I imagine that lesson will involve both his wife and whatever happens with his “mission” to kill Robert House. House is clearly aware of the plot somehow, as evident by his showing up to the ceremony for Cooper’s friend, and obviously we know some version of House is alive for the events of Fallout: New Vegas. Something is going to go terribly wrong with Cooper’s mission and it will probably be the inciting event that strips him of his desire to save the world and pushes him towards the cold, bitter, nihilistic man he is now.
I liked the little glimpses telling us of a more heroic Cooper when the Ghoul goes to find the NCR. Every bit of new info about his past just makes him more interesting and makes him a better character than before. His conversation with the NCR rangers suggests that it hasn’t been so terribly long since the Ghoul tried to be a better person. Despite his better efforts, he still wants to see a better world, and Lucy is stoking the embers of that part of his personality.
It’s this desire to save the world that ultimately ties Lucy, Maximus, and the Ghoul together, and will probably bring them all together in usual good playthrough Fallout fashion. In a world of over the top misery, Fallout always gives players/viewers a glimpse of something more wholesome.
Fallout is a literal capitalist hellscape, a world created as a result of unhinged corporations that literally appear to have pressed the worst of all buttons in order to accumulate even more power in what remained of the world. It is a world built upon exploitation, whether it’s the Vaults, the Legion, or a weird ghoul/mutant guy running a bottle cap sweat shop employing kids.
The Fallout series is always filled with selfish, evil characters who believe power is right and will exploit the weak and underprivileged to accumulate more power. As Macaulay Culkin’s Legate believes, good is not a meaningful vector in history. Unfortunately, just like in real life, Fallout is filled with characters who feel justified and rewarded for this mindset, from petty thugs to wealthy magnates like House.
Part of the fun of any Fallout playthrough is deciding if your character will push back against this evil or not, and I’m sure the show will make that conflict just as important for its main characters.
But that’s where you end up with Thaddeus trying to save the those child workers, and Maximus sticking up for him. That’s how you end up with the Ghoul choosing to save Lucy. The underprivileged and exploited of the Fallout world have to try their best to stick up for themselves when the boots of the powerful try to step on their neck, and there are about to be many more boots on New Vegas ground.
I’m sure Lucy and Maximus will feel somewhat discouraged by their adventures in this episode, but that’s what makes a good protagonist. You want to see them challenged and stick to their core moral beliefs. The greatest tests are yet to come for both.
Or maybe everything will be solved when Norm and his super managers hit the scene.
Images Courtesy of Amazon Studios
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