Fallout TV show season one ending, explained

Prime Video’s bombastic adaptation of the beloved Fallout game series has been a wild ride through the atomic wasteland, unleashing nuclear-charged action and drama.

Episode eight serves as the season finale and delivers eyebrow-raising surprises and a whole host of plot twists. Let’s break down the revelations and brace for what’s to come next in this post-apocalyptic saga.

SPOILER ALERT! Continue reading at your own risk!

The big reveal: Who unleashed the atomic apocalypse?

The season one finale, cleverly titled The Beginning, a nod to the series opener The End, unraveled a massive plot twist. The ones responsible for the catastrophic nuclear war back in 2077 were none other than the true architects of atomic angst, Vault-Tec. That’s right, the creators of the vaults meant to protect humanity are actually responsible for its annihilation. Why, you ask? Because nothing says profit margins like global devastation, apparently. Vault-Tec and their corporate cronies cooked up a nuclear nightmare just to keep their vault doors slamming.

The show rewinds to get us a glimpse of civilized America in 2077. A covert gathering of Vault-Tech leaders and other vault-related businesses plot in a dark room on how to sustain profitability. They express their joint concern about the peace negotiations among nations, ironically threatening to make their apocalypse-proof products obsolete. In the most positively insane conversation for a group of individuals to ever have, they collectively decide the most “rational” course of action is to initiate said nuclear Fallout themselves.

In this twisted rationale, Cooper Howard, interpreted by a superb Walton Goggins, discovers his wife is one of the executives championing this deranged strategy. Amid these revelations, Cooper’s encounter with a young Hank MacLean (sci-fi film veteran Kyle MacLachlan) sets him up for a grim future and an insatiable quest for retribution.

More plot twists!

As the episode dives deeper into the Vault-Tec conspiracy, we learn the sinister origins of Vaults 31, 32, and 33. In present-day 2296, Vault dweller Norm, Lucy’s brother—who stayed behind in Vault 33—discovers Vault-Tec’s diabolical plan was to use these vaults as experimental breeding grounds to shape a new societal order once everybody on the surface was dead. Vault 31 served as a cryogenic holdover facility, preserving Vault-Tec’s managers’ and employees’ own in sub-zero tubes until the other vaults fulfilled their grim experiments.

The twists don’t end there! Lucy MacLean, portrayed with grit by Ella Purnell, discovers her father, Overseer Hank MacLean, is intricately linked to the conspiracy that brought on the end of the world. Formerly a Vault-Tec employee, Hank had been cryogenically preserved only to be revived centuries later. 

While Hank is a captive under the watchful eye of Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury), Lucy learns about her father’s true beginnings in the vault and the atrocities he has committed since. Not only is Hank responsible for Lucy’s mother’s deteriorated state as a mindless ghoul, but he personally nuked the entire city of Shady Sands when she tried to escape to the surface. In a thrilling twist, Lucy coerces him into yielding the codes to a cold fusion reactor core.

Season Finale Escapades

The season wraps up with Hank making a daring escape using Maximus’ power armor, literally taking flight amid a confrontation between the Brotherhood of Steel and Moldaver’s New California Republic raiders. Lucy, on the other hand, joins forces with the ghoul-turned-bounty hunter, Cooper, setting up an intriguing dynamic for the next season.

As Hank soars through the wasteland, he flies past the skull of a Deathclaw, a monster that players of the New Vegas games still have nightmares about today. His improvised flight takes him toward the crumbling skyline of New Vegas.

What’s next for Fallout on Prime Video?

Though not officially confirmed for a second season yet, the show has enjoyed tremendously positive reviews from fans and critics alike, which strongly suggests the next season may be well on its way on Prime Video.

According to Variety, the show’s impending California relocation suggests the wasteland will continue to be our playground for a while longer.

With new monsters and old locales teased, the next chapter promises to keep expanding on the lore fans love while charting new territories in the Fallout universe.