This article contains spoilers for the Fallout Season 2 finale, “The Strip.”
After eight episodes of post-apocalypse insanity and plenty of irradiated creatures, Fallout wrapped up Season 2 with the season finale, “The Strip,” this week. Given that multiple characters are left with their fates in the air, not to mention multiple wars either in progress or brewing, it’s going to be a long wait to see how Season 3 of the Prime Video series deals with the…what’s the word? Oh, right: Fallout.
While we wait, we’re going to attempt to answer some of your biggest burning questions about the finale and what might come next. We’re being a little vague on that front, because despite taking place in the same continuity as Bethesda’s video games, it’s clear the TV show is forging its own path and adding a bunch of details to the overall tapestry of the world Vault-Tec helped create.
To give the broadest overview of how things wrapped up, the main conflict of the season was arguably whether Lucy (Ella Purnell) would be corrupted by the Wasteland or end up “okey dokey” at the end of the day. It’s clear she’s been changed by her journey with the Ghoul (Walton Goggins) to New Vegas, but as Lucy exasperatedly explains to the severed head of Representative Diane Welch (Martha Kelly) midway through the finale, “Why does everyone always want me to kill them all the time?”
This is a problem that Lucy runs into multiple times in the finale – first, with the head of Welch, who Lucy’s dad, Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan), is using to give his brainwashed drones a little character beyond blank amnesiac slates, and then later with Hank himself. After the Season 1 finale, Lucy headed off to confront her father; here she’s given the opportunity to have some resolution, only for it to be ripped away from her. Because of that, it’s a little confusing as to where the show lands with Lucy’s arc. Rather than a definitive statement, she bashes Welch’s head with a crowbar, presumably killing her (we don’t get to see what happens, so maybe her head will be back in Season 3). With Hank, Lucy is given a gun by the Ghoul, but decides instead that she’s going to brainwash Hank using miniaturized tech he developed, thus getting the father she always wanted. But that doesn’t happen either, as Hank brainwashes himself.
As we leave Lucy, her arc seems to have gone from not wanting to kill anyone in the Season 2 premiere to killing people sometimes in the Season 2 finale. One could argue that sort of flippant attitude is part of the cheeky nature of both the video games and the show. Certainly, Maximus (Aaron Moten) backs that up while he and Lucy stand hand in hand, watching Caesar’s (uh, it’s pronounced “kai-czar”) Legion march into New Vegas. Lucy thinks she could have prevented the upcoming war – the New California Republic, sworn enemies of the Legion, are currently in residence – and it’s all her fault. “Yeah, well. Welcome to the Wasteland,” Maximus says. But is that dramatically satisfying? No? It’s not?
Speaking of Maximus, he also has his heroic moment interrupted. After killing multiple Deathclaws and getting some backup from the now one-armed Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton), he doesn’t manage to rally the people of New Vegas, and he doesn’t even get to kill the last Deathclaw or die in glory, despite getting a cool hero moment holding a roulette wheel as a shield and a pool cue as a sword. Instead, the NCR storms in and handles it for him; like Lucy, he’s character arc-us interruptus.
The Ghoul is the only one who gets any sort of closure. For two seasons, he’s been wondering if his family is dead and thinking he’s not worthy of meeting them. Thanks to a computerized version of Robert House (Justin Theroux) on a Pip-Boy, he finally finds their cryo-pods…but they’re empty. Empty, that is, except for a postcard to Colorado in his wife Barb’s (Frances Turner) pod with the handwritten note, “Colorado was a good idea.” So now he knows for sure that his wife and daughter are alive, and where to find them, even if Colorado is a pretty big place to be traveling on foot. Of our main trio, though, the Ghoul reaches an emotional turning point while Lucy and Maximus are just sort of bummed out.
The Ghoul is the only one who gets any sort of closure. There’s lots more that goes down in the finale, as the show continues to juggle way too many storylines. Steph Harper (Annabel O'Hagan) responds to the Vaulties wanting to kill her for being a 200-year-old Canadian by activating Phase Two of the Enclave’s plan; Norm (Moisés Arias) survives a radroach attack and heads back out into the Wasteland; Hank, as we mentioned, is left brainwashed on the steps of the casino; and Macauley Culkin is no longer home alone, having named himself Caesar of the Legion.
But wait, there’s more, including an end credits scene that reveals what the Brotherhood of Steel is up to, which is a civil war and building an enormous, unstoppable robot called Liberty Prime Alpha. And that’s not even bringing up all the dangling plotlines and burning questions left over from the rest of the season…so how about we get into a few of those now?
Is Stephanie Really Norm and Lucy’s Mom?
We haven’t really touched on the flashback sections set in 2077 yet. As we discover, Steph has been working as a maid at the Lucky 38 Casino, and we see her and a hideously digitally de-aged Hank giddily telling Cooper (the pre-Ghoul version of Goggins’ character) and Barb Howard that they got married. Then, in 2296, when Steph calls The Enclave on her evil black Pip-Boy, she explicitly introduces herself as Hank MacLean’s wife, despite her currently wearing a wedding dress and matching white eyepatch from her aborted wedding to Chet (Dave Register).
One would think this indicates that Steph is Norm and Lucy’s mom, right? Well, no. There might be more to come here, but it’s important to remember that the apocalypse happens later in 2077, meaning Steph and Hank have only been married for a short time when they’re put in cryostasis. Hank was unfrozen in 2268, met a woman named Rose (Elle Vertes), fell in love and married her despite still being married to Steph. Rose is the mother of Lucy and Norm, and Steph didn’t wake up until after that.
As far as we know from the TV show, nobody else knows that Hank and Steph were married apart from Cooper and Barb. It’s possible the marriage was annulled immediately, or more reasonably, there’s just nobody awake in the vaults who is aware of their relationship. As we’ve seen, Steph holds secrets pretty close to her vest, and so does Hank.
What Did Barb Know and When Did She Know it?
Right after Hank and Steph announced their marriage, Cooper was arrested by the House Un-American Activities Committee, taking the fall for stealing the diode from Hank and giving it to the President of the United States (Clancy Brown). So what happened between then and when the bombs dropped, as seen in the first episode of the series? If you’ll recall, Cooper was performing at a party, his daughter Janey (Teagan Meredith) was there, and they escaped the bombs on horseback.
This is one we don’t have a good answer to, but how Cooper got out of jail, why he was with Janey and not Barb, how Barb and Janey ended up in a cryostasis without Cooper – heck, even how Cooper became the Ghoul – are all questions for the future. However, for the purposes of this episode, the one aspect of this mystery we can probably answer is how Barb knew to leave a postcard for Cooper to send him to Colorado, and the answer is likely faith. We may get another explanation later, but the simplest explanation is she had to believe if Cooper was alive, he would come find them. So she left him a clue – simple as that.
What Happened to Ron Perlman’s Super Mutant?
Of all the weirdly dropped storylines in the season, the biggest is probably the appearance and disappearance of Ron Perlman’s nameless super mutant. There were a lot of hints with Norm’s storyline referencing the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) that creates super mutants, and even Perlman’s speech about how a war is coming and the Ghoul needed to choose sides. But that was it – for him, the mutants, and the FEV. It all ties into the Enclave, the big bad of the series, but there really was no payoff on this one. Maybe that’s down to Perlman’s schedule, or maybe they’re just holding back on it until the Enclave is more involved in Season 3. Either way, we need to see this super mutant of anarchy do his thing!
What Is Phase Two?
Speaking of the Enclave, what is this Phase Two that Steph has set in motion? We see shots of the Enclave Research Facility, and they’ve clearly been keeping tabs on the MacLean family, but we don’t really get a hint as to what, exactly, Phase Two is all about. Actually, now that we’re talking about it: What was Phase One? Hank gives some hints about that – it turns out he’s been working for the Enclave, not Vault-Tec – including that his miniaturized control units are for the Enclave and that “The surface is the experiment, not the Vaults.”
The Enclave is a fascist group, and perhaps when the Deathclaws turned out to be less-than-controllable, they’re moving on to something else. This could indicate any number of things, but perhaps Phase One is about control, and Phase Two is about subjugation. Now that the Enclave has Hank’s missionaries everywhere out in the field with virtually undetectable brainwashing tech inside them, the Enclave can work to control the lawlessness of the Wasteland through influence. Then, Phase Two (i.e., probably the FEV) would give them controllable, massive soldiers that nobody can stand against. The Enclave is a fascist group, and perhaps when the Deathclaws turned out to be less-than-controllable, they’re moving on to something else. Whatever it is, we’ll hopefully know more next season.
Is Woody Really Dead?
Look, everyone loves actor Zach Cherry, so it was a shocking moment when Chet discovered Woody’s glasses and assumed he was dead. While it may simply be that Cherry is a busy guy and had to go film Severance or something, the general rule of thumb is “bodies or it didn’t happen.” The assumption now is that Woody is dead, but it’s more likely – and much funnier – if Steph is turning him into a super mutant somewhere else in the Vaults. Here’s hoping, because we really need to see Woody do a flip before this is all over (that’s a Spider-Man reference, look it up).
Are The Deathclaws Dead?
By the season finale’s end, the NCR has killed the last Deathclaw in New Vegas…so that’s it for Deathclaws, right? Not necessarily. Remember, they were the “demon in the snow,” and there’s not a ton of snow in Las Vegas. We first saw one up north, so it likely means they’re all over the place; after all, they’re too good a monster not to bring them back in some fashion.
What Did House Know and When Did He Know it?
When we leave Computerized Robert House, he’s seemingly stuck inside the Pip-Boy that the Ghoul left near Barb and Janey’s vacated cryo-pods. He’s found a way to pop back into the large computer in his office, however, despite the signal being lost. We aren’t done with him yet; after all, the House always wins.
There is an open question as to whether he knew Janey and Barb weren’t there, and the answer is “probably,” but he likely didn’t know about the Colorado postcard. As for what his endgame is at this point, that’s TBD, but he sure seems to be pissed about the Enclave. Will he team up with Lucy and Maximus in Season 3? Or given he has possession of the cold fusion diode, will House shack up with one of the many factions vying for control of the Wasteland?
NCR vs. The Legion: Whoever Wins, We Lose?
The Legion is headed for New Vegas while the NCR is stationed there; the latter is definitely positioned as our heroes, while the former are the baddies. But Fallout is never as simple as that, and it’s likely that the ambivalent residents of New Vegas will pay the price. The bigger question is what, if anything, the Brotherhood of Steel might have to do with this, and the answer to that is probably dealing with bigger problems.
As we saw in the end credits scene, the faction of the Brotherhood led by Quintus (Michael Cristofer) is under attack. We don’t see by who, but it’s strongly implied that it’s other Brotherhood factions, given they tried to start a rebellion, and Maximus killed Paladin Xander Harkness (Kumail Nanjiani), wrecking the whole thing; whoops. Meanwhile, Quintus has blueprints for a devastating robot called Liberty Prime Alpha, a riff on Liberty Prime Mark II seen in the Fallout games. If the robot can wreck the other Brotherhoods, will Quintus use it to bring his form of order to the rest of the Wasteland as well? And if so, are the NCR and Legion next?
Will Hank Return in Season 3?
Despite getting brainwashed, it would be silly not to bring Kyle MacLachlan back for Season 3. At the very least, there’s more to tell about his backstory with Steph and the Enclave. We’ll definitely get more – shudder – digitally de-aged Hank, if not Hank in the present, though he likely has a part to play as a fresh-brained newborn as well.
Is The Ghoul Off On His Own?
The heart of the show has been the relationship between Lucy and the Ghoul, and it looks like we’re losing that in Season 3, as our favorite noseless killer heads off to Colorado in search of his family, alongside his faithful dog (who he probably grabbed on the way out of New Vegas). There’s lots to do in Colorado – new factions, new enemies, maybe even a secret Vault – but the Ghoul likely won’t have Lucy by his side to provide a moral counterpoint. Perhaps that was the purpose of him giving her the gun and leaving the choice to kill Hank up to her; their journey together is finished.
That said, in an interview with IGN, co-showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet teased that things may not go the way you think. “We want to remind viewers that just because the Ghoul is heading to Colorado, of course this is the Wasteland where you always get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time. So how long will it take him to get there, or will he get there in the first episode of the next season? We will have to wait to find out. It may not be as linear a journey as one would hope.”
Short answer? Until the Ghoul finds his family, he’ll probably be off on his own little show for the time being. Whether that brings him back to Lucy and company to get there the long way around? TBD.
What Will Season 3 Be About?
Fallout was picked up for Season 3 way back in May 2025, so we know it’s more than likely happening (with the requisite caveat of “the streaming business changes rapidly”). So what will it be about? Unless they continue to slow burn this (please don’t), the Enclave should be front and center as the main villain of the season. We’ll also likely see a war between the NCR and the Legion, as well as a civil war with the Brotherhood of Steel.
And what’s happening back at the Vaults? Are they necessary anymore? Steph is about to be killed, Norm is outside, and though they are very fun to spend time in given the multiple balls in the air on the surface, seeing what’s going on below seems less and less important as time goes on. So will we put them behind us for good?
Furthermore, what about the central emotional conflict? As we noted before, this season was all about whether Lucy should kill or not, ending on a resounding “idk maybe sometimes?” So what is her arc in Season 3, particularly now that she’s reunited with Maximus? Will this be “how to date in a time of apocalypse,” or is this about Lucy growing up and finding herself as a leader in a world that has plenty of them…but none who are looking out for other people?
We’ll have to wait at least a couple of years until Season 3 premieres to find out. Okey dokey?
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