DISCLAIMER: This recap of Fallout Season 1 Episode 5, “The Past,” contains spoilers. Proceed at your peril.
Fallout‘s “The Past” finds Lucy and Maximus joining forces to help each other. Meanwhile, Norm uncovers a conspiracy in Vault 32 as Betty is unsurprisingly elected as the next Overseer of Vault 33. It’s another fun, darkly comedic (and bloody) outing that fills in a few blanks and asks twice as many questions. I don’t expect this season to tie every narrative thread into a bow, especially since the creatives are gearing up to shoot Season 2. That said, I hope we get some hefty movement in the final three episodes of the season.
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Episode 5 — Best Friends for Never
We open with Maximus (Aaron Moten) and Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton), celebrating their successful snagging of Dr. Siggi Wilzig’s head. Thaddeus persuades Maximus to brand him since the former is now the latter’s squire. Well — Thaddeus thinks it’s Knight Titus branding him. Maximus brands Thaddeus, but his guilt takes hold.
He removes his face shield, showing Thaddeus that he’s not Knight Titus. Maximus explains that KT is dead; however, lying aside, he believes they can still be friends. They need to get their stories straight for the elder clerics.
The two get into a brief scuffle, resulting in Maximus stepping on Thaddeus’s foot. An injured Thaddeus leaves, but not before putting Maximus’s power armor in standby mode. Maximus is frozen in place as Thaddeus steals Wilzig’s head.
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Next, Maximus wakes up the following morning after spending the night in the power armor. A cluster of gigantic cockroaches swarm him, climbing atop the suit. Thankfully, Lucy (Ella Purnell) blasts them to hell. She even stomps on one for good measure. Methinks she needed that as a release. Lucy removes Maximus’s face shield. He breathes a sigh of relief.
Radiation Sickness
Lucy asks if he saved her in Downtown Filly. Then, she vomits. Maximus tells her she has radiation sickness. He can give her RadAway if she helps him out of the power armor. Neither is very trusting of the other. All it took was a week or so above ground for Lucy to stop trusting people.
However, Lucy obliges, getting Maximus out of the suit. She introduces herself as Lucy, but Maximus tells her his name is Knight Titus. Suddenly, she faints. Maximus catches her.
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Meanwhile, Norm (Moisés Arias) and Chet (Dave Register) continue exploring Vault 32. They stumble upon the exit and see a few corpses about the door. The Vault 32 denizens were desperate to escape to Vault 31. “We Know What’s in There” is scrawled on the wall in blood. Norm wonders how the Raiders got ahold of his late mom’s Pip-Boy.
Planting Potatoes
Chet and Norm return to Vault 33 to prevent suspicion from the council. However, Betty (Leslie Uggams) asks them where they were. Norm and Chet claim they were planting potatoes. She seemingly buys the excuse.
Then, Lucy wakes up, noticing she’s hooked to a pouch filled with RadAway. She looks better. Meanwhile, Maximus conceals the power armor under some tarps. Maximus wishes her luck and prepares to depart. Lucy stops him, proposing they join forces. They both need Wilzig’s head. She can help him find it and take it to the Brotherhood of Steel. Then, they can enlist the aid of the knights and Brotherhood weaponry to storm Moldaver’s headquarters and save her father. Maximus agrees to this, and the two set out on their joint adventure.
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Later, we see it’s Election Day in Vault 33. Betty, Woody (Zach Cherry) and Reg (Rodrigo Luzzi) are running to be the next Overseer of Vault 33. Reg stands in line to vote with Davey (Leer Leary), who admits he’s voting for Betty. Betty delivers a speech over the loudspeaker. She believes they need a strong leader to prepare them for Reclamation Day, whenever the vault dwellers return to the surface to repopulate the Earth.
Reg tells Davey it’s okay that the latter isn’t voting for him. That’s the beauty of democracy. When Reg gets to the voting booth, he stares at his ballot for a few seconds before voting for Betty, too. He knows he won’t win.
Up to Speed
Next, Lucy and Maximus walk along train tracks while getting to know each other. Lucy asks him to give her the CliffsNotes version of what transpired 200 years ago after the bombs dropped. She admits she’s naive. When she was little, she thought the sun was the big light in their cornfield projection. We see a flashback featuring Lucy’s mom, Rose (Elle Vertes), and a young Lucy (Luciana VanDette).
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Meanwhile, Norm reads the extensive list of previous Overseers. He notices one pattern: they’re all from Vault 31, including his dad. Betty, also from Vault 31, served as Overseer before. Sure enough, Betty wins the election by a landslide. Norm congratulates her as she hands him a piece of cake. He looks suspicious.
Then, Maximus and Lucy run into a couple on a bridge. All four people stop walking. Maximus informs them that they’re unarmed. Lucy is taken aback. She wonders why Maximus lied to them. The couple also claims they don’t have weapons. After nobody moves for some time, Lucy tries to defuse the situation. When that doesn’t work, she urges the strangers to put their hands in the air. She and Maximus will do the same.
A Standoff
Maximus and Lucy move to the side of the bridge with their hands up. They slowly move forward as the couple does the same, only they’re moving in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the woman of said couple notices Lucy’s Pip-Boy on her wrist. She reaches for her weapon, but Maximus is quicker on the draw. He shoots the woman and the man. However, not before the man fires a bullet that grazes Maximus’s arm.
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Lucy notices the bullet wound in Maximus’s arm, but he brushes it off, claiming it’s nothing. She wonders why he killed them. He reveals that they’re fiends, meaning they eat people. Maximus shows her the knife in the woman’s coat pocket. This scene is legitimately tense. The creative team does a fine job churning out these high-octane, white-knuckled narrative beats.
In Vault 33, Davey notices Woody staring longingly at his campaign poster. Davey tells him that he ran a strong campaign. However, Betty is better. Davey admits he voted for her. I’m glad this dude is so honest about his voting preferences. Meanwhile, Chet and Norm chill with Steph’s newborn baby while she showers. Norm asks Chet if he thinks it’s weird that only Vault 31 folks have been Overseers in Vault 33. Norm realizes he doesn’t know much about Vault 31.
The Past
When Steph (Annabel O’Hagan) emerges from the shower, he asks her if there’s anything distinct about Vault 31 compared to 33. She remarks that the mashed potatoes are better there. Norm notes that his dad said the same thing. Well, it must be true.
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Later, Lucy and Maximus wind up in Shady Sands, the capital of the New California Republic. Lucy discovers the town was established in 2142, decades after the nuclear war started. Lucy informs Maximus that vault dwellers were always led to believe they’d repopulate the Earth for Reclamation Day. Maximus reassures her that these efforts to restore normalcy didn’t pan out.
Then, the pair discover a massive sinkhole from the bombs dropping. Maximus recalls how the Brotherhood of Steel found him after that fateful day. We see young Maximus (Amir Carr) encountering a knight after emerging from a milk bottle fridge. Adult Maximus clutches his chest in pain. Lucy notices his wound is bleeding profusely. She ties a tourniquet around his arm.
Falling Through the Floor
Thankfully, they stumble upon a hospital. Inside, Maximus loses Lucy. He calls out for her, moving cautiously through the empty corridors. Then, he becomes entrapped in a space with handle-less doors. Smoke appears, and the floor seemingly opens beneath Maximus’s feet as he falls.
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Next, Betty leads Vault 33 into Vault 32. She states that her first edict as Overseer is to split Vault 33 into two groups. Some can stay behind to help rebuild, while the rest can move into Vault 32. Norm notices that whoever cleaned up Vault 32 did an impeccable job—all the corpses are gone.
Norm asks Betty about his mother’s Pip-Boy. What happened to it? Betty claims she and Hank buried it with Norm’s mom. Norm looks incredulous as Betty walks away. Meanwhile, Lucy and Maximus wake up on stretchers. They fell through a chute. Lucy looks ecstatic as they peer through the window to a world that’s all too familiar to Lucy.
They’re in another vault.
RELATED: Read all of our Fallout recaps here!
In which vault are Lucy and Maximus? Who will move into Vault 32? How far will Norm dig into this case before someone stops him? Why did the Vault 32 residents wish to escape? Only time (and more episodes) will tell.
Fallout Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.
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