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Not to be confused with Philadelphia. |
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Filly is a post-War settlement near Los Angeles and a location in the Fallout TV series.
Background[]
Constructed as a town of scrap metal huts in a location close to Santa Monica some time prior to 2296,[Meta 1] the Filly town centerpiece is a "giant pile of trash that is slowly sinking into the earth." This ancient landfill, for which the settlement is named,(Note) has been steadily mined by Filly's inhabitants since it was founded, allowing them to extract old parts of pre-War technology and scrap to use or sell.[Meta 2] By the late 2290s, Filly had gained a reputation both as a focal point for wasteland travel in Los Angeles but also as a place of unchecked violence, as it is known that several people have been killed in the settlement over the years, and beatings and robberies happen in broad daylight with no consequence. The town also prohibits the presence of ghouls.[1]
Sometime prior to or during the destruction of Shady Sands in 2283 by a nuclear detonation, Birdie and her mother had traveled to Filly before moving on as refugees, with an older Birdie claiming that at the time, she could still feel the heat from the explosion that wiped out the NCR capital.[2]
At some point prior to the assault on Vault 33 by the Vault 32 raiders she orchestrated in 2296, Lee Moldaver negotiated with Filly local Ma June to have her act as an intermediary for Siggi Wilzig, a defected Enclave scientist in possession of a cold fusion artifact that Moldaver coveted, for passage through the town to her stronghold at the Griffith Observatory, for which she offered to pay June a thousand caps.
Filly was subsequently seized by the Knights of San Fernando, a chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, who were also searching for Wilzig; they forcefully suppressed the resistance of Filly's residents.[3] After they managed to claim the cold fusion device by routing Moldaver's NCR remnants, they burned down Filly, destroying the town.[4] The town's surviving residents were forced to migrate elsewhere around Los Angeles, with Ma June and Barv in particular moving to the former Vault-Tec building.
Fallout TV series[]
The Target[]
With directions given to her by a farmer (along with a tale of multiple of his family members being killed there), Lucy MacLean reaches the vicinity of Filly, observing the rust and decay left by the Great War amidst the thriving trading town, though nobody heeds her questions about finding her father. She navigates the streets to the center of the town and discovers a Pip-Boy hanging in the window display of Ma June's Sundries. When she attempts to ask the shopkeeper, Ma June for information on Moldaver, the woman is momentarily distracted by the sight of a Vault dweller and tries to get the attention of her housemate Barv but stops when Lucy says Moldaver's name. Ma June pivots and tries to warn Lucy off continuing to look for Moldaver, further insulting the supposed mission of the Vaults to restore America as a naive dream cooked up by the descendants of the selfish upper class who protected themselves inside the underground bunkers and left the rest of the world to burn over 200 years ago.[5]
Shortly after Lucy leaves the store, she encounters Siggi Wilzig, whom she had previously met, and he too tells her that she needs to return home before revealing key information about Vault 33 that deepens her confusion over who he is. Before she can learn more, Ma June comes to take Wilzig inside as she had been contracted to and again presses Lucy to leave, but they are interrupted by the arrival of the Ghoul. Seeking to claim the bounty on Wilzig delivered through the six agencies, the Ghoul brushes off Ma June's threat about "his kind" not being welcome in Filly and fires a shot that destroys Wilzig's lower left leg to hamper his escape. The public attack causes the other townsfolk to scatter, with some grabbing their weapons to engage in a firefight.[5]
Though he takes some hits during the chaos, the Ghoul manages to eliminate all of the shooters in the surrounding town levels while causing significant damage to nearby structures. Ma June attempts to attack him once more but sustains a bullet to her leg that incapacitates her. The Ghoul tries to apprehend Wilzig but is intercepted by CX404 until he uses his knife to incapacitate her as well. He is again interrupted by Lucy who attempts to talk him down from further violence, but when he ignores her, shoots him with her tranq gun; the Ghoul proves immune to the sedative due to his lifetime of chems use. Just before he can deal with Lucy, Maximus arrives in his jet-propelled T-60 power armor, proclaiming himself as Knight Titus of the Brotherhood of Steel and threatens the Ghoul, then is forced to shield Lucy from gunfire and advises her to escape while he deals with the bounty hunter.[5]
While Lucy and Ma June help the injured Wilzig into the store, "Titus" and the Ghoul engage in a battle spanning the town center. Though the Brotherhood soldier initially is able to knock the bounty hunter around and keep protected from his bullets, he eventually makes a mistake and gets trapped. The Ghoul takes the opportunity to sabotage the power armor's systems and cause it to send "Titus" flying away from the town, eventually crashing in the outskirts near some outhouses. By then, however, Lucy and Wilzig had escaped from Filly en route to Moldaver's stronghold, though he picks up their trail by healing the injured CX404 so her canine nose could track her master's scent for him.[5]
The Head[]
Around a day after his battle with the Ghoul, Maximus hauls the armor to a junkyard and tries to make field repairs, inadvertently giving away his location to the Brotherhood when Petty Officer Shortsight tries to contact Knight Titus. Maximus enters the town again which is already getting back to business, but when he comes up short of caps to pay for a needed repair, he goes to the town dentist-barber to trade a tooth for the needed money. However, when he returns to the docked armor, he finds a group of scavengers trying to steal it and attempts to intervene but is beaten down. The bruised and bloody squire recovers and arms himself with nearby junk items for weapons but is overpowered again, however he manages to equip one of the armor's gauntlets and crush the group leader's head, scaring off the others.[6]
Moments later, Maximus witnesses the arrival of a vertibird that drops off Thaddeus, a fellow squire he fears will recognize him. He runs back to the armor and manages to get inside just as Thaddeus arrives. The squire delivers the order from Elder Cleric Quintus that the recovery of the artifact carried by Wilzig and now Lucy is critical, and that they are to eliminate anyone who stands in their way.[6]
The Beginning[]
Filly remained inhabited by its residents. However, sometime in 2296, Brotherhood forces carried out a takeover of the town, the first known military maneuver by the organization in New California in decades. It is indicated that the transition was not a peaceful one, but that the outcome was guaranteed courtesy of the Brotherhood's superior firepower, with the town subsequently becoming a military outpost including the stocking of weapons and armaments.[7] They later mobilized an attack fleet of vertibirds to travel from there to Griffith Observatory to battle against Moldaver's NCR remnants for control of the cold fusion reactor she was building.[8]
The Wrangler[]
Filly does not appear. However, when Norm MacLean and the Vault 31 dwellers visit the Vault-Tec building, they encounter Ma June and Barv, who tells Norm that the Brotherhood burned down Filly before they left.
Layout[]
Surrounded by a forested area not far from the desert plains of the greater Los Angeles area, the town of Filly is split into two areas. The outer area includes a junkyard for old vehicles and a bazaar with a paved wooden street where various merchants sell their goods, including a food stall for iguana-on-a-stick. The inner area is a downtown district in a crater-like depression with scrap walls, with features including old shipping containers and airplane parts. The center of the town is the main traffic area and includes numerous stores and services, including a dentist/barber, a repair shop, a bathhouse, the general store Ma June's Sundries, and other smaller vendor stalls.
Inhabitants[]
- Barv (formerly)
- Dentist-barber
- Huge man
- Jamila
- Ma June (formerly)
- Siggi Wilzig (formerly)
- Snake oil salesman (formerly)
- Tom
- Townsfolk
- Street vendors
- Scavengers
- Raider leader
Appearances[]
Filly appears in the Fallout TV series episodes "The Target," "The Head," and "The Beginning."
Behind the scenes[]
- The Filly exterior was filmed at Wade Salvage, a private junkyard in Atco, New Jersey. The town itself was a practical set built at the backlot of Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, New York, which was also where other sets such as the Vault interiors were built.[Meta 3]
- According to production designer Howard Cummings, the Filly set was made mostly of metal, with some structures reaching 60 feet tall, and requiring up to 30 welders per day to put together.[Meta 4] A large amount of actual scrap metal and junk was used, obtained by show decorator Regina Graves. The jet parts in the town were shipped from an airplane graveyard in Lancaster, New York.[Meta 5]
- The "Fallout First Look" article by Vanity Fair, in which the existence of this location was first revealed, misnamed the location as "Philly."
- That name was previously (and appropriately) used in Fallout 3 to refer to the pre-War city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- ^ (Note) Though it is never explained in-series, the Amazon Prime Video X-Ray Trivia feature included a piece stating that the name "Filly" is in reference to its origins of being built in a landfill, and that it was named without any intended connection to Philadelphia.[Meta 3][Meta 6]
- In March 2024, an activation event for the series held in Austin, Texas transformed a hotel parking lot into a recreation of Filly. This was also the first official confirmation of the town's name being "Filly."[Meta 7]
- According to Fallout showrunner Jonathan Nolan, viewers' introduction to Filly is intended to generate similar feelings to gamers' first time arriving at Megaton in Fallout 3, as a juxtaposition of the "pre-" and "post-apocalyptic" worlds.[Meta 2]
Gallery[]
- Promotional
- In the show
References[]
- ↑ Ma June: "You know your kind ain't welcome around here."
Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 2: "The Target" - ↑ Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 5: "The Past"
- ↑ Brotherhood officer: "Filly clear for landing. The locals put up a fight, but so did we. [laughs]"
(Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 8: "The Beginning") - ↑ Norm MacLean: "So you met my sister?"
Ma June: "Yeah, back in Filly. Before the Brotherhood of Steel burnt it down. Had her help a fella from the Enclave get through the Shithole to some folks from the NCR who weren't in town when Shady Sands blew up. Pretty slim odds. What with it being Khan country."
(Fallout TV series, Season 2, Episode 5: "The Wrangler") - ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Events of Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 2: "The Target"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Events of Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 3: "The Head"
- ↑ Vertibird pilot: "Filly clear for landing. The locals put up a fight, but so did we."
(Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 8: "The Beginning") - ↑ Events of Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 8: "The Beginning"
Meta
- ↑ Vanity Fair: "Fallout First Look: This Is How the World Ends—With a Smiling Thumbs-Up" (Archived)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 IGN: "Fallout: A Wasteland Survival Guide to the New TV Series" (Archived)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Rolling Stone: "Flying iPhones, Break-Dancing Knights, and $10,000 Worth of Corn: How ‘Fallout’ Came To Life on TV"
- ↑ The Verge: "Bringing Fallout’s gritty retrofuturism into the real world"
- ↑ Inverse: "Building the World of Fallout"
- ↑ Amazon Prime Video Fallout X-Ray Trivia: The town of "Filly" is called that because it is built upon a landfill. It has nothing to do with Philadelphia, PA.
- ↑ Culture Eixir: "‘Fallout’ at SXSW Is an Experience in a Post-Apocalyptic World from Prime Video’s ‘Fallout’ Show" (Archived)
