Fallout Season 1 Ending Explained: That Major Video Game Easter Egg, Who Dropped the Nuk

September 2024 · 6 minute read

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for the finale of “Fallout,” now streaming on Prime Video.

Fans of the “Fallout” video games and newcomers alike are enjoying Prime Video’s adaptation, as it tells a completely original story in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Set in a retro-futuristic 2296 after nuclear bombs decimated America, the Season 1 finale reveals some crucial information about who dropped the nukes and also teases at some video game Easter eggs that could appear in a future season.

Who dropped the nuke?

In the Season 1 finale, cleverly titled “The Beginning” after the series premiere “The End,” escaped vault dweller Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) discovers who dropped the first nuclear bombs back in 2077. It was Vault-Tec, the creators of the underground bunkers that Lucy and her family grew up in. In another twist, her father Overseer Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) is revealed to be a former Vault-Tec employee who had been cryogenically frozen and reanimated hundreds of years later.

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A flashback to pre-nuclear 2077 shows a secret meeting between Vault-Tec and other vault companies scheming about keeping their businesses afloat. The cabal is worried that that current peace talks would render their products useless, so they decide to drop nukes themselves to guarantee their vaults will become moneymakers. Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard, who later survives the nuclear war as a ghoulish bounty hunter, also realizes his wife is one of the Vault-Tec executives who pitches the diabolical idea. Cooper runs into a young Hank in the flashback, setting up his quest, as the Ghoul, to find Hank years later.

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What’s going on in the vaults?

The mysterious origins behind Vaults 31, 32 and 33 are also revealed. Vault-Tec planned for the latter two bunkers to be breeding grounds for making an ideal society. Vault 31 housed cryogenic pods that Vault-Tec employees safely remained in until Vaults 32 and 33 found a successful test case for the reemergence of society.

Back in present-day 2296, Lucy finds her father held captive by Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) when she learns the truth about him. Lucy convinces Hank to give Moldaver the cold fusion reactor core that had been injected into the severed head of scientist Siggi Wilzig (Michael Emerson). It’s also revealed that Moldaver had invented cold fusion in the pre-nuke days and had helped Lucy’s mother and kids escape to Shady Sands when she learned the truth about Hank. However, Hank eventually found his wife and kids, took them back to Vault 32 and decimated Shady Sands.

Season 1 ends with Hank escaping in Maximus’ (Aaron Moten) power armor and flying off amid the battle between the Brotherhood of Steel and Moldaver’s New California Republic raiders. Lucy joins up with the Ghoul/Cooper on his hunt for Hank, and Maximus survives a grisly bullet wound. When Maximus wakes up, he’s celebrated by his Brotherhood of Steel comrades for seemingly killing Moldaver, even though she simply died of her wounds.

Where is Hank flying off to?

As Hank escapes in his power armor, we see the horned skull of a deathclaw, one of the most ferocious “Fallout” monsters, in the wasteland. Season 1 featured fights with giant radroaches, dangerous fiends and a finger-covered gulper, but perhaps a deathclaw is in store for Season 2. The biggest easter egg, however, is the New Vegas skyline Hank gazes upon in the distance.

The 2010 game “Fallout: New Vegas” was the follow-up to 2008’s hit “Fallout 3.” The spinoff takes place around a rebuilt Las Vegas, where the New California Republic and other factions are fighting for control. Players can explore the Mojave desert, the Hoover Dam, Black Mountain and other landmarks in the post-apocalyptic California, Nevada and Arizona regions.

Fans of the “Fallout” franchise would surely love to revisit New Vegas in Season 2. While another season hasn’t yet been officially greenlit by Prime Video, a recent report by the California Film Commission revealed that “Fallout” has been approved to relocate to California and earn tax credits to shoot a second season.

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