‘Fallout’ Season 2, Episode 4 Recap – We Have Finally Arrived

New Vegas was the clear selling point of Fallout Season 2, so it’s nice that in Episode 4, “The Demon in the Snow”, Lucy and the Ghoul finally arrive there. At the midway point, we seem to have reached a natural pivot into the real (dog)meat of this run, the stretch that’ll hopefully steady the ship of a second season that is boasting plenty of highlights but is still spread fairly unevenly across multiple subplots that aren’t all equally engaging.

But the core is there, no doubt about it. Lucy and the Ghoul’s arcs are nicely intertwining, with the latter exhibiting a bit more humanity than he has allowed himself to in the last couple of centuries, and the former developing an unexpected drug habit that both exacerbates her peppy demeanour but also makes her much more violent. And Maximus is drawing a line about where he stands in the Brotherhood of Steel, and what he’s willing to do – and not willing to do – for what he thinks is right.

The less said about the vaults is probably for the better, but we’ll get to it all the same.

What’s In A Name?

“The Demon in the Snow” is a weird title, but the flashback cold open – quite a literal one, in this case – gives it a little more context. Back then, Cooper was on the Alaskan Front, trudging through the snow in a malfunctioning set of power armour with Charles. He’s ambushed by a trio of soldiers who mock the state of his armour, which sends him toppling to the ground, defenceless, but then a Deathclaw shows up and murders everyone, curiously leaving Cooper untouched. It’s a bit of a throwback to Cooper’s disillusionment with military honours and glory that was alluded to in the previous episode.

It also connects, in a roundabout way, to the end of the episode, but we’ll get to that momentarily.

Maximus Has Indeed Started A War

Speaking of the previous episode, we promptly pick up from the very significant cliffhanger we left things on, which you’ll recall was Maximus having killed Paladin Xander Harkness to protect the children of Thaddeus’s child labour factory. To get around having been tracked by the Brotherhood, Maximus talks Thaddeus into getting in the power armour and pretending to be Xander to allow them to get back to Area 51, where Maximus can enact the next phase of his freestyled plan – killing Elder Quintus.

In case it wasn’t obvious that the show is making fun of this chapter of the Brotherhood, Fallout Season 2, Episode 4 makes it extremely clear. Despite Thaddeus doing a legendarily terrible job of pretending to be Xander, multiple elders think he’s the real deal and offer to kill Quintus. When it turns out that the cold fusion has been stolen – by Dane, Max’s only ally, who had taken the children out of the way of the inevitable shooting – a ridiculous gunfight breaks out in the cafeteria.

While this is going on, Max confronts Quintus in his office. And while he has every intention of killing him, the fact that he’s so easily swayed into hesitation proves that he’s not really the murder-in-cold-blood type. But Quintus and the Brotherhood are pretty irredeemable, at least in their inflexible abomination-murdering doctrine. Max tries to justify killing Xander on the grounds of protecting literal children, but Quintus is so appalled at the notion of letting ghouls live that he pulls out his own gun and starts shooting at Maximus. In the chaos, Dane helps Max and Thaddeus escape with the cold fusion, but remains behind as the other two flee into the desert, and Area 51 erupts into chaos behind them.

An Aside About Vaults

I may as well take a moment to mention the vault stuff, which I’d say is decidedly weaker than everything else. Then again, though, it’s clearly playing more of a long game, setting up things for later, so I guess patience is necessary. In short:

• Norm meets Ronnie, Bud’s personal assistant, who knows the plans for Vaults 32 and 33. Phase two is, apparently, very important, so Norm allows Ronnie to take the lead.
• In Vault 33, Reg’s in-breeding support group is taking on a life of its own, using far too much of the rationed water, but giving Reg enough public support to refuse to shut the club down when Overseer Betty complains.
• In Vault 32, Stephanie is up to “Overseer stuff”. She tasks Betty with retrieving a keepsake box apparently brought by Hank to Vault 31, in exchange for which she’ll consider giving Vault 33 access to 32’s water. She’s also overheard by Woody discussing an experiment that is now apparently over, for which Vault 33 may pay the price. Chet also discovers a wallet that reveals Stephanie is Canadian.

You can feel a lot of drama building up in all this, but ping-ponging between the vaults, which all feel a little samey, doesn’t help that development. It’s all going somewhere, but it’s not in a hurry to get there, and in an episode where Lucy and the Ghoul finally arrive at their destination, that feels a bit discordant.

Lucy Is Addicted to Drugs

Speaking of Lucy, she’s now addicted to drugs. After the Ghoul saved her from Caesar’s Legion, the remnants of the New California Republic hooked her up to an IV of meds and left her to heal for a couple of days, which means she has become a little dependent on the cocktail. A previous version of Lucy might have wanted to remain with the NCR, and there’s still a hint of that impulse here, but her experiences have changed her, hardened her, and shown her the value of operating independently in a landscape defined entirely by ever-warring factions.

But she also feels hungry and itchy and ill-tempered, which the Ghoul rather cheerily informs her is because she’s now a drug addict. And Buffout withdrawal is no small matter. She can either endure several days of torturous side effects while her body fights it, delaying their journey, or she can simply keep popping pills and keep going. Uncharacteristically – though backed up by very on-brand Lucy-like reasoning – she chooses the latter.

Ironically, druggy Lucy is more suited to the wasteland than her sober version. Sure, she makes the rash decision of going straight through the New Vegas front door instead of taking the longer, safer alternative route, but when she’s set upon by Elvis impersonator ghouls, she blows them all away with a glimmer of psychotic glee that the Ghoul visibly finds rather fetching. But Vegas is deserted, and doesn’t offer any immediate leads. Lucy impatiently starts shouting for someone, anyone, to respond, but she only attracts the attention of a giant Deathclaw.

Maybe drugs aren’t the best thing for her after all.