“Strangely confident” does seem to be that guy’s default setting.
Quite so. Though I feel like calling him a snake oil salesman is a bit unfair at this point. The drugs actually work! Sure, there are some side effects, but frankly I think they’ll pay off for Thaddeus in the long run. Squires and even Knights of the BoS don’t seem to have a very long lifespan, so forcing his leave should prove a benefit. And I don’t think the changes will affect, say, Thaddeus’ chances of getting laid: they were already close to zero, based on how Maximus behaved.
I’m not sure where in the series some of the things happen - but Maximus seems to be an example otherwise. I wonder if he is a ghoul.
Maximus has something even better than ghoulification: he’s got plot armor.
That’s why The Ghoul/Cooper is so dangerous - he has both.
Fred was great casting. His audiophile geekiness seems likes a direct copy of some of his stand up and skits, like when he talks about drums and percussion to a level that no one else in the world cares about. I love it!
I had thought at first, based on the doc’s comment that he doesn’t have to worry about radiation anymore, that Thaddeus had been given super mutant serum, and would now slowly turn into a super mutant. Nope, just a ghoul. Where are all the super mutants, successors to weak, puny humans? Want to see one!
I had forgotten about that too, which Is why I found it strange that he got ghoulified by a drug. Not that the show always follows game precedent, as we’ve seen with the drugs the ghouls take to not become feral.
I liked the scene where, after Thaddeus realized he’s a ghoul and the BoS vertibirds were arriving, he’s all like “I gotta get out of here! They can’t know I’m a ghoul! They’ll kill me” Lucy: “But…I thought the Brotherhood of Steel was good”. (Thaddeus and Maximus, looking at each other) “uhhhh…wellll…it’s complicated”.
Fred Armisen had a big role in the 2022 series Toast of Tinseltown, starring Matt Berry, who plays the Fallout actor friend of Cooper who voices Mr Handy.
Liked seeing the appearance by Erik Estrada. I haven’t seen that guy in forever. Looks like he’s still working but in stuff I haven’t watched.
Just for the record, Eddie Winter (Valentine’s nemesis in F4) was also turned into a ghoul pre-war based on research done by other parties, presumably a combination of careful doses of radiation secured through his criminal connections and other possible reagents.
But that in turn takes us back to Fallout 3 Point Lookout DLC and Desmond Lockheart.
Quoting a bit from the Fallout 3 Official Game Guide which was used for the website:
Desmond and those he would consider his peers knew for some time that the Great War was inevitable. Desmond himself could have been directly involved in the actions leading up to the nuclear exchange.Facing the nuclear holocaust, global leaders and members of the intelligence community made their personal bids for survival in the new world. F.E.V., cryogenic stasis, AI consciousness, even—in Desmond’s case—controlled exposure to normally lethal doses of radiation were among the wildly risky and experimental techniques pursued in the name of survival in a world without modern infrastructure.
Most of which we’ve seen in the games so far: Cryogenic stasis, FEV mutants, the Think Tank to a degree (brains in a jar), etc.
So Thaddeus is just a recent additional to a looooong chain (in Bethesda’s version at least) of deliberately created ghouls.
Oh man, watched this late last night and we were too tired to go for the last episode. But, what a cliffhanger! I’m dying to know what Norm saw in that last shot.
I never did do that quest. Nick is awesome, but the companions usually just wind up being a burden in combat so I always stick with Dogmeat for the entire game.
That being said, I’m leaning towards the chickenfucker’s cure-all actually being some sort of FEV cocktail, and we’re gonna see Thaddeus turn into something akin to the Master.
On the one hand - I don’t think ghouls have previously been established to be capable of superhuman healing, beyond whatever it is that’s keeping them alive through all that radiation. So I was also wondering if maybe the medicine did more than make him a ghoul.
But on the other hand, they showed us The Ghoul sew his finger back on shortly beforehand, and I wonder if the point of that was to prime us to associate healing with ghouls.
I mean, the Mr. Handy at the chop shop also stitched a cadaver’s finger onto Lucy’s stump and it actually worked instead of just giving her gangrene, so maybe pre-war chems are just that good.
Radiation gives them superhuman healing. Oswald the Outrageous uses radiation to heal injured ghouls and himself fully regenerates when teleporting. The Marked Men in Lonesome Road are in bad shape even for ghouls, but regenerate fast enough to stay alive (as well as heal injuries) when they’re near radiation.
That said, Thaddeus doesn’t seem to be near any high intensity source of radiation. Though maybe the drug cocktail contained something.
ETA: A quote from one of Oswald’s terminal entries:
There was a big attack today, and Dean got hit by a stray bullet. The thought of losing another of us caused me to snap, and suddenly it was as though energy was literally flowing from my body. Then Dean just shot up and gasped for air. I healed him, but I have no idea how.
I assume prewar chems are just that good, but the Ghoul didn’t have any - just basic needle and thread.
Fair enough, I stand corrected.
He could’ve still been under the influence of the chem buffet he found at the Super-Duper Mart, but at this point we’re just guessing until they give us some more lore to digest.
You mean the guy who described himself as a “very large bucket of drugs”? They guy who had gone face-down in the drug trough at the Super Duper Mart? Who was probably still sloshing when he walked? That guy?
Aside from any “natural” (if that’s the word) healing ghouls have, dude was full of chem and who knows what all effects the smorgasbord was generating in him.
I mean, there canonically is a drug that regenerates crippled limbs within seconds.