Fallout Season 1 Ending, New Vegas, Easter Eggs Explained

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

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

Who dropped the nuclear bomb?

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

A flashback to pre-nuclear 2077 shows a secret meeting between Vault-Tec and other vault companies as they make plans to keep their businesses going. The cabal is concerned that the current peace talks would render their products useless, so they decide to drop nuclear weapons themselves to guarantee that their vaults will become money makers. Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard, who later survives the nuclear war as a creepy bounty hunter, also realizes that his wife is one of the Vault-Tec executives pitching the diabolical idea. Cooper encounters a young Hank in the flashback and sets out on his quest, as the Ghoul, to find Hank years later.

What happens in the vaults?

The mysterious origins behind Vaults 31, 32 and 33 are also revealed. Vault-Tec planned for the last two bunkers to become breeding grounds for the creation of an ideal society. Vault 31 housed cryogenic pods where Vault-Tec employees remained safe until Vaults 32 and 33 found a successful test case for the reemergence of society.

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

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

Where is Hank flying 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 battles with giant roaches, dangerous devils, and a finger-covered flyper, but maybe a deathclaw is in the cards for season 2. The biggest Easter egg, however, is the New Vegas skyline that Hank stares at in the distance.

The 2010 game ‘Fallout: New Vegas’ was the follow-up to the 2008 hit ‘Fallout 3’. The spin-off is set around a rebuilt Las Vegas, where the New California Republic and other factions struggle for control. Players can explore the Mojave Desert, Hoover Dam, Black Mountain and other landmarks in the post-apocalyptic regions of California, Nevada and Arizona.

Fans of the “Fallout” franchise would certainly love to revisit New Vegas in Season 2. While a new season has not yet been officially greenlit by Prime Video, a recent report from the California Film Commission revealed that “Fallout” has been cleared to move to California and earn tax breaks to film a second season.