"The Past" is the fifth episode of the first season of the Fallout TV series.
Synopsis[]
Summary[]
Maximus, posing as Knight Titus, and Thaddeus celebrates their successful retrieval of the head of Siggi Wilzig. Thaddeus requests that Maximus brands him with Knight Titus' power armor to signify his squire-hood to him. Afterward, Maximus reveals his true identity to Thaddeus; this results in a scuffle where Maximus crushes Thaddeus's foot, and Thaddeus disables Maximus's power armor by taking its fusion core. Thaddeus then leaves Maximus stuck in the armor and flees with Wilzig's head. The next morning, Lucy, who just left the Ghoul at the Super Duper Mart, discovers Maximus and saves him from radroaches. When Lucy begins to feel faint as a result of radiation sickness from the irradiated water the Ghoul made her drink, Maximus convinces her to open the power armor and set him free in exchange for the RadAway on him. After setting Maximus free, Lucy collapses.
In Vault 32, Norm questions how the raider got hold of his mom's Pip-Boy that's necessary to open the Vault, Chet persuades him to return to 33 but Norm insists on checking the 32-31 inter-vault door. At the door, the two discover the corpses of the Vault 32 dwellers and the words "WE KNOW WHAT'S IN THERE" written in blood, Norm and Chet deduces that the dwellers must have been trying to open the door. Horrified by what they have seen, the two return to Vault 33.
Maximus uses an IV drip to administer RadAway to Lucy. When Lucy regains consciousness, she sees him covering up the power armor and preparing to follow Thaddeus's trail and re-retrieve Wilzig's head. Lucy makes a deal with Maximus to let him help her track down the head with her Pip-Boy tracker, and in return, Maximus promises to bring Brotherhood reinforcements to save Lucy's dad.
Vault 33 overseer election
Back in Vault 33, the overseer election is commencing. While in line to vote, Davey apologizes to Reg while insinuating that he plans to vote for Betty. Reg takes no offense and ends up voting for her himself. Betty later wins the election with a 98% majority. Norm analyses the Inter-Vault trade records and discovers that all of Vault 33's former overseers, including Betty and Hank, had been from Vault 31 as part of the trades. After the reveal of the election's result, Betty winning in a landslide, Norm meets up with Chet and discusses his suspicion, which Chet dismisses by saying that Vault 31 had a better education system, more resources, and a tradition of voting for Overseers from Vault 31 exists in Vault 33, plus a snappy rhyming slogan of "When things look glum, vote for 31!" Norm visits Steph's suite, where Chet has begun a relationship with her and helps care for her newborn, albeit without enthusiasm. Norm asks Steph, who is a former Vault 31 dweller, what was different between the two Vaults, she responds that Vault 31 had better mashed potatoes to which Norm replied that it was the same response Hank had said.
Rink crossing the bridge
Lucy and Maximus pursue Thaddeus and Wilzig's head. Along the way, the pair bond, with Lucy asking what has happened in the past 200 years after the bombs dropped, and Maximus replies that the bombs dropped when he was a child. Lucy also questioned the Brotherhood's motive, and of the general education on the surface. At a bridge crossing, the duo meets with Javin and Rink, another pair of traveling wastelanders. Lucy attempts to broker a peaceful crossing by making both pairs raise up their arms in a show of peace. After Javin notices Lucy's Pip-Boy, he and Rink shoot at Lucy and Maximus, wounding him in his left shoulder. Maximus quickly grabs Lucy's gun and downs the two travelers. Upon searching them, he declares that they are "fiends," another name for "people who eat people."
The traveling pair then arrives at Shady Sands, where Lucy is shocked to learn from a billboard that over 34,000 people had lived there after the war, and Maximus tells her of the existence of the New California Republic. Learning this, she questions the Vault's Reclamation Day and of the purpose of the Vault to which Maximus says that the NCR didn't succeed in their mission of rebuilding society. Maximus shows Lucy the crater that is the remnant of Shady Sands. When Lucy asks Maximus what happened, he replies that it is the same thing that always happens: "Everyone wants to save the world, they just disagree on how." Lucy then wonders if anyone had survived, and Maximus reveals that he is a survivor of the destruction.
When Maximus abruptly clutches his gunshot wound with his right arm in pain, Lucy realizes that his wound might be worse than he lets on. She leads them in search of aid, leading them to the Research & Development building of the nearby Hawthorne Medical Laboratories. As they approach the building, Lucy nor Maximus notice that the sign for the facility notes that the facility is "a division of Vault-Tec," nor do they notice a Vault-Tec logo printed on the asphalt of a parking lot that's too small for a hospital. Lucy enters the building first, gun drawn. When Lucy doesn't emerge after a few minutes, Maximus enters, and finds himself in a dimly lit office full of pristine-looking desks and still-functioning terminals. The only light in the room is from a pulsating light in the ceiling that guides Maximus down the hall to a door helpfully labeled "Medical Supplies". But upon opening the door, he finds that the door on the other side is a painted wall. It's a trap, and before he can leave, the door he entered through locks behind him, gas from the ceiling incapacitates him, and he's dropped through a trapdoor.
Norm in the cleaned up Vault 32
In Vault 33, Betty makes her first edict to transfer a number of the Vault's population to Vault 32 as a means of a resettling campaign. Betty leads the Vault 33 Residents on a tour through the refurbished Vault 32. Norm has flashbacks showing the stark contrast between the current condition and the dystopian conditions of 24 hours ago. Norm commends Betty on the clean-up and asks what happened to his mom's Pip-Boy after her death; Betty replies that it was buried with her and that she and Hank were the ones who buried her themselves.
Elsewhere, Lucy and Maximus wake up in Vault 4.
Credits[]
The credits sequence begins zoomed in on a book with a due date card listing dates from February 2189 to November 2276. The card also has a column marking whether the book has been returned, and all but the last date (Nov 2276) have a dash mark indicating so. As the camera pans out, it reveals another book with a green cover titled The New California Republic by Kate Williams, with an emblem and the 2189. The camera pulls back to reveal this as the inside of a locker in a ruined school hallway. As the camera leaves the ruined building, it is revealed to be Shady Sands Elementary, with a school bus full of skeletons sitting outside.
The camera pulls further out to show a derelict street with a trolley car amidst crumbling residential buildings and larger skyscrapers before rising up to take a bird's-eye view of the city ruins. The distance is curved slightly outwards and obscured by green mist (with silhouettes of other buildings faintly visible on the horizon), indicating the obstruction to be the crater in the middle of Shady Sands.
Cast[]
Starring:
- Ella Purnell - Lucy MacLean
- Aaron Moten - Maximus
- Moisés Arias - Norm MacLean
- Walton Goggins - The Ghoul (credit only)
Guest starring:
Co-starring:
- Leer Leary - Davey
- Sheila Head - Marianne the Vault Scholar
- Mitzi Akaha - Rink
- Nicholas McGovern - Javin
- Elle Vertes - Young Rose MacLean
- Luciana VanDette - Young Lucy MacLean
- Amir Carr - Young Maximus
Stunt performers:
- David Armstrong - Thaddeus stunt double
- Dejay Roestenberg - Rink stunt double
- Akos Schenek - Javin stunt double
- Drew Reade - Javin stunt double
- Adam Shippey - hero power armor
- Aaron Joshua - utility stunts
- Bryce Burke - utility stunts
- Travis Staton-Marrero - utility stunts
- Riley Barnes - utility stunts
Uncredited:
Soundtrack[]
- The Jet Tones - "Henry"
- Bonnie Guitar - "Robin in the Pine"
- William Steffe - "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
- Cedric King Palmer - "National Pride"
- Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - "Ladyfingers"
- Dinah Washington - "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes"
- Brook Benton - "It's Just a Matter of Time"
Behind the scenes[]
- Walton Goggins (The Ghoul) is listed in the episode's credits but does not appear in this episode.
- Maximus treats Lucy's radiation poisoning with an IV bag dose of RadAway.
- Both Lucy and Maximus make use of the 10mm pistol she picked up at the Super Duper Mart during the previous episode, which is based on the unspecified model that debuted in Fallout 4.
- Maximus refers to the two wastelanders that attack them on the bridge as "fiends" and indicates it means they are "people who eat people." The term is not known to have any connection to the Fiends raider gang in Fallout: New Vegas.
- The appearance of Rink, the female fiend, was based on the character Cricket from Fallout 4. This was explicitly intended as an Easter egg by Michael Harvey, the TV show's makeup department head: Harvey found that Amy Westcott, the wardrobe designer, had dressed one character almost identically to Cricket, and he took the opportunity to "lean into this character in the game a little too hard." Harvey noted it was the only material that was copied exactly from the games (which Jonathan Nolan had said not to do; Harvey said that Nolan did not notice the resemblance).[Non-game 2][Non-game 3]
Gallery[]
References[]
Non-game
- ↑ Raymond Kenny on Instagram (archived)
- ↑ IGN: "Jonathan Nolan and the writers didn't catch it, 'but boy, Reddit caught it': Fallout's makeup department hid a sneaky easter egg in one episode that fans 'jumped on' immediately" (archived)
- ↑ Awards Daily: "‘Fallout’ Emmy Nominees Mike Harvey, Rich Krusell On Creating Unique Make-Up, Prosthetic Designs For the Video Game-Inspired Series" (archived)
