Spoiler policy: Anything in this episode and any previous episodes are open spoilers. Please do not discuss what happens in later episodes in this thread. Rather, go to the thread for that episode and discuss it there. Assume that everyone who is reading this thread has only seen up until the episode in the title. General discussion about the whole series after you’ve watched all the episodes can go in the episode 8 thread…
NCR Ranger armor! Awesome. Probably ideal wear for mining caps.
So it was Mondaver who the doctor was trying to get to in the first place and she was the one offering the bounty. Interesting. Whatever he implanted in his neck must have to do with the Vault project.
“The observatory” is gonna be Griffith Park, isn’t it? It has to be at the rate they’re going through landmarks.
I was kinda hoping that after he blew Tommy to smithereens, Cooper would say something slick like “My condolences on your loss” before he left.
So Moldaver’s beef with Vault-Tec is that they bought out her cold fusion research from under her and shelved it? One of the divergences between our world and the Fallout world is that nuclear fusion wasn’t invented until the mid-21st century, but I kinda assumed cold fusion already existed in the Fallout universe - that’s the only way that miniaturized reactors in cars and fusion cores make sense without applying another layer of “radiation is magic” handwavium.
“I’m not a Communist, Mr. Howard - that’s just a dirty word they use to describe people who aren’t insane.” That is a GREAT line and I want to incorporate it into my lexicon.
Between this episode, I like the way they intercut the present-day scenes with the pre-war scenes as if they were happening at the same time. “Meanwhile, 220 years ago…”
Vault 4 must’ve been part of the FEV project if hybridizing humans and abominations was actually their purpose. I guess I was right about the original Vault dwellers being long gone.
THE AXOLOTL MONSTER’S NAME WAS PETER.
Red Rocket!
I’ve never heard this cover of “Sixteen Tons” before but I like it.
Thaddeus’ foot looks GRUESOME. I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen off by now. Where’s Jim’s Limbs (the veteran’s choice) when you need 'em?
Thaddeus shouldn’t be treating Dogmeat like that. Dogmeat is the Goodest Boy.
“You are hereby sentenced to death… BY BANISHMENT TO THE SURFACE!” That was anticlimactic. And also literally a Simpsons joke from almost 30 years ago now. The Simpsons references continue!
Maximus giving up the fusion core is an action worthy of a knight, even if he’s just a squire with a stolen suit of armor. It still seems lore-breaking that a core that can power an entire Vault for hundreds of years is the same device that can only power a suit of armor for 10 hours of in-game time, but that’s gameplay mechanics vs. storyline mechanics for you.
Admitting the truth to Lucy is also what a true knight would do. Good on Maximus for doing the right thing eventually.
I was hoping we’d get to hear one of those weird wasteland DJs broadcasting fiddle music to everyone with a working radio whether they want to hear it or not. Those guys are part of the soul of Fallout. (Never did care much for the FO4 DJ, though.)
It’s the chickenfucker! I knew they were going somewhere with that. Apparently he was able to independently reinvent Hydra during his “experiments” with the local fauna.
Norm poisoned the raiders. Good for him.
Cooper saved Dogmeat again! Yay.
COOPER JUST NAMED HER DOGMEAT! Yay. I really hoped they’d make it official at some point.
Fred Armisen is the DJ? First Chris Parnell, then this. I love that they’ve managed to grab such recognizable character actors for roles that definitely fit them. Listening to him geek out about audiophile stuff while Thaddeus pretends to understand what he’s talking about is gold.
What did I tell you guys back in episode 3, Thaddeus? Wait until you have a high percentage in VATS before you waste your ammo. That stuff doesn’t grow on trees and you’ve only got so much AP at once.
Thaddeus used to be a wastelander like you… then he took an arrow to the neck. BAM! Cross-genre crossover meme. “WHY AM I NOT DEAD?!” is a great line that I hope I never have a reason to use.
Thaddeus is a ghoul? Huh. I don’t think we’ve ever seen the process of someone becoming a ghoul before. I always assumed it happened more rapidly and their appearance was the result of radiation burns. Did the chickenfucker’s homemade Hydra literally ghoulify him? That would also be new lore - ghoulification has always been a combination of genetics and sudden exposure to massive amounts of radiation.
And there it is - the heroic last (and first) kiss before the knight makes his sacrifice. Fred Armisen approves.
Betty is getting rid of her enemies by sending them to Vault 32 where they’ll get mouse utopia’d. She doesn’t suspect Norm. That’s gonna be her undoing. Naturally she appoints the only other 31er as overseer.
The hacking interface makes an appearance! I HATE the hacking interface. It’s not sophisticated enough to make a good puzzle and it’s more or less pure luck whether or not your first two guesses give you enough info to pick the right password before you get locked out. Naturally Norm gets it right on the first try. I love/hate that little Small-Frame-trait-picking bastard.
WAG: Vault 31 is another cryo-vault and the succession of overseers that’ve been transferred from it to 33 over the years are literally pre-war Vault-Tec employees responsible for keeping the experiments running and Moldaver got in somehow and that’s how she’s still alive 220 years later.
I’m still gonna make myself wait until tomorrow to watch the finale, but what a cliffhanger to end on.
Uh… no, the original vault dwellers were people being experimented on by Vault-Tec. The current Vault 4 mutants really are the descendants of those original people.
This entire series is at least 53% handwavium.
Well… we don’t know that for sure. It could be one of Peter’s kids…
Technically, this Dogmeat is the Goodest Girl
Actually… according to the IMDB credits the Snake Oil Salesman and the Chicken Fucker are two different people.
We actually met the SOS in Filly - he’s the guy following Wilzig for a bit while Wilzig is limping along on his Jim’s Limb saying he’s got serums to heal you, serums to heal your foot, serums to regrow your foot… maybe. Nice foreshadowing, that.
We don’t know for sure what’s up with Thaddeus, that’s just what the in-show characters latch onto because it’s what they know can survive damage like that.
The guy who heal Thaddeus is the Snake Oil Saleman, not the Chicken Fucker (I admit there is some resemblance)
Whose to say one of those bottles wasn’t full of something highly radioactive?
I dunno if this is universally the case, but my Gen-Z coworkers use “Good Boy” as an agender term for dogs that they like. Dogmeat is a Good Boy even if she’s a girl.
BTW, if I remember right, the in-game “all fiddles, all the time” radio station is the Fallout 4 Minutemen Radio. Which I tune into only when coordinating an artillery barrage, because all fiddles all the time will make you wish for a nuclear winter.
The thought of someone else in this big wasteland actually loving that shit after the first 5 minutes is possibly the most disturbing revelation of the entire series.
I’m totally blanking on the words, but as the “doctor” was leaving he said something (about side effects, maybe?) that convinced me that he’d ghoulified Thaddeus or something equivalent. So when they reached all those booby traps, I was 100% certain that we’d get a scene like what we got.
Presumably, if ghoulification can happen accidentally, it can be triggered intentionally. Maybe all of the sentient ghouls were taking some particular old-world drug at the time they got their radiation dose.
Ahh, yes. Seemed like a dead giveaway at the time. I guess the alternative explanation is that the drug would just kill Thaddeus before radiation (or anything else) was a problem, but that didn’t seem very likely.
None of those links work for me, but like @DigitalC said, you’re confusing the guy who owned the chickens with the guy who was fucking them. Maximus never manhandles the chicken fucker. He sees two guys fighting and grabs the guy who he thinks started it. The other guy, Snake Oil, takes the opportunity to split, and the remaining guy says he was only beating up Snake Oil 'cause “he keeps fucking my chickens.”
I’d forgotten about this, but there is another example of drug-induced ghoulification: Hancock. From the Fallout wiki:
At some point, he discovered an experimental radioactive drug that he describes as producing a remarkable high, regardless of the fact that the result of it was his ghoulification, which he came to accept due to allegedly now being “immortal,” or rather just aging much, much slower than humans.
So, Thaddeus is mostly within the existing canon. I wonder if we’ll see him slowly turn ghoulish, or if he’s a new type that remains a smoothskin.
Dang. I forgot about that. (TBH, I never really paid much attention to Hancock as a companion NPC, which is probably where that bit of lore came out.)
So at least “ghoulification via pharmaceutical” has some canonical precedent. I bet it still depends on the right genetic profile, since it talks about the med being radioactive.
Now I feel a little better about the “ghouls need anti-feral drugs” interpolation in the lore, since the “drug can make you a ghoul” angle has some support, and it appears the two drugs are one and the same.
Though the doctor did seem strangely confident at that point. Maybe if the drug worked at all (or didn’t immediately kill Thaddeus), he knew that ghoulification was then inevitable. Or maybe the ambiguiity in his statement was deliberate: whether it killed him or made him a ghoul, either way radiation was no longer a concern.
