Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 Review: The Wranglers

Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

4.5

After spending an episode catching up with all the locations, Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 kept things contained.

We got more time in the past, but all of that was linked to The Ghoul’s actions in the present day, giving us more of The Ghoul and Lucy.

Then we got a storyline in the wasteland with Norm, who came across a character from Fallout Season 1, prompting his own questions about his sister.

Dr. House Reveals Himself to One Person

Throughout the present-day storyline, Cooper makes a choice that he may or may not come to regret. He refuses to kill Dr. House.

It’s probably a good thing, because House knew everything anyway, and are we really that surprised? This is a man who has proven to be resourceful and smart with technology.

During Fallout Season 2 Episode 5, House even reveals himself to Cooper, making it clear that he has a body double out there. There’s no need to get into the whys of this, so there isn’t any time wasted on it at all.

Instead, the focus is on House and the bombs dropping, because he doesn’t seem to be the one pulling all the strings.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised about that, either. 

Why would House have needed the missile system to protect New Vegas if he was part of the team dropping the bombs? He could have just convinced everyone to avoid New Vegas, especially since Management would be on ice there.

House is clearly worried, though, because there is something he can’t predict. His computers are doing all the work for him to figure out when the bombs will drop — and I love that we see how one change in action can lead to a change in date — but they can’t give him all the answers.

So, now he knows that there is someone out there who is planning on dropping bombs. 

Could it be Barb? Maybe, but that doesn’t connect to something else that we know: Hank was communicating with someone in the present day during the Fallout Season 2 premiere.

All of this is starting to fall into place. House isn’t around, possibly because the cold fusion technology didn’t quite work the way he was planning, and instead, there’s another threat in town that has brought the monsters (known as the Death Claws).

Oh, and Hank knows this person, and he likely met him while they were in New Vegas.

My guess is Steph knows something as well, which is why she wanted the box in Vault 33.

Barb was likely involved in some way, but she probably wasn’t as in control as she expected to be, and part of that was due to going on ice in New Vegas rather than in Vault 33.

Hank Is In More Control Than Ever

In the present day, we get to see The Ghoul and Lucy deal with the situation in New Vegas. There are more Death Claws out there, and they manage to get to Freeside to gather supplies and figure out what to do.

There’s even a moment of honesty between them, as The Ghoul finally tells Lucy about his travels and about the vaults for Management. There was more than one, but the New Vegas one is clearly the biggest.

You just know that when two characters finally start opening up to people, something bad is going to happen, and it’s not that surprising to find out that The Ghoul betrays Lucy.

I am on The Ghoul’s side in this, though. It’s not like he had a choice.

For the last 200 years, he has searched for his wife and daughter, and he finally knows where they are. 

He doesn’t want something bad to happen to them, and Hank is the one with all the power.

Most people would end up folding in the way The Ghoul did, and at least, we see him feel bad about it.

Lucy wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and she certainly tried, but it didn’t quite work out. Hank turns up at the very end, and now there is a concern about what he’ll do to her.

Now, I do believe that Hank will find a way to get Lucy back to Vault 33, especially since he probably doesn’t know what’s going on with the vaults there right now.

I don’t believe he’s going to put her in harm’s way, and keeping her around will likely cause him problems now that he has the brain-computer interface working — and what a way to go getting the hack of a doc to be the one the chip works on!

The end of Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 certainly sets things up for Max to save Lucy and find out what happened to her, and maybe he can go and live in a vault with her, even if it’s not Vault 33.

Norm’s Secret Is Out

The only other storyline to happen throughout Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 was that with Norm, and it was a short one.

They arrive at the old Vault-Tec buildings, where they need to be to carry out the next part of the plan, but Norm starts asking way too many questions.

There is a poignant moment when Norm encounters the woman from Philadelphia who told Lucy to bring the artifact to Moldaver, but it brings bad news: she’s sure Lucy is dead.

Oh, if only she knew how resilient Lucy really is and what she’s up to. It just goes to show you can’t trust everything people say.

However, Norm doesn’t have much time to think about it, as his questions start to raise suspicion. 

Everyone can tell he wasn’t Bud’s predecessor, and not all of them are as happy about that as others. 

There are some who were loyal followers of Bud, showing us just how dangerous people can be when they’re in power, similar to the dangers of House, and they want to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.

However, others are willing to help Norm, and he learns that the next stage of the plan is actually an elimination process. 

Is it possible that the experiment in Vaults 32 and 33 had something to do with figuring out how to survive radioactivity?

We need to see Norm to survive to find out more about this, but instead, we leave him fighting for his life.

I am glad to see that those from the Bud’s Buds vault are finally sharpening up after the way they initially panicked when waking from cryosleep. Bud wouldn’t have picked dumb people for world domination, and now we’re seeing what they can potentially do.

Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 has left us with far more questions than answers, and it’s hard to believe there are only three episodes to wrap it all up, especially after focusing on only two locations during the episode.

Fallout airs on Wednesdays on Prime Video.

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