the Fallout Feed
Everything Fallout - We cover all the games with our core hosts and variety of guests, focusing on a roundtable format each season where we play through quests with characters randomly assigned drastically different attributes. We cover lore, builds, and the overall Fallout community.
the Fallout Feed
the Fallout Feed #563: Bratsnatch and Vault-Talk S2E4 - The Demon in the Snow
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Enjoy some of our briefest gameplay ever in Fallout 76 and No Man's Sky then play a couple games about Fallout with us. Plus Vault-Talk, our recap of Season 2 Episode 4 of the Fallout TV Show.
0:00 Intro and gameplay
19:15 Gametime: Which Fallout for You?
26:45 Gametime: Fallout on Prime Trivia
37:40 Iguana Bits News
54:00 Vault-Talk S2 E4
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Hello and welcome to the five hundred and sixty-third edition of the Fallout Feed. I am Andrew, joined by a flock of my favorite Fallout folks. Tonight, I've got Ray. What's up, Ray? Hello, hello. And also Jess. What's going on, Jess?
SPEAKER_13Hey, Andrew. Greeps, everybody.
SPEAKER_18And tonight on the show, we will go over some gameplay right off the top. And Jess has prepared a game for us. I know we've been sort of shirking on our game responsibilities the last couple weeks, but that's just because we've been featuring Vault Talk. So we will get into episode four of the Vault Talk here later on of season two of The Fallout Show. Also, some iguana bits after our game. So let's go ahead and roll right into it, see what everybody's getting up to. Say, hey Jess, you have a chance to play video games this week?
SPEAKER_13I played a few games the last week or so. Not a ton, though, and not the one I'm supposed to. You know how that goes. But of all things, so I actually downloaded Spyro the Dragons. They announced a new Spyro coming out. And I think we've both been on a bit of a retro game kick again lately. We've been talking about it, playing them. So with the new Spyro announced, I've downloaded the Spyro Reignited trilogy and started playing my old Purple Dragon Buddy.
SPEAKER_18I think I remember those back on like Nintendo 64 or GameCube or something. Wasn't that a Nintendo title?
SPEAKER_13I played them on PlayStation first.
SPEAKER_18Oh, you did? Okay. That was one of those weird exclusives. All right.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, if anything, it was exclusive to PlayStation, I think, at the time. But I honestly don't remember if it came to Nintendo. One of the later ones might have. Might have been on both. But you play enough games and you gotta get a variety in for Game Pass for the month. And I needed to get an eighth Game Pass game. And I'm like, what am I gonna play? So it just happened to be Spyro. And then after my 15 minutes were up, I kept playing, and it was a good time. Those old 3D style platformers, you know, they're fun. It's some of the earliest games that had exploration in them, really.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, that's great. So they make you play 15 minutes of eight different games a month.
SPEAKER_13Is that how the Yeah, so for the reward points, you get basically every game, every day you play a game for at least 15 minutes, you get 20 points, but play eight Game Pass games a month for more than 15 minutes. Can't be the same one over and over again. So that's why grind in 76 doesn't count. You get a lot of bonus points.
SPEAKER_20So they've actually kind of so you played your 15 minutes of cyberpunk and now you're done.
SPEAKER_13I feel like I don't know what is wrong, Ray. I was so all in on cyberpunk, made a great character, and now it's been three weeks with not even touching it. Not even touching it.
SPEAKER_20It's wild.
SPEAKER_13And I know I wh I needed an RPG to get his hooks in me. And I feel like Cyberpunk was the game and it will. It's a commitment issue. I'm enjoying all these like shorter indie games and puzzle games and little games, and I'm just not I think it's just because she likes the character creator, the game. Yeah, that was part of it. But no, it's also a change of priorities. But I also played some 76, you know, a little bit. We got Fashnack going on right now, so I had to get a couple marches in, of course. And this weekend, right now, we've got Bratznack. So I know a few of our friends have been in there. Have you guys heard about Bratznack? Did I tell you guys about this?
SPEAKER_19No. No.
SPEAKER_13So they stuck up a special event in the middle of Fashnock this year where it's Bratschnock. There's a new wiener mask. So you can get a regular wiener or a glowing wiener, and all the robots are wearing wiener masks. There we go. Someone's dropping their wiener in chat and the mask. They're dropping their mask in chat, and you can get a good look at it. And all the robots are putting on the wiener mask all weekend. And instead of a common mask, every common mask you earn, you'll get a wiener mask instead. And then there's a chance for a rare glowing wiener. So there's two.
SPEAKER_18I thought it saw one that looked like a bell pepper. Is that one or is that a weird hot dog?
SPEAKER_13Yeah, it does kind of look like, no, it looks kind of like a red bell pepper, to be honest. Because it's really like half a hot dog with a little mustard cap on top that looks kind of like a stem.
SPEAKER_18Oh, that's supposed to be a hot dog. I was curious. I saw a picture flow through. I was like, what is going on here?
SPEAKER_13That's why you look at the sides. It looks like big old Ferengi ears, but really it's supposed to be the bun. See, it's a dog in a bun with a dog, a mustard as a hat. So it's dropping in place of common. So you may think, oh my God, so everybody's getting flooded with wiener masks. Like they're gonna be sick of them after a day. And they might be. But remember with Foshnuk, if you do it successfully, uncommon masks are actually more common than common masks. So it's a bit of a misnomer, you know? I when I read the stats, it said there was a 10% or 10 point something percent chance of getting a wiener mask, but I think it's probably more like 20 or 30% if it replaces the commons. But again, if all the robots live, the uncommon mask is the most likely to drop. So unless you lose a robot, you're probably not gonna get a wiener every time.
SPEAKER_18So kill a robot, everybody.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, get out there, march all weekend.
SPEAKER_20Yep, kill a robot, be a wiener.
SPEAKER_13Exactly. Everyone's the wiener this weekend. So good times. But that's 76 right now. Just the usual stuff. And then yeah, besides that, I had some fun adventures. Last weekend I went to an oddities and curiosities expo downtown in Buffalo. Have you heard of this?
SPEAKER_20Is it like chicken embryos in a pickle jar?
SPEAKER_13There is a little bit of that. So it is weird. There are some collectibles that are wet specimens. So you can get like snakes and stuff in jars and weird things like that. But a lot of it is more like taxidermy, but also just like odd collectibles and crafts, cute, spooky stuff. Think of it like a bit of a gothy collectibles and curios and craft show with a did you get a jack-alope? No, but I did write down a couple of places that make jack-alope, so I might order one. But I even though I went with my Brotherhood of Steel backpack, representing, of course, went down there and I was able to put a few things in it, but I didn't want to get a whole jackalope in my bag and carry around.
SPEAKER_18Did you get that whole duffel bag down there?
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_18No, she's got the e-bike.
SPEAKER_13It's bunnies, but so you know, I did the metro and after the expo, that was great fun. And then I went explored the waterfront, had a good time. It was a great day. But coming home, I actually stopped for groceries and I totally felt like a scribe because I stuffed that bag full. Had a good 20, 30 pounds of groceries on my back, and I was like, oof, heavy. Yeah, it was a good time. So that was a fun thing to do last weekend. But besides that, not much in the way of gaming.
SPEAKER_18Very cool. How about you, Ray? Do you have a transplay vintage game, sir?
SPEAKER_20Yeah, and it's been, you know, since it's been two weeks, there's been a lot of a lot of Skyrim, a lot of Nova Field, and a lot of Genesis. And so I was getting a little bit Nova Field?
SPEAKER_18A Starfield thing?
SPEAKER_20Yeah, it's a Starfield collection. Right, okay. I I started thinking last weekend that you know a lot of repetition in what I'm doing. And so I needed to do something different. And so I hopped on to Steam and looked at what was on sale. And I didn't really want to just do a third person. I want to do something that I was, you know, that was kind of out of my zone.
SPEAKER_18What is happening right now?
SPEAKER_20Well, we don't have a round table, so I needed something.
SPEAKER_13We're experimental phase, exactly.
SPEAKER_20And so I was thinking about Witcher 3, but then I thought, eh, you know, it's just a it's just a third person. It's really not that different. Oh, look. There's a sale on Baldur's Gate. No, you didn't, did you?
SPEAKER_18I did. That's not even third person. That's like ISO, right?
SPEAKER_20Yeah, it's it's funky.
SPEAKER_18It's been like almost top down at an angle or something.
SPEAKER_20It's been quite different, and I've definitely struggled with the camera. And since, you know, my only experience with D was Skyrim 10 AD.
SPEAKER_11Right.
SPEAKER_20And so, of course, the first thing I did was make a mug, but there's no cat people, so I couldn't make the perfect jaquai.
SPEAKER_18But I'd forgotten his name. That's right.
SPEAKER_20And so I'm about 20 hours in at this point, and still have no idea what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_13I mean, that game had a learning curve. Even for someone who plays the occasional isometric and old school DD type game, that definitely had a learning curve because there's so much to it. But 20 hours, that is serious. So it is the story pulling you in then?
SPEAKER_20Oh, yeah. No, it's definitely a cool story. And I'm intrigued by the gameplay, although I totally suck at it, which is kind of what's fun about it, you know, because it's not it's not something that I can just do with my eyes closed. And so my party has died a lot.
SPEAKER_11They do that.
SPEAKER_20But it was it was definitely elite, but I'm glad I did it. I've been having fun. And so now I'm totally committed to it.
SPEAKER_18Did you get like the the three-pack or whatever? Just get the first one? What'd you get?
SPEAKER_19No, I just got Baldur's Gate 3.
SPEAKER_18Oh, Baldur's Gate 3. Okay. Yeah. Is that a recommended jest to hop in the middle of the series like that?
SPEAKER_13Yes.
SPEAKER_18You gotta start over.
SPEAKER_13Very strongly, very strongly recommended. Now, don't get me wrong, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, awesome game. Baldur's Gate 2, one of the best RPGs ever written. And Baldur's Gate 1, no slouch. You know, I was replaying them last spring, as I recall, back when I, you know, played games. But Baldur's Gate 3 is much more developed. Really deep story. It's got great graphics and cutscenes and characters. It's just it's an awesome game.
SPEAKER_18Sweet. I know it's Will's one of Will's favorites.
SPEAKER_13That's probably what kind of convinced you, right, Ray? The fact that Jen and Will and a few of our friends are playing, talk about it so much.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, well, I knew that I knew that, you know, they were excited about the game and that it was a really good game for what it was. But it was it was never anything that I really saw myself playing because it's just not the style of game I like to play. But I did, I posted in the in the BBC ISS chat that I had gotten something in my eye and I needed to go to the doctor. And Jen responded, Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. And then I posted a picture of the little eye worm. And she was busting up. So yeah, so we'll see how that goes.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_20See how long I can stick it out.
SPEAKER_13One of the things about Baldur's Gate is that it is a trap for people who really like to try different builds and roll more characters, too. So you're learning the game, you're going through, but it would not surprise me if by the end of Act One or Early Act Two, you have to restart and try another build, knowing you. But we'll see.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. It's, I mean, I could definitely see. Well, I've already been tempted several times just because you know it is such an intriguing way to put characters together. But my biggest challenge at this point is just without since I don't know anything about any of the different characters, because I mean the the monk is the only thing I've ever done in the little tiny bit of D D that I've ever done. And so I don't know how to I don't know how to make a good paladin or a good cleric or a good wizard. And so when I'm leveling up the party characters, I'm like, oh hell, I don't know. That sounds good. Let me do that.
SPEAKER_13Can you choose to let them level themselves? Like, is that an option that they just pick whatever class they are and they level themselves or no?
SPEAKER_20Well, it could be, but I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_13I was thinking it had auto-leveling, but it may not have auto-leveling. I I honestly don't know.
SPEAKER_20I mean, you can just click accept, you know, with whatever pops up. So but yeah, it definitely took me a while just to figure out how to build my own character because there was stuff on the screen that I didn't know I was supposed to click. And when I finally did, it was like, oh, okay, now I understand.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, it's how we all played our first game of Skyrim with the name Prisoner.
SPEAKER_20Exactly. So, but yeah, definitely been having a lot of fun, definitely into it. The graphics are great, very cutscene heavy. So it's it doesn't rush the game, it doesn't feel rushed at all. So and you know another thing that helps control the pace of the game is constantly dying.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_18Does that not get frustrating?
SPEAKER_20No, not really. You know, because it's whenever I die, it just means that I've got to try something new. And so and then if I try everything I can think of and I'm still dying, then I just go do something else on some other part of the top.
SPEAKER_18You have to level up more before you take that on again.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, I still really don't know how to level up.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, and it's it just kind of happens every once in a while. Games where there's so much you can possibly do that you can't usually wander off and find something, although you'll get in over your head before too long for sure. There is a difficulty curve where it ramps up in a few areas by quite a bit. But that's how you learn, right? The monk is a more complicated class as well, at least in my experience.
SPEAKER_20Is it I don't know.
SPEAKER_11It's just the other thing, you know less weapons, it should be easier, right?
SPEAKER_20Yeah. Yeah, so that's been fun. But that's that's pretty much all of note. The only other thing I I popped a note in the No Man's Sky Discord in our in our Discords. And this coming Sunday, August 9th, is the 10th anniversary for No Man's Sky. Wow. Oh wow. And at 1800 UTC, which is uh 2 p.m. East Coast daylight time, there is a community event where we're trying to get as many people to log into No Man's Sky as possible at that time to send a 10th anniversary thank you. A massive, probably a server shutdown. If you know.
SPEAKER_18Happy birthday. Here you go. Here's a big problem for you to solve.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, crash your servers. But doesn't matter if you go in multiplayer or solo, just trying to get the biggest player count possible at that point in time for the 10th anniversary.
SPEAKER_13My idea of an event. Let's just boost that player concurrence. Sounds like fun.
SPEAKER_18Alright, very cool, you guys. The gameplay I got into this week most was Fallout Shelter. Been playing a lot on the Xbox. I started a new character on Fallout 4 as well. Just left the vault and did a little tiny bit of running around. Trying to explore more things I haven't concentrated on. But you know, I always end up falling back into my normal little thing. So unsure what the plan is exactly with Fallout for, but I just tried to load up on stats. I usually do not. And we'll see where that goes. Let's see. Fallout shelter. Yeah, I just started a new vault a couple weeks ago, so it's still three floors, not a ton of stuff going on.
SPEAKER_13People will be happy to hear you're back in it for sure.
SPEAKER_18Yeah. It's poison to them. No, but I'm having a good time. I just doing the Fallout show and all the audio and stuff seems to have fulfilled a lot of my Fallout or gaming needs or whatever. I didn't play a ton of games this week. This might be our shortest ever.
SPEAKER_13It's kind of coasting on show enjoyment. But so you set a character to play person. I mean, we are definitely out of our comfort zone.
unknownThe different stuff.
SPEAKER_13I did download another game called Dispatch. Came out last year. Really cool telltale, like superhero game. It's fun. Yeah, it's telltale style, but it's got some great actors in it. And it's basically you're a superhero whose super suit is at a commission. And so you're helping work on a team of kind of superhero rehabilitation where some heroes who are more gray area, quasi-villains becoming heroes or people trying to be better, and you're helping kind of coordinate the team. So you're essentially a dispatcher, you're a superhero dispatcher, assigning different characters to different situations. It's fun. It came out for a PlayStation last fall and PC, but it just came out on Xbox this week. So yeah, recommend picking that up. I did pick that up.
SPEAKER_17What'd you say it was called?
SPEAKER_13Dispatch.
SPEAKER_17Dispatch.
SPEAKER_13Yep.
SPEAKER_17Cool.
SPEAKER_13Got some great actors in it, cool characters. I think I'm gonna love it, but I don't play it a little bit. I mean, I think before we move on to a game, I also want to shout out. We had a couple new people join the Discord server this week. So shout out to my buddy Shades of Slay came over. You guys, Shades of Slay is a really great video essay as content creator about Classic Bethesda games. He uh has a wonderful video that people might want to look up that I really recommend about several on Oblivion and about Terry Pratchett's involvement with the Oblivion story and how into it he got and how he helped create some NPC modded characters in it and really neat. And then discussion of goblin culture. So shout out to him and all the friends joining in Discord.
SPEAKER_18You say discussion of goblin culture?
SPEAKER_13Yeah, so in Oblivion, not to go too deep down the whole, but there are actually, I believe, four separate goblin tribes, and they all have like their own styles and interactions, and they can actually meet and have battle with each other, built in this kind of whole sociology to them that is only it's not fully fleshed out in Oblivion, but a lot of it's there and some of it, the code is there, but not implemented. So Terry Project was kind of into that and wrote some stuff on it.
SPEAKER_18Well, all right, guys will you think about shifting gears over to a game?
SPEAKER_13Sounds good. I have two games for you guys to choose from. So I've got one I prepared that's thematic for our season. We've got a Fallout TV show quiz. A little fun multiple choice on the first four episodes that we've watched so far. And over on Bethesda Net, they have a really, shall I say, cheesy quiz. I opened up the site and I don't think we ever took this, but they put an official Bethesda quiz. What Fallout is right for you? So I thought maybe I could ask you guys questions and determine which fallout game is correct for you.
SPEAKER_18All right. That sounds fun. All right.
SPEAKER_13Okay, let's do it. Let's do both of them.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, that's fine. Yes, hang on.
unknownWhat time is it?
SPEAKER_18Damn! Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_13Let's do it properly. God, it's been so long I forgot there was an intro. Okay, greetings, Vault Dweller. Are you ready to leave the safety of your home underground and your little basement PC room to leave your mark on the wasteland? Vault Tech is pleased to present this post-nuclear compatibility assessment. Answer the questions below, and let our advanced algorithms match you with your perfect fallout experience. Your results are guaranteed to ensure maximum wasteland enjoyment and survival. Okay. Question one. What is your ideal wasteland activity? Teaming up with friends to rebuild civilization and tackle threats. B Exploring a vast world alone or with a trusted companion, building settlements and making decisions that shape the future. C immersing yourself in a branching narrative, taking sides in a struggle for power and making impactful choices. Or D. Managing an underground community and optimizing happiness and efficiency while sending brave explorers into the unknown. Ray? C. D for Ray. Okay. And Andrew?
SPEAKER_18Yeah, I mean, are we supposed to game the game? We think that we're gaming the game?
SPEAKER_13It was totally not obvious.
SPEAKER_18Uh let's see. See, I really like the exploration with the companion thing is one of my favorite things, but like if I want to go for shelter, I gotta do the manager thing down below. But we'll say B just because I like the grabbing all the companions and stuff.
SPEAKER_13Okay, sounds good. Question number two. Which best describes your play style? Cooperative. Adventure is best shared. The bigger the party, the bigger the fun, the bigger the explosions. B strategic. Careful planning. Customizing and controlling your destiny. C Role playing, living out a unique character story and changing the fate of the world. Or D managerial. You love balancing resources, growth, and happiness.
SPEAKER_19B.
SPEAKER_13B for Ray. Andrew.
SPEAKER_18What is it? A on that one, the cooperative one, probably.
SPEAKER_13Hey. Next up, age required. Well, I'm not gonna click that, so. Question three. What do you value most in your Fallout adventure? Dynamic world events, online camaraderie, and discovering secrets. B intricate narratives, more memorable factions, and replayability where every choice matters. C. Deep customization, crafting, and the freedom to build your own version of the future. Or D. The satisfaction of a well-run vault and overcoming daily challenges. They really do make that one obvious.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. I'm B again.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, I'm pretty tied between B and C there, so I don't know. We'll go C this time.
SPEAKER_13Okay. Mixing it up. You guys are mixing up quite a bit. This is interesting. Okay, you guys. Which phrase resonates with you more? Question four. A happy vault is a thriving vault. B. What happens in Vegas changes everything. D. Home is where you rebuild it. Or D, the more the merrier.
SPEAKER_19Again, I'm B. I'd be D on this one, probably.
SPEAKER_13That's what happens in Vegas changes everything?
unknownMe.
SPEAKER_18No. You said D. D as a dog, though. Oh gathering settlers, basically. Or the shelter.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, the more the merrier. No, exactly. That makes perfect sense. Okay. Next up, how many questions are there on this quiz? Okay, we're almost done. Question five. What kind of challenges excite you the most? Surviving unpredictable events. D perfecting your settlement's layout and defenses. C Navigating moral dilemmas and choosing sides. Or D keeping your community happy and healthy under pressure.
SPEAKER_17A. I'll probably do D on that one.
SPEAKER_13Okay, next up. Which environment do you prefer? A. The secure underground halls of a bustling vault. B. Desert landscapes filled with mysterious characters and lore. D a sprawling, customizable wasteland with endless possibilities. Or D. Lushed forests, murky bogs, and ruined cities.
SPEAKER_17I like D on that one.
SPEAKER_13You guys have a good mix. Final question is going to determine your fate. Which fallout is right for you? As determined by Vault Tech, who, as we know, is unfailable at least 10% of the time. How do you react to unexpected twists? A. Rally your team and adapt together. B Rely on careful planning to overcome obstacles. D. Embrace the drama and make bold choices. Or D. Adjust your management strategy to maintain stability.
SPEAKER_17I'll go C. Yeah, I'd probably say C on that one too.
SPEAKER_13Okay. Quiz results. Hold while we tally the answers.
SPEAKER_18Turns out we like all Fallout games. Gosh, guys, we I think we like this series.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, this is a little bit unfair. So, Ray, as you may expect, you have Fallout New Vegas as your ideal Fallout game. What? They say it sounds like you're looking for something a little more arid, in which case New Vegas might be calling your name. As a mysterious courier, you blah blah blah blah blah blah. Tune into season two on Amazon Prime.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_13I love how it actually finishes your personality test with an advertisement. Perfectly volunteer. And Andrew, you are actually tied. You have Fallout 4, you have Fallout 76, Fallout 4 and 76 are tied.
SPEAKER_17Shelter in there too at all.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, no, Shelter is in there, and New Vegas is in there. But actually, now they're looking at it. If you're an A there, that's one, two, three. You might have gotten 76, just a touch higher than four.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, I did definitely play a ton of it for good old one.
SPEAKER_13That's the uh the more the merrier, right there. Well, it could be companions and everybody following you. Of course, they're using that for 70 seconds.
SPEAKER_18They're made for 76, but I took it as like that's what I always end up doing in every Fallout 4 playthrough is just getting all the settlements and beacons and more the merrier.
SPEAKER_13Everybody's best friend. It's always better with dog meat and others.
SPEAKER_19Cat meat.
SPEAKER_11Cat meat. Hugmeat.
SPEAKER_19Hug meat. Yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_11Okay.
SPEAKER_13So now let's do a real game.
SPEAKER_17Oh, real game. Okay. Let's get serious.
SPEAKER_13Now that you and all of our listeners know which Fallout might be more right for them, as though it wasn't so clear. They didn't even have Fallout 3 on the list. They didn't even include Fallout 3. Like, or one or two, or POS. Like, no.
SPEAKER_18There's only so many games you can include in a quiz. Come on.
SPEAKER_13Exactly. They need to stick with what's current, what's hip, what's happening, Daddy. Okay, this is uh Fallout Season 2, Trivia Quiz. I didn't come up with a good name, so we're gonna call it that. Does that work for you guys?
SPEAKER_17That'll be great.
SPEAKER_13That's Fist Q for short. Fist Q. Let's go.
SPEAKER_17Little less great.
SPEAKER_13Okay. In this one, they are multiple choice questions, so you may not need them. And if you want to buzz in with your name, I will then give you the point if you get it correct. And if you don't, I will not give you the point. Your opponent can steal. And here are the rest of the answers if you jump the gun. In episode one, the innovator. Where do Lucy and the Gul first attempt their bounty hunting scheme against the Great Khons? Was it Ray? Ray? Novak. That is correct. Novak. Inside the Dinky the T-Rex statue where Lucy is hiding. Okay. Question two. What hidden entrance do Lucy and the Ghoul find behind the marquee screen at the Starlight Drive-In Theater? A. The entrance to Vault 21. B. Underground tunnel to Vault 51. C. The blast door entrance to Vault 24. D. A secret Vault Tech Coffee Lounge. Behind the movie theater screen at the Starlight Drive-In, which vault did they find? 21, 51, 24, or coffee? I'll go with 21.
SPEAKER_18Okay. I was thinking 21 would not be in the right location.
SPEAKER_13What do you think, Andrew?
SPEAKER_18I was gonna say, I don't know what 24 is. I was just thinking maybe they were making up a new volume.
SPEAKER_13Is that your choice?
SPEAKER_18Yeah, sure. We'll say 24.
SPEAKER_13Andrew is correct with 24.
SPEAKER_18What is 24? Is that a real one?
SPEAKER_13That's not a real one we visited uh two episodes ago on the show.
SPEAKER_18After Flea Soup, the one they went in. It's not Scorpions. It's not in the games, though, is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_13It's in the game files, but we don't actually ever find it in games. So that's one of the neat things about it is that there are files for Vault 24, and they were going to add it, but they ran out of time when they're working on New Vegas.
SPEAKER_18Very cool. All right. Okay, next up. Vault 21 is downtown, isn't it?
SPEAKER_13Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_18On the strip.
SPEAKER_13Okay. In episode one, pre-war Robert House conducts his mind control black box experiment on a construction worker named Bill. What specific HH tool does House repeatedly compliment during their confrontation?
SPEAKER_20Ray.
SPEAKER_18The nail gun. The nail gun, right?
SPEAKER_13The HH nail gun, that is correct.
SPEAKER_18Yeah. Good product, fine product.
SPEAKER_13Your other choices would have been power drill, back rubber 3000, or the jackhammer.
SPEAKER_18Back rubber. 3000. Most popular power tool with the ladies.
SPEAKER_13It's highly advanced. Highly advanced. Next question. What experiment was secretly being conducted on the residents of Vault 24? Were they testing a new flavor of Sunset Sasperilla? B.
SPEAKER_20Ray. Ray? Turning them into commies.
SPEAKER_13Yeah.
SPEAKER_20The communist vault.
SPEAKER_13Brainwashing Americans into communist sleeper agents using black box chips.
SPEAKER_18Good one. Good one.
SPEAKER_13Your other options would have been listening to Wayne Newton on repeat or cryogenically freezing junior executive. Well played, Ray.
SPEAKER_17All great options.
SPEAKER_13You guys are doing good. Anyone playing along at home? I hope you're doing good as well. Next up, we are moving on to episode two. In the Golden Roll at the Vault Tech headquarters, what subject does Hank McLean use for his initial trials of the brain computer interface? Is it A at Vault Tech HQ? What subjects does Hank McLean use for his trials of the brain box? Is it A. Lab Rats? Bow I see. Feral Ghouls. C Mr. Handy. Or D. Sentient Potted Plants.
SPEAKER_18None of the above, they were mice. They're mice, not rats.
SPEAKER_13They're okay. They're I'm sorry, I wrote rats. You guys are both. I'll give you both a point since I got that one wrong, technically. They're not rats. Little tiny little Are we sure they're not rats?
SPEAKER_20Yeah, with their little desk and their little computer.
SPEAKER_13They're so adorable.
SPEAKER_20Tiny keyboards.
SPEAKER_13Okay. In episode three, the profligate. Former squire Thaddeus runs a Sasparilla bottle cap factory utilizing child labor. According to his motivational speech, how many hours a day are the children working?
SPEAKER_1822. Andrew.
SPEAKER_13Yes, Andrew is a day. 22 hours a day.
SPEAKER_2012 hours and 10 to go. Poor kid.
SPEAKER_13I put 25 as your trick answer, but you didn't get changed yet. Okay. Hmm. In episode 4, The Demon in the Snow, that we'll be discussing later today. In the cold open flashback, where is Cooper Howard stationed in his power armor?
SPEAKER_18Andrew, that's up in Alaska. Operation Anchorage, I believe.
SPEAKER_13That is correct. The Alaskan Front. I would have also accepted, yeah, I would have accepted Anchorage and I would have accepted Alaska.
SPEAKER_18Is that a Fallout 3 thing?
SPEAKER_13Yes, that was in three that we did the Operation Anchorage.
SPEAKER_18So they are combining New Vegas and three a lot then. Okay.
SPEAKER_13Next question. How does Stephanie Harper resolve her argument with Chet regarding the baby's name? What finally settles it? Does she A file an official grievance with Bud Askin? D stab a Bowie knife into her desk appointedly. D challenges Chet to a duel in the vault cafeteria. Or D bribes him with extra rations.
SPEAKER_17Don't you stab a knife in the desk?
SPEAKER_13Point to Andrew, that is correct. I know Ray, I saw your eyes there too. You can do that one.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_13Next up. How does Norm McLean react in Vault 31 when Bud Askins tries to force him into a cryo chamber or accept a lethal injection? His choice. Does he A accept the injection and turn into crop fertilizer? B hack the mainframe and order pizza to Vault 31. C breaks Bud's robotic needle arm and wakens all the cryo sleepers. B challenges Bud to a demolition derby.
SPEAKER_19Right.
SPEAKER_13C is correct.
SPEAKER_18I wish it were all the above.
SPEAKER_13Right? Good time. I'm just like, I was picturing like demolition derby with like a remote control car against a room that'd be like BattleBots. Yeah, exactly. Oh my goodness. Okay. Hmm. What location serves as the meeting grounds where Maximus is forced into a pit fight celebration during episode two?
SPEAKER_20Area 51.
SPEAKER_13Area 51 is correct.
SPEAKER_18I forgot. I was just like, isn't that just a BOS hangar? No, Area 51.
SPEAKER_13It is the hanger at Area 51. Yeah, that's why I was giving a little pause in case you wanted to jump in and get it ahead. Okay, in episode three, the profligate. What business is Thaddeus running with his child labor force?
SPEAKER_18Did you tip this off just a little bit? They were farming bottle caps from the Sasparilla plant or something.
SPEAKER_1322 hours a day. You got it. Okay, next up. During a flashback in episode three, where does Robert House confront Cooper Howard about his assassination plan? At the Vault Tech headquarters, A. D. In a local diner over a bowl of soup. At a VFW awards banquet. D at the Lucky 38 Penthouse.
SPEAKER_19At the VFW bathroom.
SPEAKER_13Yes, let's be specific. Not at the banquet, no, at the bathroom.
SPEAKER_17With his dick out.
SPEAKER_13Okay. Next question. Why does Maximus kill Paladin Xander Harkness in episode three? Is it because Harkness took the last box of sugar bomb? B. Harkness intended to harm the child workers at the factory. D. Harkness challenged Elder Quintus for leadership. Or D. Harkness insulted the size of Maximus' Super Sledge. Correct. Okay, so these last couple are kind of easy. But you know. Just having fun. Okay. This one's coming up for this episode we're about to talk about. What major revelation about Overseer Stephanie Harper does Chet discover in episode four? She is secretly a synth from the Commonwealth.
SPEAKER_18Is Canadian.
SPEAKER_13Yes, she is Canadian. I won't let you guys just jump in and get it.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, Canadian, I think, right?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_18That is right. I was kind of puzzled. I'm like, so we know those shifty Canadians. You always gotta keep your eye on them.
SPEAKER_13I just tipped over my drink. It's okay. No big deal. I'll moff it up in a second. Okay, last question. When Lucy and the Ghoul finally arrive at the deserted streets of New Vegas in episode four, what group of ghouls attacks them?
SPEAKER_18Also, also honka honker burn a little burning. That's correct. What are they called? The Kings? The Kings. The Elvis impersonated Kings.
SPEAKER_13Got it. Wonderful game. With a final score of eight to seven, we have Andrew.
SPEAKER_18Uh you guys quite a few of those up.
SPEAKER_13Okay. I'm gonna grab paper towels. I'll be right back.
SPEAKER_17Part of the rules.
SPEAKER_20Hopefully, it's not one of our mountain dudes. Mountain dues is a sticky mess.
SPEAKER_13Well, that was goofy. All these years of podcasting.
SPEAKER_18You've never done that before. Come on.
SPEAKER_13No, it's probably only the second or third time, though, right? I don't remember the last time it happened. Good enough for me.
SPEAKER_20It's usually coffee for me. The cattle jump on the keyboard tray and knock over my cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_18Celia brings up a good point from our quiz. I didn't even look at her birth date. I just noticed she was Canadian. They were showing that she was old, not Canadian, right? Or both.
SPEAKER_13I mean, yeah, that she's 200 years old. 200 plus years old.
SPEAKER_18I didn't even notice that part. I would I just noticed the Canadian part, and I was like, oh no. Oh, Canadians!
SPEAKER_13Watch out. I mean, we're looking at what's important. They're both huge. You're right. It is definitely the fact that she's 200 plus years old and Canadian. It's definitely the two to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_18I'd never noticed the date. Thank you, Solior, for bringing that up because now I really oh, that's what they were pointing out, really. Was that the games?
SPEAKER_02That was the games. That was it. Over, man.
SPEAKER_13Game over.
SPEAKER_18All right. Thank you for bringing games. We haven't played games in forever. That was great.
SPEAKER_13It's been a little while. I'm like, we gotta do a little something.
SPEAKER_18We each played like five minutes worth of video games this week.
SPEAKER_13Except for Ray. Ray put 20 plus hours in an isometric game. I mean, what is what is the world?
SPEAKER_18Way out of the ballpark. Yeah, that's cool.
SPEAKER_20You know, on top of the another 15 or 20 hours in the other games, too. Yeah. I put in my 40 hours every week.
SPEAKER_18Now you just gotta get paid for that somehow. Do the best. All right. Let's take a little switch over here. Go over, check over some iguana bits and see what we got in the news this week.
SPEAKER_10Jessica to the office, please. Jessica to the office. Your iguana bits are ready. Please come pick them up.
SPEAKER_13Why, thank you, Jess. Okay, so pulling up the community calendar. Let's see what's going on right now. It is currently recording this October 7th. We are in the middle of a double score weekend. So you guys get out there, get double score. And of course, Brat Snotch. Get out there all weekend. You can get your hot dog masks, your wiener, glowing wieners.
SPEAKER_18Are those tradable by chance? Like, will I see those in vending machines if I pop on two years from now or whatever if the game is still supported by?
SPEAKER_13I have to assume that both regular and glowing. People can confirm in chat, but I think people have been getting them and giving them out to friends too.
SPEAKER_18So cool. Just didn't know if I had to rush to hurry up to get one this week.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, they shouldn't be locked as atomic shop items since you can actually get them as a drop in game. As a rule, things that drop in games you can usually do, whereas things from the atomic shop, those aren't tradable. Perfect.
SPEAKER_17Very cool.
SPEAKER_13So that's what's happening on the calendar, looking ahead after Fosh knocked. And I know, I know it just keeps coming. There's so much, but we're gonna have a two weeks off, it looks like, and then invaders from beyond. The aliens are coming back.
SPEAKER_18So get your disintegrators ready.
SPEAKER_13Stuff to look forward to for people playing 76. I know a lot of our crew are on either on score cation or score retirement currently. I'm not really close to either. I'm unofficially score tired because I am still playing some, but I'm only like level, oh gosh, maybe 16 on the shore board so far this season.
SPEAKER_18Unofficially score tired. That's great.
SPEAKER_13Unlike you guys who have officially logged your score tirement for now.
SPEAKER_18For now. I haven't written the game off, apparently. No, of course not. Wasn't playing much, you know.
SPEAKER_20I still own it. I haven't asked for a refund.
SPEAKER_13Somehow I think after a thousand hours, they might turn you down, Ray. I'm sorry. That's true.
SPEAKER_20It could be.
SPEAKER_13So on the news front, stuff going on, there have been a couple little things published on the Fall It.pathes.net site. First, for new players, they did a guide to the events now. So for people who don't haven't played in a while, coming back, it's called a beginner mid-level and high-level guide to Fallout 76's events. And so they go down through and they explain essentially how events are set up now. Public events and mutated events, activities and seasonal events, infestations, which they consider, so those are what they consider low-level events that anyone can play. Mid-level events are like infestations, are what they consider a mid-level event. And bounty hunters, if you're going out, you're getting a bounty, you're doing the head hunts and all that. They consider that a mid-level event. Really, to be fair, infestations are kind of like a reworked bounty hunt, but they spontaneously generate. So instead of having to go and get the bounty and start a headhunt like you do, that brings everybody there, infestations start on their own. But they're kind of similar in a lot of ways. And then for a high-level event, of course, they're talking about the raids and expeditions, though expeditions vary, they can be high-level, but to be fair, some of the expeditions you can easily run mid-level without an issue. Talking about the infestations, they are doing some balance adjustments. So you may recall that there was a complaint when infestations first started that they were not lasting long enough. The bosses were going down too quickly. So I mentioned that they said that they were aware, and John said they were going to buff them, and buff them they did. Well, since the buff too long a couple weeks ago, they went too far the other direction. Yeah. Yeah. They have become bullet sponges. And a lot of people running infestation before, no longer running them because it's not worth the ammo. You know how that goes. Like a bunch of mini Earls on the map. And nobody wants to unload their bullets into Earl for 10, 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_17No, they don't.
SPEAKER_13But they, of course, recognize that too. But it is kind of funny. The way they were set up at first was kind of just right. I feel like they were balanced and tuned properly at the beginning. The problem was because they were the new thing, they were the new hotness, everybody was jumping on them, trying to find them and overwhelming them. So they weren't built for that. They weren't built for the entire server to try to show up and make it. Whereas for a team or two doing them, they were just right. And now that people have slowed down because they're no longer the new hotness, there's not enough people to take them on.
SPEAKER_18So yeah, the way they kind of predictable pattern of interest that people have in an event is like when it first starts, of course, everyone.
SPEAKER_13That's exactly it. Yeah, as Rando says in chat, people ruin them by complaining and being slow. Yeah, I said it. And Silior says, I've been getting them done. I'm task-oriented. I did one or two in the last week. Pretty tough, but not impossible. And yeah, that's where it's at. I mean, they're totally doable now. You just got to dedicate the time. So you can't set up and run a couple in a row. You have to be ready to commit and take the boss down. And because they do go longer, people might show up, but it's no longer something people look for. Whereas in the first couple weeks, people were opening the map specifically to see, are there any infestations? Let me jump on it if there are. But yeah, the robots are almost impossible. The Assaultron bosses, there are a bunch of different bosses and infestations. Right now, the current thing is we are decreasing box XP. With the change, we expect vice won't feel as sluggish from us players while still allowing the boss long enough to live long enough for more people to join. Coming this fall, they're going to add new objectives to infestations. To make them a little bit more complicated. So you can do have different ways they resolve, so not all the same. There could be a meta objective of clearing out all the enemies. So if you are gonna last longer, go ahead, clear out all the enemies, and not just take out the boss. You'll have updated rewards and they're gonna add a smoke visual on the map. So instead of the green circle right now, it shows a little circle in the map where the infestation is. They're gonna change it to make a little smoky area that's gonna be obscure.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, I mean it really has to do with what is the reward worth it? You know, if it's one of their like with the Foshnok mask where the only good rewards come one in every two thousandth of a percent of the time, then the event's not worth it. But if you get good loot and there's not some, you know, crazy, super random, you're either gonna get crap or something good, then it makes it worth doing the the events. Yeah, it's even if it takes a lot of bullets.
SPEAKER_13Exactly. If there's a good tier four something they're looking for, not just uh something generic, but something there's a list of items to work for too. That's like with stamps or other things where you've got to get a currency and there are multiple rewards you can get. Some people just need to get everything. So there's that. And then from the raid, there are actually some really solid rewards. So people will grind and grind that and keep going through their ammo just to take on the challenge and have a chance of getting the good jobs. So yeah, that would make a big difference. But that's pretty much it on news for the game currently infestations and the event guide. Let's see, on other Bethesda news, the Oblivion Switch 2 release is coming out. The Oblivion Remixer will be out on Switch 2 on August 11th. That will be next Tuesday.
SPEAKER_17Yeah, that's coming up.
SPEAKER_13Hopefully it plays well. You know, the Fallout 4 port on Switch 2 did ran really well. The Skyrim was iffy but runs good now. The Fallout 4 ran great from the start, pretty much. And so, fingers crossed, the Oblivion Remixer runs well on Switch 2.
SPEAKER_18Sorry. Were you saying all of those releases were all the Switch 2 releases? Because Skyrim was on the Switch 1. Were you saying that it didn't run well there, or they have they ported it to the 2 as well and didn't run well?
SPEAKER_13Yes. When they ported Switch 2 annivers uh Skyrim Anniversary to Switch 2 this past week.
SPEAKER_18Skyrim 2, Elder Scrolls 7. 6?
SPEAKER_13Yes, 7.
SPEAKER_18Skyrim 3. Is it Skyrim 3 yet? No, still Skyrim 2. Okay.
SPEAKER_13It's creative math. But yeah, when they ported Skyrim Anniversary Edition to Switch 2 back in December, there were some big issues. They resolved in a month or two. One thing to note real quick. They did say that improvements and uh tweaks and optimizations that they're doing in order to get their mixture to run well on Switch 2, they're going to look at backporting some of these fixes and bug fixes to the console and PC version 2 as options to help it be optimized and run better over there.
SPEAKER_17Very cool.
SPEAKER_13Further on in the news, let's see what else. So Bethesda's 40th anniversary just happened. They kind of showed off a new temporary logo to celebrate, reminiscent of the old logo. You may have seen it floating around. It's that classic orange Bethesda Softworks logo. Looks really good. Celebrate. They are also currently this weekend, we are having QuakeCon going on. Oh, I should mention too that if you're a fan of Bethesda merchant gear, because they sure want you to be, they are definitely pushing the gear hard lately. You can get t-shirts and stuff with the new logo at the Bethesda Gear Shop. And this weekend is also QuakeCon. So it's the 30th anniversary of the game Quake, and they're celebrating that at QuakeCon 2026. Along with that, there is a new episode. So on the Quake game, there is a new episode released called Dawn of the Machine. It's available in the it's a free update in the 30th anniversary update for Quake owners. Features an all-new 19 map campaign with secrets, a whole story campaign, new soundtrack, all kinds of stuff to it. So if you're actually a Quake player, there is a whole new DLC for you, or episode as they call them. They're also live streaming Quake all weekend. So if you have Bethesda streamers that you like to watch, expect them to be doing some Quake for the event. And let's see, anything else? Mostly merch. They are doing a Quake board game in quarter four this year. I don't know much about it besides the fact that it's called Quake the board game. Very creative name.
SPEAKER_18It's just gonna be that pop-up game where you have all the different shapes in the pegboard and then like it vibrates and then pops after 60 seconds. You gotta put all the shapes back in. That's gonna be quake the board game. Or maybe it'll be from the 1970s super action movie. Towering Inferno, the board game, something like that.
SPEAKER_13What a game. What a movie that was. But yeah, that is it for the QuakeCon news so far. There are, you know, there are a couple panels. They are doing a founders meeting where they're having the four founders of id meeting and discussing the early days of the game, and there'll be a number of things from that and all that, but that's happening all weekend. And of course, there's often other Bethesda news revealed there. I don't know that there will be this time. I feel like we've gotten a lot of news from them recently as far as like current plans, future plans, all that, but we'll see. There's anything else, we'll talk about it next week.
SPEAKER_18I had a couple of thoughts. Bouncing back to the Switch 2 discussion. Does Fallout 4 stutter downtown on the Switch 2?
SPEAKER_13So I haven't played it myself. I heard it was okay.
SPEAKER_18Cool. How did they remedy that and they still can't get that right on the fucking It runs much better on console now?
SPEAKER_13Like if you're not reading Mons, Downtown is solid.
SPEAKER_18I've still seen people complain about that on that side of downtown. Anyway, and also I'd never thought about the TV show from episodes past. Who was Thaddeus working for at the bottle cap factory? Was he doing that for anyone? Did he or he does not? I Googled it and said that he did that himself. But to me, it doesn't seem like he has the organization or motivation to get a bunch of kids to recruit a bunch of missing children somehow.
SPEAKER_13I missed that last week myself. I don't, yeah.
SPEAKER_18Who's he doing this for?
SPEAKER_13I'm positive he's working for somebody else. They appointed him the foreman there.
SPEAKER_18Google says he's doing it himself. I do not agree.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, because how you know he also didn't have the skills to reprogram the security force. Be his friends, right?
SPEAKER_13Right. How would he have them with a secure perimeter? How would he recruit all these kids in just the span of a month or two?
SPEAKER_18You know, well, Boister House wouldn't give a fuck about immediately caps. He wouldn't care about that.
SPEAKER_13It's got to just be some local interest. You know what I mean? He's just the floor manager for some local interest. There is the possibility that he did himself, but then that makes it even more irresponsible later this episode when he leaves them. And now it's just okay, so you were working with the kids and now you just left them all there to fend for themselves.
SPEAKER_18I mean, obviously doesn't give a fuck about them, so maybe it does work. I don't know.
SPEAKER_13That's what's so weird. So I do feel like there's more going on there. There's a number of times in the show where they we don't get the background story and just have to fill it in.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. And he might have just promoted somebody to a manager, then he'll come back later and pick up the caps. There you go. Hey.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, leaving for no. Yeah, we don't know.
SPEAKER_18Does that happen? Oh, Harold the Harold the Tree, right? Didn't he get super smart or something with that?
SPEAKER_11No, but uh but did Swan at first get smarter?
SPEAKER_18What does he got? Has he got both? Either? He's definitely ghoul. But the the doctor injected him with something. Was that was that?
SPEAKER_11So we don't know.
SPEAKER_18We do swelling in the pattern. You know what I mean? His face is thick around the edges. He still has a nose.
SPEAKER_13Yeah.
SPEAKER_18He does. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13It seems to us that he is more likely, it's more like FEV related, and that he may be coming like a centaur or something. Because as it goes on, we start to see the mouth in his neck and we start to see some of these changes to him. We don't know what's happening to him.
SPEAKER_18Centaurs have that self-healing aspect that they implied in season one at the radio station? Like when he got shot in the air in the neck, he pulled it out and it like fucking healed right in front of him, right?
SPEAKER_13So my thoughts on the quick healing that he had there at that moment was he they also just had just repaired his foot, like shortly before.
SPEAKER_18Right, he just had medicine in him.
SPEAKER_13He was still under the effects of the initial dose, but I don't know. Because no, FEV creatures might heal a little faster, but we don't see that they can magically heal that fast. But neither do we see that with ghouls much either. It just doesn't phase them as much.
SPEAKER_18Would radiation heal FEV creatures or only ghouls?
SPEAKER_13Only ghouls, traditionally.
SPEAKER_18Only ghouls, okay. But I wasn't sure if it like healed death claws and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_13To an extent the show is making up some of their own roles a little bit. Like they're trying to play within the mythology, but we've got the weird ghouls substance drug to keep them from going feral. And we've got this healing, a little bit more like yeah, radiation heals ghouls, but to the extent that we see in the show, not usually.
SPEAKER_18You pull out an arrow and closes up, right? Okay, sorry. I just popped in my head a little while ago. All right, guys. Is it time? Do we switch modes? Were you still in the in the bits? We're still in the bits.
SPEAKER_13No, we are done with the bits. That pretty much wraps it up. Yeah. 40th anniversary, new logo. Check the gear shop, buy stuff, quite con.
SPEAKER_18All right, sounds good. Well, I think let's go ahead and switch gears. Let's get our round table underway for this week, aka episode four of the Fallout Show of season two.
SPEAKER_13Hello, and welcome back to Vault Talk, show from the Fallout feed where we discuss the Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime. This episode, we will be discussing episode four of season two: The Demon in the Snow. This episode was directed by Stephen Williams and written by Jane Espenson, Chaz Hawkins, and Chris Brady Denton. The multiple writers on this one. This is a different director than we had so far. The previous two or previous couple were Frederick E. O. Toy. And this is Jane Espenson's first episode this season. She is a classic and well-known sci-fi writer who's worked on myriad shows over the year. So let's get into it this episode. Did you have any major like thoughts or takeaways on this episode? Like, what was your general feeling on the episode?
SPEAKER_18How about the title? Is it is it referring to only this opening scene, or is that because usually they like to double dip their references, you know what I mean? So is is there also a second meaning for devil in the snow that I'm not? Or demon in the snow that I'm not later on that I'm not remembering?
SPEAKER_13I did take it as a bit of a double reference in a way. It's a reference, yes, of course, to the death claw we're going to see in this opening scene. The actual demon in the snow, but also dealing with the demons of, say, drug addiction. You know, as Lucy starts to have to deal with a new demon and drug addiction.
SPEAKER_18And uh Yes, okay. Now I totally see that. Right. I knew there had to be something that I wasn't seeing.
SPEAKER_13At least that's my thought. And then also, I feel like Maximus is wrestling with his demons a lot this episode, too.
SPEAKER_18Like everybody's kind of wrestling with demons, if that means so many demons on the wasteland.
SPEAKER_13So let's jump into it then. First scene, we start out Vertebird in the air and snowy weather, and it says the Alaskan front. We got another subtitle drop. I think they're doing this all season. Ray.
SPEAKER_20Have they done it every episode so far? No, just the last two, right? Three and four. And we only got one on this one.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, on the first episode, we had the man who knew. On episode one, we had the man who knew. And then last episode, you're right, we had Legion, NCR, and then this time, yeah, just the one. So it seems to be a new thing they're doing, but you're right, it's not regular.
SPEAKER_18So interesting to me to see that a TV show, which you would think would be a highly controlled environment, has so much variation within each episode based on who is the writer or producer or director of that specific episode. It's pretty pretty crazy. I wouldn't imagine that they would allow title cards all the way through if they didn't do it every episode. You know what I mean? It's it's interesting to see just different presentation methods.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, there does seem to be some individual direction, but they do do it for multiple, at least, even if it really definitely stood out to us more last episode more than any other.
SPEAKER_20And I mean, it doesn't really make any sense to have multiple direct directors and writers if you don't allow for some variation in style and format.
SPEAKER_13That makes good sense. Like a writer's room is one thing, but when you have individual writers doing separate episodes as outside of a writer's room and especially different directors, yeah, they're each gonna have their own flair. So we start out at the Alaskan front with this episode. And after we get the title drop and the vertebird, we're coming in on someone walking in power armor, staggering a little bit, followed by another set. And it is Cooper Howard, and he talks to his friend, calls him Chuck, which I have to say, silly me. First episode, first or first time watching this, I didn't realize that that was Charlie Whiteknife, his friend from the BFW and from previous episodes that was with him here.
SPEAKER_18Yeah. The first time I did not realize that either. But this time I was like, oh, look.
SPEAKER_13Yep. So Chuck is Charlie, and they are together in their squad and they are looking for a third member. Essentially, they're out there looking for someone that they lost. They call him Raider 3, was his code symbol or code name. But they're having trouble finding him. Meanwhile, Charlie's armor is in a pretty damaged state. So they're raiding go back in, they haven't found him yet, and permission to return to base, all the other men have. Permission is denied. Keep on looking. So Cooper watching out for his friend Charlie, though. Charlie says, What did they say? And he says, They said you should go back. You know, you're no good in that in that power armor. We got to get that looked at. And so Cooper's, of course, kind of taking one for the team, protecting his friend, worried about what's going to happen to him and his malfunctioning power armor, setting it back to base. Of course, Charlie's not hearing it until Cooper says, I'll be right behind you. So Charlie says, You better be.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, yeah. Of course he's not. Because Barb will kill me if you freeze to death.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, exactly. So this is where you can see once again that Charlie is a longtime friend, that they were in the army together. Maybe they only met each other through their squad. Maybe they only became friends there, but they know each other well.
SPEAKER_18It'd be pretty uncommon for someone to know someone growing up and then them to be stationed together in the army. Does that that doesn't happen, right? I don't know.
SPEAKER_13I think sometimes I think if people sign up together, they often in the past end up in someone's. I don't know for sure, but in the old movies at least. They get recruited together, they go to basic together.
SPEAKER_18I didn't know if they got stationed, shipped out to all the same locations and how that all works, your deployment.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, as the army gets more diverse and has more bases and locations, it's less common these days.
SPEAKER_20Yeah.
SPEAKER_13But we'd need someone military background to let us know.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, frontline grunts. Yeah. Not specialized in anything.
SPEAKER_18They're just the cannon fodder. Get no choice.
SPEAKER_13Go where you're told.
SPEAKER_18Front lines of wherever's needed.
SPEAKER_13Yep. So Charlie's going back to camp, so that's where he was told. And Hooper's gonna stay out there. Keep looking. But he, of course, hears a roar and a sound he doesn't recognize. Shaking of metal, a bit of sound of a creature or something, and he's looking and he's distracted by it. So some Chinese troops from the PLA get the drop on him coming over the edge, and he's taking fire. Gets hit a couple times by them, pulls out his rifle, and he's shooting back. So they're a small firefight, but he is off guard here. They manage to hit the power armor in one of those weak spots that we heard about before that Cooper mentioned to still have that weak spot in the chest.
SPEAKER_18Yep. Lost lots of good men.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, because this is T-45 and an early model while they're still testing. And so his suit locks up, he's like, no, no, and he falls to the ground and he's locked up, but still alive in a malfunctioning tin can instead of power armor.
SPEAKER_20With his face mask open.
SPEAKER_13Yep. We also get that rapid beeping the whole time, too, which of course is what you hear when your power when you're fusion core. So it's almost like wherever they hit or the damage it was taken caused the fusion core to rapidly drain, is what I was thinking happened there.
SPEAKER_18Oh, okay. I didn't even think of what the defect was. Okay. So it can just make your fusion core drain out and then lock up and freeze you up. Oh exactly.
SPEAKER_13That's what it seemed to be. Because that would make sense why it became immobile beyond the sparking and such.
SPEAKER_18What rank is Howard and Charlie?
SPEAKER_13I don't know that it's identifying.
SPEAKER_18Do all soldiers get these tanks, these armored suits, or they're I think that was the thing in Anchorage.
SPEAKER_13Not necessarily everyone, but you know, they were having squads testing them. And I don't know that we know what their ranks are, right? I feel like at one point Charlie's maybe identified as a corporal, but that might have been by the end.
SPEAKER_18That rang in my head too, so I wasn't sure if they said that somewhere, but now that you just said it, that makes me think, oh, they probably did at some point.
SPEAKER_13So the Chinese soldiers are coming up after they've got him down, and she starts to almost not take pity on them, but recognize the situation. And so she's talking to her fellows as they're kind of joking about his suit, and she's saying, This is the future. It won't be long before our leaders want us to wear such things too.
SPEAKER_17And death traps, basically.
SPEAKER_13Yep. When your commanding officer tells you to pawn one of these, you'll say the same thing that he did. You have that clip, Andrew?
SPEAKER_00Okie dokie.
SPEAKER_18I hope you guys all brushed up on your Mandarin. Mandarin or Cantonese, whichever that was.
SPEAKER_13So the literal translation was the future is here. And when our commanding officers tell us to put these on, we'll say the exact same thing this poor guy did.
SPEAKER_11This poor dokie.
SPEAKER_18Okie dokie.
SPEAKER_11I love it.
SPEAKER_18But then How does she I just thought, okay, how does she know Okie dokie? I mean, come on.
SPEAKER_13You pick up a few words, probably a few words like that.
SPEAKER_20No. But you know, so it's also Lucy says it because her dad said it. And her dad said it because he's from this time.
SPEAKER_18From the 40s or whatever, yeah.
SPEAKER_20Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Yep. It was a popular affirmative phrase in American culture at the time. And of course, they're making fun at the same time.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, it's like he's trapped, okie dokie. Yep.
SPEAKER_13But it's funny because it continuing the thread from last episode too, where they're trying to emphasize the whole, you know, they're not that different from us.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, we're seeing it from both sides that each set of soldiers has empathy for the other side, whereas the leaders just might want to shove them into any scenario needed.
SPEAKER_13But speaking about the future, they suddenly get ambushed by what Coofer heard before, the growling. Because as she's having this speech, he's seeing in the background this creature coming up and standing. And it's the death claw, coming closer and closer. And as they go and they're about to shoot him, the death claw comes out and swipes at them and takes out the soldiers very quickly and bloodily.
SPEAKER_18What kind of gear were they wearing? Were they just in like regular teams and helmet or whatever?
SPEAKER_13I'm pretty sure the winterized uniforms they were wearing were very similar to the ones they were in Operation Anchorage. They had that whole winterized people liberation army outfits. I think they were the same style.
SPEAKER_18I did not gather that reference, but I'm I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_13I think that's what they're called, right? Was it the People's Liberation Army? Is that what they called there?
SPEAKER_18Liberation Front? No, that's something else.
SPEAKER_13That's Life of Brian.
SPEAKER_18Life of Brian.
SPEAKER_10People's Liberation Front. Front for People's Liberation Splitters.
SPEAKER_17Life of Brian.
SPEAKER_18So great.
SPEAKER_13Deathclaw takes them out with prejudice.
SPEAKER_18Was this our very first site of the Deathclaw in the whole series?
SPEAKER_13Outside of the skull during the credits at the end of last season. Yep.
SPEAKER_18I forgot they teased a skull.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, that was kind of the little last tease there to get people excited.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. And this is definitely the scariest iteration of Deathclaws yet.
SPEAKER_18That's interesting. I brought up later what during the scene where they confront the Deathclaw, or where they see it in the town, about the design and stuff.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, it's a really neat hybrid design. So the design of the Deathclaw here that we get, I mean, it definitely harkens to The Fallout 4 Deathclaw and 76 Deathclaw, like the current most recent design by Jonah Loeb that they have. But the snout is a little bit shorter. Like because it's done with practical effects and makeup and an actual like death claw suit and prosthetics. The snout and mouth is a little bit shorter. It's a little bit more feral looking almost. A little bit less alligator, a little bit more bitey.
SPEAKER_18You didn't just say they did this for prosthetics, did you?
SPEAKER_13Yeah, they do.
SPEAKER_18This is a real fucking prost suit.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, that's that's that's his call the MO. Yep. As much practical effect as possible.
SPEAKER_17No CGI.
SPEAKER_13They did add, I think, some texture and lighting and stuff to them. But yeah, they were actually in there acting against these death claw prosthetic creatures.
SPEAKER_18That's really awesome.
SPEAKER_13Crazy. So the Death Claw sees Cooper still alive too and leans into him and looks at him, starts to make eye contact. But before he strikes, one of two things happen. I don't know if because this is, you know, as a weapon here on the battlefield, they are a tool for the Americans. Like if you somehow program to be able to recognize uh Americans or like the frequency of the power armor suit or something, and that stops him, or like if he's got the classic control, because Death Claws, they did have control devices. You know, if he is partially controlled and stops him from attacking, or if he's simply distracted by something else and stomps off like he did.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, and it seemed like it was a decision on his part not to attack Cooper.
SPEAKER_13Right. Because Death Claws are intelligent.
SPEAKER_18Could they hold political alliances? Like it knows that it was created by American scientists, therefore take it easy on the American army.
SPEAKER_13So I don't know that they liked the people they were working for. You know what I mean? They were creative creations, but they were partially controlled and programmed. After eventually, so in Fallout 2, you do meet an intelligent death claw and you realize that some of them are intelligent and can even communicate. I think some can even talk. You meet Goris. Goris is the one who can talk, if I remember correctly.
SPEAKER_18I never heard about that.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, that's later in Fallout 2, if you get there.
SPEAKER_18Let me play that. I've been saying that for a decade.
SPEAKER_13I mean, you did get in there. You got in there, you even thought about it.
SPEAKER_18I opened up the outside ring of the map.
SPEAKER_13Yep. So that wraps that scene, except the final call, actually. That's important to point out. So just shortly after the Death Claw steps away, comes over the radio. Soldiers are retweeting. You did it, boys. Congratulations, soldiers.
SPEAKER_19Yeah.
SPEAKER_13And that's where Cooper, in shock and shaking from seeing this creature, says it wasn't us. It was something else.
SPEAKER_17Yeah. Something else.
SPEAKER_13He doesn't even know about it. And that's why I think the soldiers didn't even know about Death Claws. Like, this is kind of the first confirmation that we have that we've actually ever seen a Death Claw on the front, that they were already deployed and fighting.
SPEAKER_18I mean, granted, you'd be terrified to see one anyway, but it looked he looked surprised like he had never seen this thing before.
SPEAKER_13Yeah. I think they were only experimental at this point because in the lore of the games, we knew they were working on them as a project, but we and they were testing, but we didn't know if they were actually ever testing in combat. I think this is the first time we actually saw that confirmed.
SPEAKER_18See, that's amazing. I didn't even take it at all that these could have been deployed death claws out for strategically placed death claws by the military. I just thought they stumbled across it in the forest or whatever.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, no, it was definitely on their side. I think they were illustrating, and that's why it didn't attack him.
SPEAKER_20I didn't give him that. Awesome. Yeah, because Jackson's chameleons are definitely not indigenous to Alaska.
SPEAKER_18I would doubt it, right? With more like Costa Rica, if anything.
SPEAKER_13So, next scene, we slip back to the Sunset Sasparilla factory. We've got dead Xander on the ground, and we are dealing with the aftermath of the factory. So they are in shock. We've got where we left off last time with Thaddeus and Max kind of trying to make small talk over a dead body, and Max says, I think I just started a war. So Thaddeus is absorbing this, and he's like, Okay, well, gotta get back to work. And we hear Verteverd coming in, and that kind of breaks the silence. Breaks the situation where suddenly Max is like, oh no, I think they followed me. And so Thaddeus is of course ushering ushering Maximus out of there.
SPEAKER_20Get out of here, dude. He's gotta he's dumping caps into it as fast as he can.
SPEAKER_13Here's the problem Xander Harkness is dead. And Max needs someone to cover because if he doesn't want to start the war, they need to think Xander's still alive while Max figures out what's going on and how to stop it from proceeding. Also, if the Brotherhood landing here discovers the factory and the ghouls in it, many of them are gonna want to do what Xander tried to do and kill off the ghouls that are living here. And Thaddeus, because Thaddeus is apparently turning into a ghoul or something.
SPEAKER_20Or something. Some form of a of abomination.
SPEAKER_13Yes. Definitely an abomination, whichever flavor.
SPEAKER_20They don't care.
SPEAKER_18So Max will do. Yeah, any flavor.
SPEAKER_13The power armor Max is in conveniently is not his own. Remember, he's wearing a spare set of power armor.
SPEAKER_18So he didn't recognize the bear slash, right? Right.
SPEAKER_13So that's also what Thaddeus recognized. But also it means that in this case, if Thaddeus puts on Maximus's power armor, this is actually uh a spare set of Xander's power armor. So it's fine. It looks like Commo power armor, it's not Max's power armor, it won't give him away.
SPEAKER_18Yeah. No, okay, I remember. He's in his civvies. Yep, he's he's in his clothes and making Thad wear the So it's just kind of funny how that all worked out.
SPEAKER_13I mean, obviously, good planning on the writer's part, but I liked it. It made sense. But of course, Thaddeus doesn't want to go back to the Brotherhood. He's escaped. He's also worried for his hide because he knows what's gonna happen to him if the Brotherhood sees him. He's a ghoul, he's gonna be put down.
SPEAKER_18Quintus won't be a fan.
SPEAKER_13Sandron Duke, he has a great quote. He says, I'm running away, I'm gonna run away. I'm great at running away. I'm great, I love it, I like it. Start fresh, no big deal.
SPEAKER_17It's good.
SPEAKER_13Really good. But Max prevails on him. If they find you here and they find these kids, they're gonna kill half these kids and enlist the rest. We can't have them coming in and investigating seeing what happened. I need to have someone, you know, playing Xander Harkness coming out there so they don't bust in. So, long story short, he convinces Thaddeus. Next scene, we see him outside meeting up with the knight who's there, saying, Quintus is pissed, taking off with that guy on a joyride.
SPEAKER_18And then you see the the ever-elegant. Oh, good lord. He couldn't fit out the doorway. It was so funny. Him like he has an inner monologue that he's saying out loud as well, which doesn't help at all. Yeah. That's a that's such a funny scene.
SPEAKER_13It really is.
SPEAKER_20He keeps it in his head.
SPEAKER_13Here, he's trying to play it cool. So Matt's trying to play it cool and have Xander come up behind him because of course the guy's like, where's Xander? And then you get him coming out and it's Thaddeus, and he keeps hitting us ahead. It's eventually scoots out sideways through the door. Straight at the physical comedy. I mean, I'll admit, I winced. So I'm like, come on, Thaddeus, like he was actually a pretty good squire. Like Thaddeus was actually much better at brotherhood stuff than Max, we learned kind of as a squire last season. But he's never worn power arm before, as far as we know. Like he hasn't actually trained with it and worn it.
SPEAKER_18Right. No, right. I kind of guess assumed that everyone got trained, but no, though you get assigned to it when you become a knight, right?
SPEAKER_13Yeah, they may have had a little training or opportunities to wear it, but not much. Kind of like Max had a day or two to figure that stuff out before. And he still had trouble operating it at first, you know, he could only do so much. So it takes time. And Thaddeus isn't used to being that big. But yeah, that was a great thing. And so then he's getting on the vertebrate, trying to be trying to be tough. Do you have that clip of Thaddeus trying to be Xander?
SPEAKER_02He was an emissary from the Commonwealth. If they find out he's dead, yeah, he's dead. So come on, you wear the armor. Your name's Xander, you're from the Commonwealth.
SPEAKER_03Look at me. Hey, motherhood's policy about people with wrinkling skin.
SPEAKER_02Look at the coming in here. They're gonna tear this place.
SPEAKER_03You're not wrong. Look at me now.
SPEAKER_02A vertebrae broke down. Whatever. Where is the under heart?
SPEAKER_16One leg, two legs, one leg, two legs, dust them up, spin them down.
SPEAKER_18Dust him up, spin him down, lock and load, bitches. He just throwing out whatever sort of I love it.
SPEAKER_11It's like big boy.
SPEAKER_18Motivational comments he can think of. Like, what would what would a confident person say right now?
SPEAKER_13Hilarious. Really well done. It is funny how his inner monologue, like, he can't help but talk to himself a little bit, just kind of motivation, but everything he even mumbles comes out through the speaker.
SPEAKER_18I like him so much now. It almost makes me forget what a fucking dick he was in the beginning of the show. He was horrible to poor Max.
SPEAKER_13Just that first episode or two, but he was. He was just trying to be one of the popular kids.
SPEAKER_17I love him so much. So great.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, I'm glad to have Thadimus back together. They play off each other well. So next up, we uh see Lucy blinking awake. And we are at an NCR outpost location as she slowly wakes up and she's feeling a little better. She's hooked to an IV. So she unattaches herself from that and starts to sit up. And they're all like, whoa, you're awake. And so she is there back at the NCR camp with Captain Rodriguez and the Ranger and a few others, and of course the ghouls sitting and watching.
SPEAKER_18I, of course, was stupid and thinking, Oh, she's j oh wow, that gave her a nice little saline drip. She's getting nice and rehydrated now, getting her electrolytes back. Oh, these people are nice.
SPEAKER_13I mean, and that was part of it, but there's a little more in that ivy drip than Alien. Yeah. Yeah. So she mentions feeling better. And they say two days of a buff-out drip will do that to you. If I something like that.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, I think the the ghoul brings that up.
SPEAKER_13So, but Lucy is waking up pretty quickly, and so she starts to get up and unhook herself and all that, and they're talking. The ghoul nods. And Captain Rodriguez, you know, mentions your friend brought you in, and then she's like, Well, I think your friend. Like, cause yeah, again.
SPEAKER_18They don't like him. It becomes obvious.
SPEAKER_13They, I mean, they're on the fence. He's a gray area. They've worked in the past. He's done good things, but he also just said he wasn't gonna help them. But then he also just brought a friend back to heal after blowing up a Legion camp. So he's in there, I think he's in their good graces again now, but he's difficult to read, let's be real.
SPEAKER_18It seems like they reluctantly accept him. It's like they made some sort of So what was it?
SPEAKER_20Your character your character's relationship with the Brotherhood of Steel? Yes. I can't remember what it was. Something devil.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_20Oh. Right. Oh, because the Yeah, because you had been helpful to him, but then you blew him up.
SPEAKER_18They're like I don't remember. Yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_13But those mixed reputations, yeah, that's exactly right. He's got a mixed history. It's complicated. Facebook status, it's complicated. So they have a discussion while she's waking up. She kind of catches up with them. Who are you guys? This is the NCR. They start talking. She talks about how they were from Shady Sands, you know about Shady Sands, but of course long gone. There's a discussion there. And the captain mentions first line of civilization, 100 years, and some jack hole burned it down. And of course, referring to her dad there. So there's a whole there's a whole conversation here. It's not a long scene, but they hit a lot of beats. NCR history, her dad, the question of, you know, why are you here? What are you doing in the Mojave? I'm looking for someone. A lot of people looking for someone you love or someone you hate. Do you have that clip there, Andrew?
SPEAKER_17Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_09So the past is a past.
SPEAKER_17Ain't that right?
SPEAKER_04We've met our fair share of people on the road from Los Angeles, and truth be told, most of them are touching awful. So meeting you guys has been a welcome change of things.
SPEAKER_12Well, if you ever wanna trade up the company you keep, the NCR always welcomes new recruits. I would, but I'm looking for someone.
SPEAKER_04Somebody you care about or someone you hate?
SPEAKER_09Oh, what a great question. What's the client?
SPEAKER_04Someone who hurt a lot of people. When you find the dude, and when you find them, I'm gonna bring them to justice. Well, that's what the new California Republic is meant to be about.
SPEAKER_12Bringing justice to the wasteland. I almost did. Stock up if you like.
SPEAKER_05They seemed nice.
SPEAKER_09They'd find out what your daddy did.
SPEAKER_05All I saw in there was more matching jackets.
SPEAKER_18Now, listening back to that clip, I think I understand something. I thought that they disliked him, but she was saying, all the folks I've met out in the wasteland are poor of poor character. And then the NCR said, Well, if you want to step up your upgrade your company, then you can do it. I thought they were talking about the ghoul because he maybe they don't dislike him as much as I originally.
SPEAKER_13No, but you're right. It is kind of a a joke at the ghoul's expense at that point, there still too. Like the upgrade the company is like, if you get tired of traveling with this guy, you want to upgrade a company.
SPEAKER_18Well, I mean, he obviously brings them stuff that they need and they give him whatever that juice is, however they have access to it.
SPEAKER_13They're simply trying to recruit her, like you know, you would. But there were a couple points in that that I really liked. So I did like the question and how her answer there, someone who hurt a lot of people. But she can't say she doesn't care about him, but that's not what she's focused on. Bringing justice. When they said creative supplies, well, we can't take all this with us. So you know they are getting on the move again. They are, after the situation was resolved and the local legion were taken out somewhat, they are moving on, trying to reconnect with more troops. So you get that as something happening here. That after however long they've been stationed here, holding their own in the hills, they're finally moving on, which is good. Because that's one thing that I felt weird about this whole scene. When we first met them, when the goal came to find them, like how long were they stationed out here? We know they haven't been back, obviously, to where Shitty Sands was. They haven't met up with other troops that we know of in the last couple of years at least. But it's been sixteen years or fifteen years since New Vegas.
SPEAKER_18So do you think they've been out there for sixteen years?
SPEAKER_13Or maybe it's simply since Camp Golf shut down that they've been in the field separate.
SPEAKER_17Wow.
SPEAKER_13Yeah. They don't really say. But when they opened that crate of supplies, did you catch the music again?
SPEAKER_18Oh, what was it?
SPEAKER_13That was wasn't it the Fallout 4 theme song? Like, you know how we had the New Vegas all before?
SPEAKER_15Yeah.
SPEAKER_18I feel like I did hear that this episode. That was when they opened the crate of weapons. Yeah. I didn't notice any specific weapon design. What what were our firearms included? Were there melee and stuff in there? What was in there?
SPEAKER_13It was rifles and shotguns? Yeah, rifles and shotguns.
SPEAKER_18Of Fallout 4 design, New Vegas design, like oh, were they that were scavenged after the Legion had been defeated type stuff?
SPEAKER_13Well, no, because they didn't go back to that camp. You know what I mean? They they they hightailed out of there before things could get resolved.
SPEAKER_18Oh, yeah, I guess so.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_13But this was just more supplies that the NCR had here for guns.
SPEAKER_20So I looked it up. It was soft-hearted devil. Soft hearted devil. That's great. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13You're not all bad, Andrew.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, and then Veronica's worth saving.
SPEAKER_13Then the final comment there, where the ghoul kind of is essentially, without saying it, you know, were you tempted? And suggesting they might not like you so much and knew what your daddy did.
SPEAKER_18Now, does that mean if you try to leave me, I'm gonna tell them what the fuck your daddy did so you don't get to leave me. I don't think it was a threat. I need you for my trip, and therefore I you're my hostage here, kinda.
SPEAKER_13I didn't see it as a threat. I more felt that he was just poking a hole in her if she did have those delusions, you know, not to go too far with them.
SPEAKER_18We still know he's a good guy, kinda, you know. So I've I still feel there's gonna be a huge fucking betrayal at some point that they're leading up to that is still gonna be like him being a good guy somehow.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_18You know, I can I can just feel them building the tension that these people are traveling together, but he is still dragging her where he needs her to be. Even though she thinks she's going to see her daddy.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, it's like Lee says in chat though, it does seem like the ghoul does like Lucy.
SPEAKER_13We know there's more to it, that he does have an ulterior motive here, but I do think he's starting to like her too. It's a combination. But she's also coming over to see things more his point of view. We get that more and more this episode. And the end there where she says more matching jacket. That's hearkening back to what he said before, too.
SPEAKER_18Yep. So you see that they're drifting towards each other at the same time, you know.
SPEAKER_20Well, and you know, we'll soon learn why he certainly likes her much better now.
SPEAKER_18Why she's so agreeable and happy and stuff right now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Yep.
SPEAKER_18That'll change in two days.
SPEAKER_13So speaking of agreeable and happy, we are over to Vault 33 where we've got a snack-based revolution, kind of little new group happening here.
SPEAKER_18The incest survivors snack group.
SPEAKER_13Yeah. They have been, so Reg's group is thriving. It's no longer just him and that lady stuck around and the kissing cousins who took off. No, he's got a lot more people showing up right now because they are listening to music, they are eating food, they are drinking water, and trying to make up excuses for why they're there. Because really, let's be real, they're there to get water and eat.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. I'm pretty sure my cousin and my uncle, you know.
SPEAKER_13They might have been related. And that affected me because Oh, come on.
SPEAKER_18In a closed community like this, I mean, how many generations have lived in 33? But still, it's like you gotta be related to everybody eventually.
SPEAKER_13Exactly. But we quickly get the idea of what's really happening there because the one woman's going for more water and us out. And she mentions her out. No, oh, don't worry. You know, Reg is to the rescue, he's grabbing us, he's all happy to be of help, and he grabs his jugs and he's heading out into the hall.
SPEAKER_18I I had to play it back a few times, but if you catch it in the background, there's a nice jugs, Reg, as he's walking down the hall with his jugs to go get more water.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, that made me laugh. He's also, here's the thing, if we're talking about in the scene in the hall. So when he first leaves, he's walking out, he's holding his drugs, and the girl who says nice jugs, Reg, and walks by. If you keep watching, she actually gets to the end of the hall and she hesitates and pauses there, and then she kind of turns and heads to the right out the hallway to leave. It was exactly in my mind like the animations for some characters in Fallout 3 and stuff like that, like the way they walk and maybe they like pause and then turn. Yep. And I don't know if it was intentional, it just happened to be that it was filmed, but it really felt like she was deliberately trying to walk like a vault NPC.
SPEAKER_18Oh, that's funny.
SPEAKER_13So he's going down and he takes his jugs on the stairs. Meanwhile, we're getting the perspective from the garden now, where the plants have a little bit of trouble growing. The water's getting a little low, and Betty is still figuring out what she's gonna do to deal with the water chip situation. Meanwhile, Reg is carrying his jugs out. And we're about to fill them up, and she's like, hey, where are you going with that? You wanna play the clip? Yeah, let's roll.
SPEAKER_16Water racketing remains in the second till further notice. Please limit tower and walk in. Water conception. One liter per day.
SPEAKER_18One liter again.
SPEAKER_16Water racketing remains in effect until further noticed.
SPEAKER_00Where are you going with that? What? We can't be wasting resources on your little club right now. Enough on our food and porch budget. And I'll have you know my little group is growing in numbers every week, unlike your booboo written.
SPEAKER_03Because I put austerity measures in place, and you're giving extra ration.
SPEAKER_00Or it's because the products of inbreeding community hasn't had a voice until now. We're distinct subculture.
SPEAKER_03You're a snack club.
SPEAKER_00You're not taking this from me. Our snack budget is baked into the charter.
SPEAKER_18Baked into the charter. See what he did there? Snack club baked into the charter. Come on.
SPEAKER_11Really good wordplay.
SPEAKER_13But I love she says you're a glorified snack club. He's trying to be like we're doing something good here, blah, blah, blah. No. No.
SPEAKER_18The warning said they are allotted one liter for drinking and showering a day.
SPEAKER_13Yep.
SPEAKER_18That's not even enough to drink, let alone bathe. Holy cow.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, no wonder they're thirsty, right? Serious water rationing. But Betty is obviously, even though we know at this point the story about Vault 31 and her past, this is still her community. You know what I mean? And we're gonna hit that more in a scene in a little bit. But she cares about the Vault. It's not just about the experiment or the grand plan or other things. She wants to make sure her people survive. You know, this is her community. She's been around for been 40 years. She was overseer before Hank for like 10 or 20 years. It's too bad.
SPEAKER_18It's like her being the responsible one and making the top. Tough decisions is gonna get people to dislike her and isn't that often the case?
SPEAKER_13You know permissive dad getting the love, mom laying down the law, mean mom getting her ass. Permissive grandparents being like, Oh, when I'm over grandma's house, they always let me do that.
SPEAKER_18Cupcakes for breakfast, sure.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, what's wrong with that?
SPEAKER_18Ray, you can tell what side he's on.
SPEAKER_13Gotta spoil them, grandkids. Absolutely. Now we're back over to the ghoul and Lucy. And they're walking around in the heat. And Lucy's feeling a little twitchy. A little itchy. How much time has passed? It's probably been an hour or two, maybe five. Well, that's it.
SPEAKER_20I was in a daze. I mean, it might have been a day.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_20No, because when they were when they left the camp, I mean, you could see New Vegas right there.
SPEAKER_13Yeah. It's later the same day.
SPEAKER_18A couple hours. Okay. I didn't I did not realize how quickly buff out withdrawal would smack.
SPEAKER_13Girls, but on a steady drip, as they say. So, yeah. So Lucy's like, what is up with me?
SPEAKER_18Yeah. Hungry for not food. Hungry for not I'm very familiar with that. Cravings.
SPEAKER_13I was I thought it was a good way to put it, and yeah, he's really familiar with that. And so he tells her how it is.
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I thought you stopped before. Sorry. Am I dying?
SPEAKER_09You addicted to drugs. Today's on the steady drift of bust not do that too.
SPEAKER_05Oh gosh, it didn't take them too much at this point. What do I do?
SPEAKER_09One must be a way to do it.
SPEAKER_05How long does that take?
SPEAKER_09Oh my days. My experience, the alternative is the only way to go.
SPEAKER_05What's the alternative?
SPEAKER_09Do all good.
SPEAKER_05Well, I know this isn't good for me, but stopping my dad from doing whatever he's doing is for the greater good. So even though I want it, I'm mostly doing it for other people, so it's what I'd want others to do for me. So give me the drugs.
SPEAKER_18Just do the drugs for the greater good.
SPEAKER_13The way she talks herself into it, the way she rationalizes it. It's great. I love her little self-righteous, perky attitude. Well, I hereby quit job.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. And then just how fast she's talking. And so yeah.
SPEAKER_13It's a great scene between both of them because he's starting to chuckle to himself. Seeing her in this state, the way he speaks slowly, she speaks fast. I thought it was a really great scene between the two of them. Now, he doesn't mention fixer at this point, you know, or things that could help remove addictions as a chemical tube, but if he doesn't have them, he doesn't have them. So it's he's not gonna offer a solution he doesn't have.
SPEAKER_20Not likely something he'd be carrying around.
SPEAKER_13Nope.
SPEAKER_20Nope.
SPEAKER_13Not that it would work on him at this point anyway. Yeah, I do think it gets to a point where your body's dependent enough, but I love the way he kinda lays it out. You've got this one choice. Really miserable. Oh, you do more drugs. He's got the bottle of buff out ready to give to her as soon as she gives in, too.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, he was shaking it in his hand.
SPEAKER_13But it's in the circumstance, it's the better choice. You know, it makes sense. Her rationalization does make sense, of course.
SPEAKER_18So he she had withdrawals from buffout. What did he have? He had like a little vial of pills or something. What did he have? You mean that he had the bottle of buffout pills.
SPEAKER_13Right. It was a bottle of buffout he pulled out for.
SPEAKER_18What why do you think they made that conscious decision?
SPEAKER_13Just that he is a word people are more familiar with, maybe. And also, I have to wonder, chems as such a common word, may be more of a post-war ordeal in some ways. And since he's a pre-war ghoul, there could be some of that too.
SPEAKER_18I did. I never even would have thought of that. That is great reasoning.
SPEAKER_20Uh more likely they screen tested it both ways and like drugs.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_20Better than Kims.
SPEAKER_13People know what drugs are, it sounds good.
SPEAKER_18Does he ever use the word Kim's? Do they ever use that or do they solely use that other? I don't remember.
SPEAKER_13I can't think of any, but as far as I know, it's just been drugs.
SPEAKER_18Interesting. I'll pay attention to that now.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, I'm gonna be listening for it too, for sure. Anything else on this scene that stood out to you guys?
SPEAKER_18No, I just thought it was great her her reasoning.
SPEAKER_13So then we got a quick little scene here. It's kind of a a quick little tease for what's about to what's about to come. So we get the return to the brotherhood of steel airship, because you don't want to leave Thaddeus and Max too long without going back to them. So they arrive on the ship, Max disembarks, and we see Dane coming down the steps. And Dane's still a little bit unhappy with how Maximus has been acting late. We saw that previous episode that Dane just feels like Maximus has been drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit too much, getting lost in the sauce.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_13But also not really sure what's going on on some choices and this whole taking off here. So Dane's like, elders looking for you. What were you thinking taking off like that with that all tensions going on? Dane is judging here. Like, why would you do that? Because obviously Max didn't say a thing to Dane just took off. So Dane probably feels out of the leaf too. And Max quickly says what happened.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, he he completely trusts her. Yeah, he just lays it all out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Yeah. He and Dane, they still they have that relationship for sure. Even if they're not seeing eye to eye as much right now. And once Max puts it out there, Dane says, Okay, Quintus is gonna kill you. And Max has a plan, and no, I'm gonna kill him. Just lays it all out there. But here's what I need you to do. And so we don't actually see them hatch a plan and talk more here, but you can tell that they do. Between this scene and the next, Max tells Dane, I need you to round up the kids, take them someplace safe. Also at this point, because we see Thaddeus getting out of the vertebird, still a little bit messy, still a little bit awkward.
SPEAKER_20Left, right, left, right? Trying to crawl out backwards.
SPEAKER_13Yeah.
SPEAKER_18Stepping out like a two-year-old, you're right.
SPEAKER_13I feel like Max had to tell Dane that it was Thaddeus at some point.
SPEAKER_20If not this scene, then at some point, because he definitely had to tell him that the that part of it was because there's no way you would have believed that it was actually darkness.
SPEAKER_13Well, that's like as soon as Dane sees Thaddeus. I think that's actually what prompts the question. What did you do, Ray? Immediately. He she knew immediately. Yeah, Dane's great. And of course, we're still gonna be Thaddeus' in her monologue. No big deal. Supposed to be here. You want to play that clip? Yep, here we go.
SPEAKER_01The elder clerk's looking for you. Things are already pretty tense around here with that Xander guy showing up, and then you just what? Disappear with him? The hell, man?
SPEAKER_02It's it's a hunting trip. What did you do? Alexander's dead.
SPEAKER_01The Commonwealth are gonna kill us all. How are you gonna do that? When you tell Quintus that you killed the emissary to the Commonwealth, he'll split your throat himself.
SPEAKER_02I have a plan for that. First, I need you to get all the kids and take them somewhere safe.
SPEAKER_01Why? What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_02Kill Quintus.
SPEAKER_01I'll go.
SPEAKER_13Just what a way to frame it, right? It's so serious, but it's also so funny.
SPEAKER_18Yeah. That's that's why that works so well. It's a high tension area with high comic relief. It's great.
SPEAKER_13But Max and Dane are a great team. Like, I I know we talk about Max and Thaddeus, but I do think Max and Dane are great together too. So I wish we got more Dane, but we don't. Dane's just a side character again this season. A very key character, of course, but Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_18Especially with the slipperoo later.
SPEAKER_13So now we go back over to the Los Angeles ruins. A little music going on, and we get uh a couple people exploring, looking around, getting some food, crunching. They found some they found.
SPEAKER_18Llamco mac and cheese. What did they find a what did they find? A vending machine or something?
SPEAKER_13I think it was a Mac and Lamco truck, wasn't it, that they were getting out of?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_19Yep.
SPEAKER_13And it's funny, one of the one one of the dwellers, the Vault Tech Employee, is there? I shouldn't call them dwellers necessarily, because did they really dwell? No, they just cryoed.
SPEAKER_20No. Yeah, they were yeah.
SPEAKER_13They just vaulted and chilled. But they're like, the mouthfeel is excellent. It's a nice mouthfeel.
SPEAKER_18That brings up the is Blam Cone pre-prepared? So you wouldn't have to like cook it and mix in the No, they're either eating it raw.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, there's a crunch in the pasta.
SPEAKER_18The noodles raw. Ouch.
SPEAKER_13It's just like your craft, you're crafting it.
SPEAKER_18Craft mac and cheese. It looks just like it. The fucking uncooked noodles, that's awesome. That's great. That makes that mouthfeel joke better.
SPEAKER_13But Norm sees Claudia kind of staring and looking and comes up. What a day, huh? And Claudia says, last time. Yeah, tough week. Right, because she's like, last time I saw that bridge, I was I drove over it a week ago. And she was coming for a Vault Tech job interview. This is when you realize holy Claudia has only worked, she's like in this whole situation, she only worked for Vault Tech less than a week.
SPEAKER_17Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Not even fully indoctrinated yet. And now sleeping for 200 plus years, waking up, the whole world's destroyed.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_13Definitely. What are we? So glad I took that job, but kinda. They're bonding and talking. And then we have this guy Ronnie comes up talking about okay, we found food. So now we should be ready for phase two. That phase one, we had to find food, get our bearings. Now we're gonna go to phase two. Of course, Norm doesn't know any of this. Norm Norm doesn't know what the plans were, what the phases were. He's not really part of the program, as we know.
SPEAKER_18Buds probably didn't even know.
SPEAKER_13Right. So while most of them may not, Ronnie kind of acts like he did. Because he was the guy who took the lunch orders. You want to play what Ronnie had to say?
SPEAKER_18Who's the sandwich boy? Must be allowed to take in.
SPEAKER_11I dripped down across that bridge a week ago. I dropped a new view at all.
SPEAKER_12Pretty crazy week for you, I guess. Hey Bon! Now that we've found food, it's time for phase two. What do you mean? I'm Ronnie. I'm currently gonna try the next episode. You're the bottom. I was so I was the guy who took the lunch orders. Future enterprise. I guess I was just uh guy who got the lunch orders, but I do know that phase two is very important to the experiment. It's time to get going, dude. Take the way then, Ronnie.
SPEAKER_16Alright, guys! Austin, it's time to move.
SPEAKER_13So that was well played. You get the whole thing there. So Ronnie, being Bud's personal assistant, is basically saying, I know more than maybe the others because of his position. Obviously, in the hierarchy, he was a little higher up. And he's hinting that he knows about what the actual plans are. So future enterprise ventures. Do you remember that also? They did that on purpose to spark off a lot of conversation, right? Because that's actually FEV. Are the initials there?
SPEAKER_18Say that again. The the FEV part? What?
SPEAKER_13So he says phase two, future enterprise ventures. That's FEV.
SPEAKER_18Future Enterprise Venture. Okay. I didn't. Yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_13So it just sparked off a lot of speculation. We don't know what phase two is yet, but it seems to involve the plans for Vault 32 and 33. So now suddenly we're putting together, wait a second. Is it talking about FEV? Is that why it's called Future Enterprise Ventures? And wait, they're breeding a race of super managers. What if they're getting all these Vault Tech trained people and they're going to make super mutant managers? I know it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_18And their water down, so they're going to make some adaptations to their water purification system and bring them back up and turn everyone to super mutants. That's all is what could happen.
SPEAKER_13Right? Like, but we don't know what the plan was, but it's hinting that there were further plans for Vault 32 and 33 we knew about. It wasn't just about getting them ready to go back to the surface. There's more to it.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. And we don't really know that Ronnie knows. He just knows he doesn't know. He just, yeah. He just knew there was a phase two.
SPEAKER_18He's pretending to know stuff to uh Norm. And so is Norm. There are so many intricate levels to the mid-management hierarchy there. Like you gotta slot yourself off.
SPEAKER_13Politics are complicated. But Norm is smart. We know that he is clever, and he's also been raised in this group. And his father was part of this whole scene too, obviously. Nor Ank being part of the original 31 crew. And so he actually kind of plays to Ronnie's need to assert himself and to being more of a boss by letting him take initiative by saying, lead the way, Ronnie, by you know, off pretending that he knows what's going on. But yes, Ronnie, good idea, and okay, let's do that. Okay, lead the way. And I feel like that's a good way to get him on his side. Now, is it gonna last? That's the whole thing we'll find out.
SPEAKER_17But it doesn't feel like it.
SPEAKER_13I didn't really catch anything else from this scene.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, not really. I'll just kind of pack up and go on. I was just gonna go into what he did.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, let's go.
SPEAKER_20He's another one of the uh confused individuals that had to switch vaults.
SPEAKER_18Where did they go? They went to 32 from 33. 33. Yeah.
SPEAKER_20Right.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_20And so he's he's trying to think it through in his head, but the funny thing is that for every decision he's making, he's answering himself with you know, right as a question. But he's like, right. Right?
SPEAKER_11I should go left, right? Right. Left, right?
SPEAKER_20So he's wandering around and he walks into Davy's apartment.
SPEAKER_18And these are like my two favorite vaulties right here, face to face.
SPEAKER_20Davy knows immediately what happened. Oh because he's been going through the same thing. You know, that's what he went to the overseer to complain about.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, I mean, Davey yesterday he walked in on the women's men's room.
SPEAKER_20That was the most hilarious line. What does that mean? All he knows is that there's a men's room. That's what he's always used.
SPEAKER_13They're just they're vault. Yeah, so it's the women's men's room that he went into.
SPEAKER_18The women's men's room. Oh, Davey.
SPEAKER_13We gotta love him. Gotta love him. They're uh, yeah, some of these Vault 32, Vault 33 folk, who are now 32 folk, they're a little bit dopey. Let's be real, but in the best way, they're endearing.
SPEAKER_18So do you think they shed off the dopey ones on purpose?
SPEAKER_13They were raised to be vault tech true believers and a bit dopey like that. Yeah. They are in a world of okie dokie vaulties, they are the okie dokeyest.
SPEAKER_20But I think if it was purely Betty's doing, she would have also gotten rid of Reg.
SPEAKER_17Oh, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_13Woody uh after he talks to Davy there, they leave, takes his leave, and he's still kind of lost and wandering. And we next go over to Steph and Betty. It cuts over to Steph and Betty talking. And they're in the intervault area now that we previously only saw. It was like a very rare thing during, you know, the intervault trades. But Betty and Steph are having a conversation. And Betty's there asking for help. Our watership situation is bad. We need some help with the water. And Steph isn't exactly hearing it. Like she is, but like, okay, what will you give me for that? It's not a given. And Betty says, uh when I gave you this over zero position, it was in the hopes that we would work together and help each other, maybe more than we helped each other in the past. And which you can tell Steph has always been we know as we learn more and more about her that she is well, she's a bit tough. You know what I mean? Possibly self-centered, the way she's been treating Chet and everything. Like she is not who we thought she was at the beginning of last season. We're definitely seeing that more and more, and we will even more. And so now that we know more about her past, and Steph says I will help you if you uh bring me a lockbox from Hank's Quarters that in the overseer's office of Hank's Quarters, there's a safe or something. Bring me the lock box in there and I'll consider helping you with your water situation. Yeah. Meanwhile, and during the talk, Betty also mentions 31's been abandoned. So Betty actually went over to 31 to try to get some help and supplies and check on what was happening over there since Norm had been locked up, see how that progressed. Or what whatever. Because we don't know if she might have just communicated with Bud via radio previously, or she might have checked previously, and Bud said he had it under control. Anyway, she went over there, it's abandoned. Nobody in the cryotubes, as we know. Norm isn't there, and Bud Askins was upside down in a trash can. I would have liked to have heard more about what happened with him though, too. Like, okay, he was upset on a trash can, but is he upside on a trash can dead? Did they is the brain dead? Did Norm kill him, or was he just like stuffed in there but still alive? You know? Yeah, like we don't know what's happening there exactly. But also you would think that he would be able to get the water chip. There would be spares, but involved.
SPEAKER_18It seems weird the Steph is withholding it seems more like the water supply instead of the ability to help her fix her own production. You know what I mean? Like she's like, you can dip out of ours instead of it's not like, hey, we're gonna we'll help you fix your thing. So you it's she wants to have a situation where they're still dependent upon the hangover, Betty.
SPEAKER_13And I mean, you would think they'd be able to rig something up, make it work.
SPEAKER_18If if this were like dependent upon the survival of society, would have added a couple extra wires.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, the situation doesn't make a lot of sense. You would think that they'd be more prepared. Now we are a couple hundred years in the future, so perhaps they have already gone through.
SPEAKER_18Maybe they went through the supply. You're right. They could have.
SPEAKER_13They maybe at a point where they just at a point where they don't have more placements. And we we know that happened with other vaults, sure. But these vaults, they may not technically be control vaults. There might have been experiments with buds, buds, and the triple vault situation and all that, but they were still trying to keep people happy and healthy. So you would expect them to have better backups. I totally agree.
SPEAKER_18How many people were awake and walking around in 31 in the cryo pods?
SPEAKER_13Maybe 20, you think about 15 to 20 at this point. Like it felt like there should have been more originally. You know, you got probably six to eight Vault 31 people who had been woken up over the years that we saw on that list. And there were probably another 15 to 20 there frozen that are out with norm now.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. But I mean, even if it was only 20 people, you figure that's still 400 years worth of managers.
SPEAKER_13If you have to bring them out one or two at a time, yep.
SPEAKER_18And was that the only supply? There were no more rooms elsewhere. This is there were only 20 managers. You couldn't really tell cryo pads. Yeah, or you couldn't tell.
SPEAKER_13I think we were saying initially that we thought it looked like there were more cryo chambers for a season. But this time, you know, they can only have so many extras. But the experiment is over and it's tough negotiations, and Steph is being hardlined. Betty's asking for help. Betty has really come to care for her vault. These are her people. The experiment is over. All we've got left is each other. We need to work together and make this work. You know, you get it. Like Betty is smart. Steph is definitely looking out for number one and number one only. And we don't know her whole story yet, but we're definitely learning it.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, and one of the things that we had in the first season was vault 32 had been completely wiped out. Right. So the crops had all died, everybody was dead. You know, so there's definitely been famine in these vaults before. So the fact that the water chip is broken now not completely surprising. Alternatively, at least the same number of people lived all together in 33 could all live together in 32.
SPEAKER_13Exactly. Like there are so many options. They're supposed to be working together. They can make this work. All they've got is each other. Def has got her little fiefdom, and she's now got her own plans and power.
SPEAKER_18I think scavers would have gotten to 32.
SPEAKER_13I mean they did before, briefly.
SPEAKER_15Yeah.
SPEAKER_13And whatever happened, they learned something about the experiment, about what was really happening with Vault 31. Somehow we don't know how. They never get into that. And they fought each other, they turned on each other and ultimately died. I didn't go back and watch season one again. Stuff was turned off and they c they starved him out. So as they're wrapping up, of course, we get back to Woody, who's been wandering around, and he's hearing their voices and catching the tail end of their conversation. The experiment is over, this and that, but then they're wrapping up, and so he hears the vault starting to close and stuff coming in, so he quickly runs around the corner and you know, tucks away so he's not caught. And that wraps up this scene. One quick note Betty also says when Betty says, You don't know how bad it can get, and Steph, we don't have her whole backstory yet, although we're about to get it in an episode or two. She says, Yeah, Betty, you From Sulving. What do you know about how bad it can get? So I looked it up.
SPEAKER_18It was that the town in Cal the Christmas town in California where you can get the Able Skever pancake.
SPEAKER_13That's the Danish Christmas town. Yeah.
SPEAKER_18Yeah.
SPEAKER_20Just used to love going there as a kid. Peace to Anderson's. You go there and get a big bowl of pea soup. Peace soup. That's cool.
SPEAKER_13You've actually been there, knew what it was. I had to look it up. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, we have a little miniature version of it here in Georgia, too, called Helen. You know, it's just a little German village type thing.
SPEAKER_18Oh man, I love shit like that. That's great.
SPEAKER_13Well, it's like Helvetia for Foshnach, like those kind of cultural towns that start off in isolation and kind of keep the culture going in a very specific nationality.
SPEAKER_20Great place to get fudge.
SPEAKER_13Oh my goodness. Lucy's rubbing off of me. When I dropped a whole bottle of hot sauce earlier, I was telling the guys before the show dropped a whole bottle of hot sauce when I hit the ground. I actually yelled fudge pretty loud.
SPEAKER_18Oh fudge.
SPEAKER_13That's as close as I get to swearing I'm like, oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_18That was the people we come across in the wasteland are fudging awful.
SPEAKER_13In my mouth. Yeah. Fudging awful.
SPEAKER_20Speaking of j of Lucy.
SPEAKER_13Let's go. So we get her and the ghoul showing up outside of the Las Vegas strip, like one of the main entrances to the strip.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. And she is primed and ready to go.
SPEAKER_18Might as well be doing that jaw thing or like rubbing her gums or whatever, you know, like she's on it.
SPEAKER_20Yeah. Yeah. So as they're walking up, the ghoul senses something's up and said that there's something off. And they should go to Freeside and get more information.
SPEAKER_18Expecting a welcoming committee? Yep.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, that's the thing. Tell the ghoul is really thrown off here.
SPEAKER_18Because no one's around. It's a ghost. It's quiet. Too quiet. Even pumped out a spy glass. They had a like a telescope. He had a telescope he was looking around with. That was pretty cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13So when he's looking, he sees ghoul looking elvises and kings. And so he starts to go, oh he obviously recognizes the kings. And you can see it on his face. Something really interesting.
SPEAKER_18So he wants to go around to Freeside. I thought the kings were in Freeside.
SPEAKER_13So he yeah, well, here's the whole thing with the whole navigation. It's not exact. If they're at a gate to the strip here, but in the game, the gates are either inside north or freeside east. There's a direct entrance here, but there are others. And so he wants to hit Freeside.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, I think basically what they're the point they're trying to make here is that, oh, we can see it. My dad is right there. And the ghoul's like, no, we need to go around another half day's delay. And she's unaccepting of that.
SPEAKER_13Right. And you can't blame her. They're this close to the strip. But of course the ghoul knows something about it.
SPEAKER_18She's amped up.
SPEAKER_13And she's amped up.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, she's ready to go.
SPEAKER_13So she starts walking towards it. And the ghoul just kind of shrugs, like, okay.
SPEAKER_18This new aggressive Lucy.
SPEAKER_13He's admiring the initiative.
SPEAKER_20And I imagine that he probably would have liked to have had that Lucy in Novak.
SPEAKER_18Who actually shot people instead. Let him hang there.
SPEAKER_13Probably like to have that Lucy a few times along the way for sure. It's been happening for a while anyway, that they're kind of meeting in the middle, that he's mellowing a little bit, and she is learning the ways of the waistland a little bit, but still holding on to herself. But yeah, here she's kind of getting over some inhibitions and just ready to take action. So as they start walking in towards the gates, of course, the ghouls that were there that we saw, they start rousting. And one of the kings kind of comes up and starts running for her. And so she has the shotgun that she's been carrying and she uses it. And does she kneecap him? Does she hit him in the knee like she usually does to start here?
SPEAKER_18That she blows his whole shin off, I think. Yeah. And she's like, whoa.
SPEAKER_13And she's suddenly kind of excited by this. She's like, powerful. And so then she shoots another and then another. And as they start coming, she's really getting into it and fighting. Then like the fourth one, I think it was, took her down to the ground a bit. She had to wrestle herself, but she grabs another pistol, shoots him in the head to get up. And then when her shotgun is out of ammo and needs loaded, she grabs the other rifle and shoots the other one right in the car. It's a pretty dramatic scene. And this is where the ghoul gets to see what a good shot Lucy actually is. Because we know she had a marksmanship trophy. That she's a good shot. She just doesn't usually use guns.
SPEAKER_18He also she makes the comment, oh, well, they're they're just they're only ghouls. And you see his side-eye comment there, you know, like his little acknowledgement of that statement that, oh, if I happen to turn, she will not hesitate to, you know. As long as she's on buff out. Pumped out on buff out, yeah.
SPEAKER_13He flinches from it a little bit because obviously he's been treated poorly being a ghoul off and on in his life, I'm sure. But she learned to distinguish ferals, and seeing her acknowledge that it's kind of a big step. But to have her do it so casually is a bit shocking.
SPEAKER_09Shit.
SPEAKER_04What?
SPEAKER_05What?
SPEAKER_09It's gonna be a little hard to explain. We're just going through the east side of town, place called Freeston. It's on about a half day's detour.
SPEAKER_05No, nope, my dad is right there. I am done with all of the sidetracks and the detours. I say we just run on through. I didn't care.
SPEAKER_09That's drugs talking. Truth be told, I like what they're saying.
SPEAKER_05Stop these cigarettes. Like to try one.
SPEAKER_09One addiction at a time.
SPEAKER_19I like that.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, that was great at the end. She just engaged in battle, took out all those ghouls. The last one, too. The last one that essentially looked like the king. You know, had the white jacket, the guitar. Yeah. Because there's the kings and there's the king.
SPEAKER_18Yep. That was him, they're saying. Maybe.
SPEAKER_13Yeah. I mean, if it wasn't him, it looked like him, so it probably was. Where's Rex? He's been ghoullified. Rex is out with the courier, you know, or somewhere else.
SPEAKER_19You're right.
SPEAKER_13Rex is having puppies, right? With one of the dogs from back in at the Big MT. But yeah, so she's just like she's full of herself. Now she wants a cigarette after that. She enjoys it. Ugh. Now we're back to the Brotherhood of Steel. Max is gonna be meeting up with Quintus, and then we've got what's happening with Thaddeus, and then we've got what Dane is doing with the kids.
SPEAKER_18We got the Yosemite representative and the Right.
SPEAKER_20Okay, so Yeah, she comes up and tries to get a word with Xander.
SPEAKER_18Xander is like, you are loved, emissary. She's love.
SPEAKER_20And then the guy from Coronado comes over and is like, hey, if you're making a deal, I want to make a deal.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, so they're cornering Thaddeus thinking that he's Xander. They want to make a deal with the emissary. But they're pleading their case too, because they've been caught red-handed. Like this is only the next day still on that timeline. They were having the meeting, went outside, they took the joy ride, Xander, blah blah blah. So this is within a day of Xander showing up. And so they're essentially saying, We weren't gonna go with Quintus's plan. We weren't gonna betray the Commonwealth and we'll stand with you. I'll bring you his head if I need to. And of course, the other ones coming up too, and saying, Oh, trying to make a deal with you on the side. I'll don't listen to her, I'll take care of this. Very awkward, very funny. Then Dane is hiding the kids away. So Dane has ushered a bunch of squires, a couple of them young, one or two a little bit older, and saying, Stay in here, don't come out until the shooting stops. Which reminded me a lot of what Max's father said to him when he put it in the fridge, too. Stay in there as long as you can, don't come out until the shooting stops. I thought that was an interesting echo there.
SPEAKER_18But that's a good call.
SPEAKER_13So Dane is doing that. And then but the oldest of them, you know, kind of looks like they're wondering what's going on. I don't know if they're gonna show him again or if it was just a nice way to show things are serious and the kids realize things are serious. But meanwhile, things are getting a little bit tense. So then we have Dane after they slip away, they're coming around the outside and they are going into the room with the cold fusion device. This is where I think maybe Max and Dane had a plan ahead of time that Dane was gonna get the cold fusion device out. But then we go over to Max and Quintus in the room. Do you want to play your clips for this scene, Andrew?
SPEAKER_21As you're probably aware, there's an ideological gap between my chapter and Quintus. So even if you were here, I would have nothing to do with Quintus's little insurrection. What?
SPEAKER_08If you were to promise to make a deal to another chapter, you can make deals to quintess today.
SPEAKER_21Walk it off. Let me get your bike. Let me get your fight.
SPEAKER_18I love the I'm gonna stab you in the face. Comment to that. These two scenes are kind of being interspliced. They keep bouncing back and forth between so I kind of separated them out into the two interactions. So that was all about. That makes sense. Yeah, we got a head for there.
SPEAKER_13Daddy skips more and more in over his head, and that's why she wants to help him with his visor. Because she's like, wait, this is not, there's something going on here. And same with Coronado coming over. But they're interrupted because got another clip with what's happening with Quintus.
SPEAKER_06A world I would bring order to. Order cool and necessary to rebuild civilization to change this world. Kill me. That change will never come. Tell me, Maximus. Tell me what world will you build when you lead? Tell me what will you do when your people are starving? I don't want that.
SPEAKER_18I love that last point. That he can't, he's just reacting to this environment, this world. Ugh. That's so heavy, that last line.
SPEAKER_13It's such a thing for Max that he is operating from his moral center. He wasn't made to necessarily be a leader. He doesn't even want to be a leader per se. He just wants to be a good man and he wants to do what's right. But he also, these things keep happening in that he's making the decisions that he has to make when he comes up in these situations, like with Sander. And so when he makes that statement, Quintus suddenly realizes maybe there's more to this story than I realize. Maybe he's not just killing the paladin coming to kill me. And Max confesses he was gonna kill some kids. And okay, so that takes Quintus back because if he cares about anything, he does seem to care about kids at least somewhat.
SPEAKER_18Those are recruits.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, exactly. And he brought in Max as a kid, too. But then Max has to admit they were ghouls. And this is when Quintus is like, nope, nope, I've had enough. You are not the man I need you to be. First rule of the codex, which by the way, not the first rule of the codex. Again, I don't think they talk about ghouls in the codex. I do not think there is this anti-abomination hard line. That's an enclave thing, not a brotherhood thing. Brotherhood cares about it, especially in some chapters, but it's not like part of their foundation. Anyway.
SPEAKER_18I should put that out as a merchandise thing.
SPEAKER_13The writers are changing it. This is me just ranting against inconsistency. Like it's not in the codex as far as I'm concerned, as far as what's been in the games. But the writers have their own codex. And the chapters may have rewritten things over time. We know that the Commonwealth is more hardcore against abominations. And the Brotherhood as a whole, like they do have that is part of their stance, but not to the extent they're not as unreasonable and hardline as they're made out to be here. Or haven't been in the past, at least. Anyway, but this is where Quintus has had enough. Okay. At this point, he's less scared of Max killing him in this moment and just disgusted. Like, why did I even rescue you as a child? And so he's going and he's stalking away. He's gonna grab his own gun, he's gonna kill Max, and Max is still kind of paralyzed, but he doesn't want to do what he feels he has to do. Like he says, these things keep happening. And now he's here with Quintus, and it's just kind of happening. But we also know that he decided ahead of time talking to Dane that he was maybe gonna have to kill Quintus. So it's partly something he's choosing, but he also feels it was thrust on him because of the circumstance. If it's killer be killed. I don't know.
SPEAKER_18Which is the same exact scenario which sent him on this whole journey back with the bear power armor back in the day. Like, am I gonna help this guy who was like making fun of me or and take the chance of dying or let the bear kill this guy and then assume his identity. Titus in this. Yeah, it's like choosing life or death. He has to do these things to live.
SPEAKER_13Yep, and Max had to leave Lucy and bring the head back because he had to to help her. That was a choice that he definitely made, but also everything after just kind of happened. He's looking for a purpose and something to fight for and who he wants to be. And he's thought for a while that the brotherhood was gonna be the way to help civilize the wasteland. But he's also seeing here more from Quintus's reaction that the Brotherhood's ideas of right and wrong in the codex will never be fully compatible with Max's own personal beliefs and the way he was raised in the NCR.
SPEAKER_18I wonder how he Max was raised in the NCR. When did Quintus himself find, I forget the where he as a little kid was recruited in somehow?
SPEAKER_13Well, we know we saw him being rescued out of the fridge a hundred times, but we don't know that the guy there in the power armor if that was the Quintus saying that was him in the power armor at that point before he became the elder. I don't think that was the case. I think Quintus is probably one of the guys in charge.
SPEAKER_18Well just brought him back.
SPEAKER_13Right, made the decision to bring him in. But he Quintus isn't pushing the whole my son thing kind of hard. Whereas first season, we didn't get that to start calling him my sword. Right, right. That he was one of the leaders of this chapter, but he didn't know all the recruits that well. So I do think Quintus is playing it up more this this season. He's been trying to manipulate him.
SPEAKER_20Well, yeah, because that was you know, the end of uh season one Quintus decided that he was gonna be able to use uh Max to gain power for himself.
SPEAKER_13When Max has moved up from a recruit or an initiate to become a squire for Titus originally, it didn't seem like Quintus was that familiar with him. You know what I mean? Like he knew that they existed, but didn't really acknowledge them beyond that. It almost felt like Quintus and the others were showing up whatever chapter they are again, too. I'm forgetting what they were called. San Fernando. San Fernando Valley, yeah, exactly. Anywho, they're fighting, they're shooting, and back with Thaddeus in the uh cafeteria before they can raise the visor, the third leader comes rushing in. Which one of you took it? Because the cold fusion is missing. And so they start accusing each other, and they all start setting about and fighting each other because someone one of them stole the cold fusion. Yes, and it was actually Dane. So Thaddeus is making his escape casually while everybody's fighting. Oh, and the woman from the Yosemite chapter has a pretty sick move.
SPEAKER_18She just carries out her promise from earlier.
SPEAKER_13Yep. She said she was gonna. And doesn't the other guy say, That's cool? It was a funny comment that one of them said something like, Oh, that's cool. Messed up. Max runs out and he hasn't killed Quintus, and he slams the door shut and he wraps the chains while Quintus is shouting, you know, heretic, heretic. Because Max wouldn't kill the kids. Dane comes around the corner and Dane says to take care of Quintus, and Max says I couldn't do it. And he starts to apologize. And I like Dane's line there. Like, never apologize for not killing somebody, Max.
SPEAKER_19Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Dane recognizing the good in Max again, still.
SPEAKER_19Yeah.
SPEAKER_13So Dane gives Max the cold fusion device, says get as far away from here as possible. And he starts to run with Thaddeus is also coming through. And this is where I'm like, Dane has to know that it's Thaddeus in there too. At some point they were told, or otherwise they might question. But Max and Thad are running off. Dane is just making sure the kids are okay and gonna, you know, keep watch there. And we see the airship starting to shoot each other and fight, and one is starting to go down in flames, and it's a whole civil war.
SPEAKER_18Okay, I looked away for a second when I was taking notes and just saw one crashing, so I was kind of confused as to how an airship crashed. It was that this was the different factions were starting their four-way civil war.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, each of the chapters had something. And so they were fighting over the spoils of war and the cold fusion device, not knowing which one of them had stolen it and all that. Meanwhile, it's actually Max and Thad. So we are back to the vault now, vault 32. Steph's Canadian Secret. And Woody and Steph are having a meeting. So Chet's in the side room in their quarters with baby Chet Jr.
SPEAKER_20And he's doing laundry.
SPEAKER_13Folding socks, doing chores, and Woody and Steph are having a meeting, and Woody is there because he's got a report of violation. And he's never had to do this before, but it's vault safety. According to the rule book, you can only go out into the intervault communication area during triennial trades and he saw someone there. And of course, Steph is listening and encouraging, okay, yes, no, of course, you can tell me. I was like, Well, I saw you and talking to Betty in that area. And it's just hilarious Woody telling on himself like this. We can tell she's obviously secretly amused. And he says, Oh, good. It was pretty funny. And he says, Okay, well good. So what do we go from here? And she says, Well, I'll take it and I will escalate it. And isn't that great? And she's just kind of you know put it into bed, jolly shut. Meanwhile, Chet's letter know what the report says. Exactly. She'll let him know her findings. And he's like, Okay, he's gotta be realizes how ridiculous it is. But at the same time, it's following protocol and all these vaultis, that's kinda how they do. You know, they're following the rule book. Yep. Meanwhile, Chet comes across something while he is going through the drawers and accidentally kind of stumbles on a fake compartment and finds a wallet in there. And it turns out it's a dust wallet, and there's a Canadian ID. Dustface. Canada. 200 plus years old. Two eyes. So he discovers her secret and this is major. And he grabs out the ID and tucks it away real quick as Woody's saying their goodbye. So as Woody's leaving, you know, they're talking in the foyer, and Chet wants to come out like nothing's wrong and hide what he found, but he's obviously freaked out right now. And she's trying to usher Woody out a little bit, and so she goes and basically opens the door to be like, hey, yeah, you don't have to don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. And this is where Woody, I think, makes his fatal mistake. Because Woody says But also, what did you mean when you told Betty the experiment? Letting on that he heard some of what they were talking about. And I think this is where he's feeling his fate because she's not gonna put up with that. But meanwhile, Chet's just kinda, you know, trying to keep it cool.
SPEAKER_17Overseer stuff.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, overseer stuff. Perfect summary. So the final scene we have the ghoul and Lucy, they've made it onto the strip from outside. So they just went through the door. Like from when we last saw them. They were on one side of the door, now they're on the other. We finally get to see the inside of the strip and it is uh dark. So they make it a little bit condensed from how it looks in-game, of course, where it's a bit larger in over the course of three loading screens. They kind of make it so this is almost like the strip is more of a square.
SPEAKER_18It's a downtown square almost.
SPEAKER_13Exactly. The different hotels and casinos all there on it. But you've got the lucky 38, you've got the Gamora, you've got the things, but it's abandoned. And Lucy's like, oh, radiation, what's this? And the ghoul is not happy. He doesn't know what happened here. So he's trying to figure it out. You know while Lucy finds an egg and she says, these must have been some big chickens.
SPEAKER_17How big do the chickens get out here?
SPEAKER_13You know, there's actually there's a quest in Fallout 2 called Kill the Chicken. And that's actually the name of the quest. And it's because they discover eggs, and this is where you first find Deathclaw eggs, and it's actually a deathclaw at the end, you know, surprise, we deathclaw. Yeah. Yeah, you maybe actually did that quest when you played a little bit. But also, if you look at Lucy's Pip Boy at one point during the scene, she's got the icon for the idiot savant perk on it, too. It's got the little looking kind of derpy. So she's doing that.
SPEAKER_20And meanwhile, when they pan around, that's when you get the hey, wait a minute. That's not where the ultralux is.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, the whole thing is set up a little bit different. But it's a good set. Like it looks good, you know, it looks great, but it's a little bit small. Yeah.
SPEAKER_18Well, like you said. They don't have three load screens to get through.
SPEAKER_13Split it up, right. Exactly. So then they hear something. As uh the ghoul realizes those aren't chicken eggs. And he's about to tell her, Lucy, we gotta get. But before he can say we gotta get, there's a movement coming out of the Gaimora, right?
SPEAKER_18Yeah, she starts getting a little overinflated about their their abilities to take on whatever fierce beast shall show its face beyond the door.
unknownMm-hmm.
SPEAKER_15Dad! Hello!
SPEAKER_05Hey! Look at this! I think the chickens get out of here. Huh?
SPEAKER_10Oh, look at the chicken. Hilarious.
SPEAKER_05Whatever it is. I think we can take it. Oh yeah. We got this. I thought it would be easy. Okie dokie.
SPEAKER_18Okie dokie.
SPEAKER_13Easy like a Sunday morning, more like a Monday morning. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_18I just like that the episode opens and closes with a death claw okie dokie.
SPEAKER_13You're right. I didn't even get that. But it's quite the moment. And of course, Cooper knows. We don't know if Cooper's ever seen them again since that one encounter, too. Like that may have just been something in his nightmares. He's been a wastelander for years. So he's probably seen and maybe fought or run away from death claws while well prepared in the past. But here in this situation, no.
SPEAKER_18If he had not battled them before, was well aware of their reputation and not wanting to entangle them.
SPEAKER_13But I almost feel like for him, after his experience, they're kind of one of his primal fears. You know what I mean? Like some of you have fear of spiders.
SPEAKER_18Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Perfectly justified fear of death claws. So it was quite the ending, but the death claw coming out, standing on its tip tops at stretching out, so strong that it breaks the bricks and doorway over its head without even barely shrugging. Like it was a really good presentation. They look tough.
SPEAKER_18Yeah, they're gnarly. I was kind of looking at the design of it and felt that it was a good combination of the New Vegas design, which is a lot they look taller to me, and the four ones look a little muscular, more stout, rotund, and it looked like a sort of a good combination between those two, which made it look even like the doorframe you were seeing. More wicked.
SPEAKER_11Yeah.
SPEAKER_18So it was even sort of gave even more presence than the ones in Fallout 4, which is kind of hard to do.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, I think of the three in New Vegas ones as being a little bit faster and leaner. Whereas the four ones are more muscular, but yeah, so this was tall and lean, but still muscular.
SPEAKER_18You're right. It was a good combination of design, I think. And you're right, the snout thing. But you're saying that had to do with the cosmetics.
SPEAKER_13I think that's probably why they did it that way, part of the thing. It was a great ending.
SPEAKER_18I didn't notice was it like albino or anything? Was it glowing? Was it uh chameleon? Was it uh I don't remember the different difficulty levels of Deathclaw.
SPEAKER_13There are a bunch of them right there. Yeah, chameleon deathclaw, wicked rare. But that's perfect ending for the song to kick on with he's a demon, he's a devil, he's a doll. Pulling out.
SPEAKER_18He's love it. We're at the McCamp McCarron, right?
SPEAKER_13On the pull-out, whatever they call that. Yeah, the pullback for the crazy. And we're seeing a bunch of the old Camp McCarron with the NCR there. We've got gambling tables. It very much focuses on the actual New Vegas downtown for this there, where they're at the table, the soldiers. And I don't know if they were playing caravan or poker, but it's set up there, and NCR soldiers, and they're even Legion soldiers on swords after a battle as they pull out. And then we get further back on McCarran and it's revealed. And then they're listening to the song, which is a good one. You know, you obviously the use of the word demon in there to pull it all together. Music this episode.
SPEAKER_18Oh, right. I didn't even put that together. Another knob.
SPEAKER_13Music this episode. We had a couple that weren't in the game. So we had Rum and Coca-Cola by the Andrews sisters early on. That's in the beginning when they're going to Vault 33 while Reg has the water bucket. We had a song Tweedledee by Laverne Baker.
SPEAKER_17Yep.
SPEAKER_13And that's why Woody's getting all turned around and lost in Vault 32.
SPEAKER_17That's great.
SPEAKER_13We had during Lucy's fight there, Cocaine Blues, which is by a Roy Hogshead. That was a great song.
SPEAKER_18I think um uh The Man of Black does that.
SPEAKER_13Cool. It was well done with the slow-motion shootout. And then, of course, Demon Devil Doll or The End from Betty Hutton.
SPEAKER_18Good job pulling in that demon, third demon reference. That's yeah, that works.
SPEAKER_13Yeah. I like how they kind of brought it all in like they do. A couple of deep cut things here that we did kind of get the Deathclaw deployment pre-war. Like this is the first definite confirmation that they were deployed and tested pre-war on the Alaskan front during this year. We talked about the winterized People's Liberation Army uniforms pulled from Fallout 3. They're also Arthur Maxon being alive. So when negotiating in the mess hall, McRae there, and we don't know for sure that it's Arthur, but most likely, the elder there from the Assembly chapter mentions Elder Maxon. So he's probably still alive, unless there's another Maxon in charge and had kids. Some people say that it canonizes the Brotherhood or Minuteman ending of the game. That you know they're either alive because of the Minuteman ending or they're alive because Brotherhood won. But we also know that they're not canonizing any ending because they can help it.
SPEAKER_15Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Whatever, it does mean that the railroad, if they did destroy the Brotherhood, the Maxim survived. That's always possible too. Let's see. Beyond that, oh there's a reference to the annexation of Canada, of course, with the Canadian ID. We're gonna get into that a little bit further. Yep. And of course, the buffout bottle is exactly a buff out bottle in the game. That the label like when you buy the props on Etsy, that's they print the labels from the game, look just like that. For all we know, they actually got that prop on Etsy. They didn't make it themselves. And yeah, and the ghouls, the growls, and the ghoul sounds like that. I thought were just really authentic this episode, too. I don't know if they necessarily took it from the sound files, but I feel like they might have.
SPEAKER_18I love it when they do that.
SPEAKER_20From the wiki, the physical Deathclaw puppet required a total of five people to operate.
SPEAKER_18Good lord.
SPEAKER_20One one inside the torso, two maneuvering the arms, one controlling the head and neck, and one moving the jaw.
SPEAKER_13That's pretty intense. Pretty intense movement.
SPEAKER_18And no robotics were involved, it was all puppeteering. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13Seems like it. There might have been servos in there. Like maybe they're puppeteering some mechanized things too.
SPEAKER_18But even the eyelids, I mean someone had their hand up and doing the mouth open and eyes closing and all that. Wow.
SPEAKER_13I thought they handled the vault stuff better this episode too. I felt like when the vault was shown so far this season, it was kind of inconsequential up to that point. But now we've got some real like black comedy here with the situation with the snack club and like the absurdity of this whole thing, and they're having the party and drinking the water while the vault's literally dying, and he's using the charter as the defense. I feel like they definitely amped up the Vaultis again to where we need them to be to be interesting. And then everything with people in Vault 32 and how Steph's dealing with it.
SPEAKER_18Definitely have lots of plates in the air at this point spinning.
SPEAKER_13Any other thoughts on this episode, you guys?
SPEAKER_18Another thumbs up. Enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, I think this was my favorite of the first four episodes. In some ways, the biggest homages, the biggest reveals, the whole twist with the Brotherhood Civil War. The reveal of the Deathclaw, actually seeing the strip and the kings, although man, it heart to see them in that state.
SPEAKER_18Lucy on Drugs.
SPEAKER_13Lucy on Drugs was great. We all loved it.
SPEAKER_20So funny.
SPEAKER_13Hearing that in the clip, I totally forgot about that. I was so stressed by the deathclaw noises, I missed the bock, bock, buck. Well, good. That'll wrap this episode of Vault Talk, then you guys. Thanks so much for listening. We appreciate it. And we're gonna go back over to the regular Fallout Feed show now.
SPEAKER_18Alright, you guys. Anything else that you would like to bring up before we sign off for the evening?
SPEAKER_13I have a goal. I hearby Solomon Sware to play more games this week.
SPEAKER_18More cyberpunk?
SPEAKER_20I mean she's not committing to that.
SPEAKER_13Committing. Because I don't want to be lie. I will play more games this week. Hopefully cyberpunk.
SPEAKER_17Alright.
SPEAKER_13Okay, chat's gonna hold me to it. You guys, yeah, poke me. I'll hold you to it. Poke me. Tell me to get in there.
SPEAKER_15Oh play games.
SPEAKER_20Well, I mean, they they've been posting pictures. I think it was Siliara that did a whole montage of stuff he was playing around with photo mode, which if the photo mode of this game can't get you, you know, sucked in, what can?
SPEAKER_13True. It's absolutely true. Y'all doing your best. I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_20And then I've taken the completely hands-off. I'm not even gonna mention it.
SPEAKER_13Sometimes that works too. Yeah. Reverse psychology.
SPEAKER_20I'm just gonna keep playing Baldur's Gate 3. Neener neener.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, that's cool. I can't wait to hear more about what you think about Baldur's and you know where your characters grow, what level you get to you.
SPEAKER_18Those are in Game Pass, right? All the Baldur Gate games.
SPEAKER_13Cyberpunk is. I don't know if Baldur's Gate is.
SPEAKER_20Yeah, I don't either.
SPEAKER_18I got it through Steam. Yeah, I didn't assume you bought an Xbox to play a Ray.
SPEAKER_20I've got an Xbox. It's laying on the floor in here. Yeah, it's a paperweight to you. It hasn't been fired up since the last time we did some group thing.
SPEAKER_18Alright, let's get a group thing together, you guys. Let's do it. Let's fire up that Xbox. He's gotta get a crank in front of it and like crank the front of the Xbox.
SPEAKER_13It's his Oblivion machine. That's it. That's what it does.
SPEAKER_20No, I can't play anything on it. Because I don't have Game Pass anymore. Oh, right. And I didn't and I didn't outright buy any games. Not even 76. Nope. It is a paperweight for sure.
SPEAKER_13Fallout shelter is free. You can play that.
SPEAKER_18He hated it on his iPad. There's no way he's gonna like a controller. Oh, that would drive him nuts. Alright, you guys. Well then I will take that note to say, hey, go check out these guys' other projects. Ray can be found at Ray L B and at BBC I S S S for the Butcher Baker Candlemaker in Space. And he also appears over there on the Skyrim Addict podcast or a Skyrim addict.
SPEAKER_20When I actually remember that we're recording that day.
SPEAKER_18When Ray remembers, he must have spaced it.
SPEAKER_20So I we were gonna record la this past Monday. And I remembered on Tuesday morning.
SPEAKER_15Oh no.
SPEAKER_17Uh oh.
SPEAKER_20Did Victor make it? Yeah, yeah. He and Michael were having a good laugh at my expense. And I guess decided not to record. Because we're supposed to record next week.
SPEAKER_13So yeah, you're integral.
SPEAKER_18I've been watching more Skyrim videos too. It's like, oh, someone's itching at me to my my algorithm is telling me I need to play some Skyrim too. I think you guys. Oh yeah. But check out Ray. He's got the butcher Baker Candlemaker in space for any No Man's Sky stuff. Oh, it would be cool. I if you give me the heads up, I'll try to just log on that day. I still have No Man's Sky. I'll I'll log on for your anniversary event thing. You know, just give me a heads up. And a Skyrimatic podcast. Ray, thanks so much, sir. Good times. And Jess has many of her fantastic projects over there. Can all be found at Sleepis4T. Jess, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_13Thanks. Have a great week, y'all. And enjoy your bratsnatch.
SPEAKER_18Uh, bratsnatch. I can be found over here in the Discord and in the Facebook group, and the show is at the Fallout Feed. I'd like to thank everyone for downloading this edition of the Fallout Feed. We will see you in the Wasteland.
SPEAKER_14Thank you for downloading this episode of the Fallout Feed Roundtable. If you are interested in doing a play-along character with us, you can be contacted by emailing falloutroundtable at gmail.com. For the Roundtable Channel, our Amazon link and all other show information, please head on over to ASAPloadcasting.com, where you will find the follow up feed, subscriber medic podcasting, our YouTube channel, the chatterbox, as well as other content. Once again, thank you for downloading, and we'll see you in the wasteland.