This article contains spoilers for Fallout episode 8, "The Beginning" and for the whole season. If you've not streamed the whole season just yet, here's how to watch the Fallout TV show instead.
Prime Video's Fallout TV show brings Bethesda's post-apocalyptic video game franchise to life in a new story set in the Wasteland. The series tells an original story involving three core survivors (Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul) whose tales play out across a version of Los Angeles more than 200 years after the world was completely transformed by nuclear war.
Fallout's season one finale packs in some huge reveals about the war, Vault-Tec's Pre-War goals, and it packs a chaotic final stand-off that ties together all the major players in the story. Lucy's finally reunited with her father and delivers Dr. Wilzig's head to Moldaver... but the woman who led a band of Raiders to Vault 33 all those hours ago has a few earth-shaking revelations in store for the former Vault Dweller. In short, there is a lot to unpack. Here's a full recap of how Fallout episode 8 played out so you can get your head around everything that happened.
Delivering the head
The finale opens with Maximus being taken to a Brotherhood of Steel base. There, he presents the fake head he took from the KPSS radio tower to Elder Cleric Quintus. He queries why Maximus is wearing the Knight's Retd suit; Maximus reveals Titus died in the field, and he took his place.
The Elder swiftly realizes the head does not contain the artifact they seek.Maximus pleads for his life, saying he can lead them to what they need. For his lies (and what happened to Dane at the Airfield), the Elder orders Maximus be executed there and then. to publicly execute him. Dane intervenes, revealing they inflict the wounds on themself (later explaining they did so purely to not be deployed to the Wasteland). With that, his death is called off.
Afterwards, Elder Cleric reveals to Maximus that he fears the Brotherhood has lost its way. They were once a greater presence in the Wasteland, but 'Power is taken, not earned'. Seeing that Maximus took Titus' place, the Elder senses Maximus understands this guiding principle about power. He asks Maximus to lead them to the artifact; with it, Quintus plans to rebuild the Brotherhood, with him at its head, and Maximus as its sword.
Lucy, meanwhile, has finally reached Moldaver's HQ, at Griffith Observatory, which is decked out in New California Republic banners. We then hop back in time with Cooper Howard, dropping Barb off at work at the Vault-Tec building. In the parking lot, he fires up the listening device, right as Bud Askins pulls up. Barb has noted her Pip-Boy has been transmitting to somewhere. Coop tries to skedaddle, but Bud collars him, rabbiting on about some sort of training regime for high-achieving executives — "Bud's Buds" — which could circumnavigate the brevity of the normal human lifespan. Bud and Barb head inside, as they have a "big day" incoming. Coop's listening device struggles with the range, so he heads inside Vault-Tec.
Inside the observatory, Lucy comes face to face with Moldaver. Hank's off to one side, kept in a cage. Moldaver is seated at a banquet table next to a ghoul, and welcomes Lucy in. After explaining all the things she thought about doing to the head and to Moldaver, the Vault Dweller hands over Wilzig's head. Moldaver extracts the chip in Wilzig's neck; in return, Lucy demands her father be released. Moldaver is willing to oblige but only after explaining how she knows Lucy's father... and who he really is. Back in Vault 31, we see what startled Norman so much; a small robot with a human brain inside. The robot is stunned to learn who Norman is and tries to inject him with something, claiming 'the secret must be guarded!'
Vault-Tec's mission
We hop back to Pre-War Vault-Tec next. Cooper Howard's ushered into an office, under the guise of waiting for his wife. An assistant asks whether she can bring Henry (the man who has been calling the Howard residence regularly) in to meet him. Cooper agrees, then sits down in a chair to listen in on his wife's work.
What he hears is truly troubling. He tunes in as Bud Askins, Barb and a number of Pre-War CEOs (from companies like REPCONN, RobCo and West-Tek) discuss the future of humanity. The peace talks between warring nations have hit Vault-Tec's bottom line, and this meeting sees Bud and Barb pitching these companies the opportunity to buy out a handful of the Vaults, offering them the chance to use them to run whatever experiments they like to foster 'the perfect conditions for humanity to thrive'. As Bud sees it, a nuclear war will wipe out everything on the surface, so the Vault Dwellers will ultimately win the game of capitalism by outliving everything else.
Back in 31, Norman easily evades the robot (with Bud Askins' voice) and switches on the lights... seeing rows of cryo-storage pods littering the walls. The robot explains that these people are all willing participants of the "Bud's Buds" program, which preserved highly-trained, agreeable executive assistants. That's clearly why the Overseers all came from Vault 31 - they were agreeable to Vault-Tec's cause. What's worse is Hank MacLean was one of them. When Norman subsequently asks who the residents of the other connected vaults were, Bud explains they served as a genetically selected breeding pool. Later, when Norm tries to leave, Bud seals the doors as Norman knows too much. And since there's no supplies down here, Norman faces starvation, unless he takes up the Bud-bot on the offer to take Hank's place in one of the cryo pods.
Back in the past, Cooper Howard listened in fear as the executives discussed their potential experiments. And when they ask how they can guarantee results from the scheme, Barb chillingly reveals Vault-Tec plans to drop the bomb themselves. She sees the apocalypse as an opportunity to establish a monopoly over the human race, with only the socially-engineered Vault Dwellers left to inherit the Earth, eradicating all conflict in the process. Shocked, Cooper is interrupted as the assistant introduces him to... a young Hank MacLean walks in.
At Griffith Observatory, Moldaver relays all the above info to Lucy. She further explains that she knew Lucy's late mother. Rose MacLean discovered that something on the surface was siphoning off water from Vault 33. From this, Rose deduced civilization must have sprung up on the surface. Moldaver says Hank dismissed Rose entirely; she realized Hank must be hiding things and fled Vault 33 with their young children in tow, arriving... at Shady Sands, where she met Moldaver! Hank came after her, and when Rose refused to leave, Hank stole the children away and ordered the razing of the NCR settlement. He is the reason Shady Sands is gone.
Moldaver goes on to explain the device in the head was the secret to Cold Fusion, which would provide them with limitless energy to rebuild a new world (research she had been working on, Pre-War; how she's survived all this time is unknown). Moldaver places the chip inside a machine capable of activating it, but she needs a code from Hank. Lucy asks what happened to her mother... and Moldaver points her to the Ghoul strapped to the other chair nearby. Hank says Moldaver is lying, but Lucy doesn't believe him and asks him to give up the code. He does so, eventually, and Moldaver fires up the Cold Fusion machine's initiation process.
Lucy seems paralyzed by all she's learned. Hank insists what he did was necessary to save his people and that Moldaver is no different to him. As she prepares to activate the reactor, the Brotherhood of Steel is sighted flying in on the horizon, and her troops prepare to defend the base. Left alone, Hank says he loved Rose... but she stopped being a mother once she took their kids up to the surface, a dangerous and cruel world.
Going separate ways
Scenes of utter carnage play out as the NCR and Brotherhood of Steel factions duke it out around the Observatory. From his cage, Hank insists his actions were just: Vault-Tec's approach to the world would ensure clashes between factions simply couldn't happen anyway.
Both Maximus and The Ghoul make it into the observatory during the battle. Maximus reaches Moldaver's room first. Whilst Lucy's stock still, Hank gets Maximus to release him. Max then tries to urge Lucy to flee the attack; she wants to abandon her father, explaining he's responsible for Shady Sands' bombing. Whilst Maximus processes the news, Hank has slipped into a suit of Power Armor. He knocks Maximus out cold; Lucy levels a gun from Maximus' holster at her father, though he's sure she won't hurt him.
Hank isn't getting out of here scot-free, though, as The Ghoul's made his way inside, too. With a wry joke about Hank "wanting another autograph", he fires a shoot at him. Since he learned Lucy was a MacLean, he's known she must be linked to Hank, and the Ghoul takes the opportunity to ask where his family have been, all this time.
Hank says nothing and flies away, using the Power Armor jets. The Ghoul offers Lucy a choice: either remain here, and be killed when the Brotherhood eventually wins the battle and takes the facility over, or join him and 'meet her makers'. He plans to follow Hank, who The Ghoul assumes must be flying away to the people running the chaos in the Wasteland.
Lucy points her pistol in The Ghoul's direction and fires... at Rose, killing the ghoul her mother became. With that, and a goodbye promise to 'find' the still-unconscious Maximus, she leaves the observatory with The Ghoul. Maximus wakes up sometime later, asking after Lucy.
Moldaver stumbles in, bloodied, and activates the Cold Fusion machine. She takes a seat next to Rose's corpse and asks Maximus to consider what the Brotherhood will do with the infinite power the machine offers, uttering her final words before succumbing to her wounds: "Maybe you can stop them, maybe you can't, maybe all you can do is try".
Dane and a platoon of Brotherhood members rush into the room. Dane proclaims that Maximus be knighted for killing Moldaver, and the scene fades with a close-up of Maximus, deep in thought, with his factionmates chanting his name.
Then, we get our final glance at Lucy, The Ghoul, and CX404/Dogmeat roaming the Wasteland, somewhere in the hills below the Hollywood sign. The episode then ends with Hank, still in his Power Armor roaming the desert. Stepping past a Deathclaw skull, he looks out onto the horizon. His destination? The city of New Vegas.
All eight episodes of the Fallout TV show are now streaming on Prime Video.
