Fallout Show Season 1 Ending Explained

Now that the Fallout TV show is on Amazon and season 1 ran its course, the ending has an element that may need to be explained to people who aren’t familiar with the games. Season 2 is being set up, and it suggests  return to someplace familiar. Let’s go over everything that happened at the end of season 1 for each character and what it means for more episodes.

Editor’s Note: There will be spoilers for the Amazon Fallout TV show season 1 and its ending below.

A lot happened in this episode! First, let’s jump to the elephant in the room. What was with that city in the end that Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) saw after he stole the Brotherhood of Steel Power Armor? Those who played the game will recognize it as The Strip in New Vegas from Fallout New Vegas. Mr. House’s Lucky 38 casino, the one that resembles The Stratosphere Casino in the real Las Vegas, is a dead giveaway. This means the teaser hints that the main action of the show will be moving to this location from the games for season 2.

As for the other things that happened, it’s best to go through them character by character.

The Ghoul Cooper Howard:

Thanks to his flashbacks, we know that Vault Tec was running out of money. Cooper used the listening device given to him by Moldaver in the past to hear what his wife Barb was up to and how aware of the company’s ill intents she was. 

Vault Tec ended up “selling off” Vaults, in a way, to its partners so they could run experiments when the world ended. Barb also noted that it was going to orchestrate the kind of nuclear war necessary to result in their use. She was fully on-board with this. Also, during that flashback, we saw that Cooper actually met Lucy MacLean’s father Hank, because he was working for Barb at Vault Tec back in those days.

Once he reappears (with Dogmeat CX404 by his side) at Moldaver’s settlement during the climax, we also learn his true mission: find his family. In the first episode, we saw he was at a kid’s birthday party performing with his daughter and rode away with her on his horse. It seems The two of them might have ended up in the safety of a Vault, and he wants to find them.

Norm MacLean:

It feels like heading to Norm is a good second step, considering how involved he is in the Vault Tec storyline as well! We learned from the last few episodes that Vaults 31, 32, and 33 were part of a Vault Tec experiment. Also, that somehow every time an overseer for Vault 33 was picked, they came from Vault 31. 

Once Norm got into 31 by impersonating Barb when part of the Vault 33 residents were being sent to 32 (with new Vault 32 overseer Steph from 31), we see a… brain in a jar on a robot! It’s Bud, from the Cooper flashbacks. He was an executive alongside Cooper’s wife, Barb, and talked about a Bud’s Buds program in the past. Vault 31 is filled with cryogenically frozen former Vault Tec executives. Most will be revived when the surface is habitable, but every once in a while one is unfrozen to act as an overseer for Vaults 32 and 33. 

However, Norm is now stuck there, and Bud says he will need to go into his father’s old cryogenic chamber and wait until all of the employees there are released.

Lucy MacLean:

Lucy’s role in the ending is absolutely huge in the new take on Fallout on Amazon. Upon reaching Moldaver’s settlement, she learns that the Enclave’s Dr. Siggi Wilzig’s head hid the secret to cold fusion. That’s the technology Moldaver was working on in the past, which Vault Tec stole when it acquired companies she was tied to. She is setting up a society for everyone — human or ghoul — and wanted to use it as an unlimited power source. 

Why did she kidnap Lucy’s father Hank? Because cold fusion became a Vault Tec product, only a Vault Tec executive could “unlock” it so it could be used. She needed him for the password. 

Now, while all this is going on, a decaying, feral ghoul is at Moldaver’s table and tied up. Lucy learns the truth. The memories of her as a child in a field with her mother in the sun were from the surface. Her mother Rose learned the truth about the world being habitable when she noticed the Vault 33 water supply was being tapped into, and Hank tried to gaslight her about it. She then escaped with Lucy and Norm to the surface and joined their city. (The same city that Maximus grew up in as a child.) Hank came after them and bombed it, with Rose being turned into a ghoul when that happened. That’s when we see the ghoul’s necklace matches the one in Lucy’s memories. 

Lucy convinces her father to give Moldaver the password. The cold fusion process starts right as the Brotherhood of Steel and Maximus arrive. In the ensuing fight, Moldaver is killed, Hank is set free and takes the Power Armor, Maximus is injured, Cooper arrives, and Lucy decides to leave with Cooper and Dogmeat to go after her father. The city is alive with power as this all happens. 

Maximus:

When Maximus gets back to the Brotherhood of Steel with the fake head in the Fallout TV show season 1 ending, it is almost immediately determined that it is a fake. He scrambles and claims he can take them all to the real one. Dane stands up for him and admits the injury that prevented them from becoming a Squire was self-inflicted. The Brotherhood then rolls out. 

Maximus gets to Lucy in time to see Hank basically on a rampage and Moldaver being killed. He gets knocked out in the process.

Moldaver talks to Maximus as she is dying and asks what he’ll do with cold fusion and that power. She understands he’ll be given “credit” for what happens. When Dane arrives, this is confirmed and Maximus is declared “Knight Maximus” in his own right for his “actions.” 

Season 1 of the Fallout TV show is now available on Amazon.