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Now that was a season finale. From shocking revelations and fallen forces finding new strength, to renewed partnerships and the rebirth of hope, Fallout‘s emotional, intense, shocking second season conclusion was filled with revelations. Here are the most important takeaways we saw in Fallout season two’s finale.

The Enclave Is Behind Everything in the Fallout Series

Fallout finally made the terrifyingly implicit entirely explicit in its season two finale. The Enclave is the ultimate villain on the Fallout series. After teasing a connection between two powerful groups all season, Robert House told Coop the Enclave secretly invested in Vault-Tec. The Enclave were also the true owners of Vault-Tec’s Vegas vault, the one specially designed for high-ranking executives. The secret “player” at the table is still his “invisible adversary,” the one House could never could identify before the Great War, the one that has been way ahead of him since the bombs dropped.

The Enclave made Deathclaws. The Enclave had Coop arrested after he turned cold fusion over to the President of the United States, not knowing he was doing exactly what the Enclave wanted. And it was the Enclave Hank MacLean has really been working for this whole time, the one he’s been in service to. His keepsake trunk held a special Enclave Pip-Boy, the one Stephanie used to call for the initiation of Phase 2.

As we saw in Fallout‘s season two finale, The Enclave, a evil organization, is still everywhere, listening to everything out of a massive site in the mountains of what appears to be the Colorado/Utah area. It’s the same Enclave building we saw in Fallout season one when Siggi Wilzig escaped it with cold fusion in his neck. The Enclave is not just watching the world from that headquarters. It’s hearing every message that goes out into the world. It truly is the shadow power who destroyed the world and is now still running it.

Coop and Barb Never Really Broke Up

Cooper Howard’s reward for trying to do the right thing was a pair of handcuffs. The House Un-American Activities Committee arrested him the day after the gave secret Enclave POTUS the diode. Mr. House told Coop he admired him for playing the hero and wanted to make sure Coop knew he had nothing to do with his arrest. Coop then made sure his wife was not implicated. He told her to act surprised and let him take the fall alone so she could protect their daughter, Janey. A tearful Barb reluctantly agreed.

When the Ghoul finally opened his wife and daughter’s cryogenic pods in New Vegas, he learned they were still alive. It gave the cynical cowboy hope for the first time in 200 years on Fallout.

Barb and Janey Are Alive and Headed to Colorado in Fallout Season 2

Coop, despite his initial disappointment at finding empty pods, knows his family is alive because he also learned where they went. Barb left a postcard telling him Colorado was a good idea. It’s where he had suggested they go right before his arrest.

Hank and Steph Were Married Before The Great War

Before that sad airport farewell on Fallout season two’s finale, Coop and Barb learned that Hank MacLean was married… to Steph. The pair got married in Vegas after she got the drugged Hank out of Coop’s hotel room. Hank was how she “climbed the highest branch” just as her dying mother insructed her and landed a job at Vault-Tec. She did so by using a doe-eyed Hank as her ladder, but we bet Hank isn’t exactly as innocent as he appears either at this point in time.

Hank Wanted To Implant Lucy Before He Erased His Own Memories in Fallout Season 2’s Finale

Hank had given up on convincing his daughter Lucy to see his vision for the world. But he hadn’t given up on making her agree with him. He was going to use the miniaturized mind control chip he’d fine-tuned to make her the daughter he wanted. If the Ghoul had not shown up and shot Hank in the ass, Lucy would now be under Hank’s control. Instead, she put the chip on him as a deterrent. Or so she thought.

Once Hank conveyed to her the scope of his horrible mission, he used his own dial to erase his memories in Fallout season two’s finale. It was the only way to protect the work of the Enclave, his true employer, the one he had always been working for. Before Hank erased his own mind, though, he made sure he accomplished his mission.

The Wasteland Now Has Implanted People Carrying Out Century-Old Orders

Hank told Lucy the Vaults were never the “experiment” of this dystopian world. It’s the surface itself. He didn’t explain what that meant, but he did tell her his new R&D chip is already out in the wasteland. People he implanted with the device are not out carrying orders written centuries ago, presumably by the person(s) at the Enclave responsible for destroying the world. We don’t know what that mission is. We won’t even know who is carrying those ominous orders out because of Hank’s successful miniaturization.

Diane Welch Was Still Alive in the Fallout Season 2 Finale

Poor, good, wholesome, malice-free Congresswoman Diane Welch wasn’t just a computerized brain on a desk. It turns out she was alive until Lucy granted her the sweet reprieve of death. Hank and the Enclave had kept Diane alive as the ideal model for the nice people Hank was making in her image. Horrifying stuff!

Lucy and Maximus Are Back Together at the End of the Fallout

It wasn’t all bad for Lucy this episode. She finally reunited with the best person in the wasteland, Maximus. The two met in House’s penthouse high above new Vegas. Max survived his brave encounter with the swarm of Deathclaws after he got an unexpected assist.

The NCR Is Back in the Fallout Season 2 Finale

The New California Republic was down, but it wasn’t out. The NCR arrived in New Vegas to save the day on Fallout season two and gave the wasteland renewed hope. Because while the NCR is far from perfect, it’s far better and has more worthwhile ideals than most other factions around New Vegas. That includes an old enemy that also found new strength in Fallout‘s season two finale.

The Legion Has a New Caesar (And a Renewed War)

The civil war among the Legion ended with a new Caesar in Fallout season two’s finale. Macaulay Culkin’s Legate found the note left by the group’s founder. It named no one as successor. Legate instead killed the soldier who found him with the dead Caesar’s body, ate the note, and crowned himself the supreme leader of the group. He then said they would finally take New Vegas, setting up a pending war with its old enemy, the NCR.

Robert House Is (Still) Still Alive and Has the Cold Fusion Diode

Lucy knows she made the latest war between Legion and NCR soldiers possible, but it might never happen. Not with Robert House still alive in his computer. Despite Coop leaving the Pip-Boy with House deep down in the vault, we saw his visage flash back inside his penthouse high above New Vegas. That means House might still control his old tech around the city in Fallout season two’s finale. He has all the power he’ll need for it, too, as he now possesses the cold fusion diode, which is locked up in his office. Even if he eventually loses it, though, it’s not disappearing anytime soon.

The Cold Fusion Diode Can’t Be Destroyed Without Destroying the Planet (Maybe)

On Fallout season two’s finale, House told the Ghoul that if he blew up the diode it would destroy multiple planets, not just Earth. It’s very possible House was bluffing (and not just because he runs Vegas). The diode’s infinite power brought him back to “life” and is the only thing sustaining him now. But while House is many things, a liar he is not. He almost certainly told his old “chum” the truth about the danger of destroying that little pellet of cold fusion.

Quintus Has a Liberty Prime Alpha Plan To Destroy His Enemies in Fallout Season 2’s Finale

Quintus no longer wishes to unite the Brotherhood of Steel. He is going to destroy his enemies so he can rule. He plans to conquer those who stand in his way by turning to an iconic robot from the games, Liberty Prime Alpha, a superweapon that would make even a weakened Brotherhood an imposing force. Especially when it’s commanded by an angry zealot out for vengeance.

The Fallout Season 2 Finale Blew Us Away

If we destroyed the Cold Fusion diode ourselves, it wouldn’t blow us away as much as the Fallout season two finale. What an epic ending… we can’t wait for season three to come around soon.

Fallout season two is now streaming in full on Prime Video.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post The 13 Biggest Takeaways From FALLOUT’s Season 2 Finale appeared first on Nerdist.

The “demon in the snow” Cooper Howard saw during the Battle of Alaska was more than just a monster. It was a warning to Robert House that someone even more powerful and knowledgeable was ahead of him in the shadowy struggle for global dominance. Now we know exactly who that “player” was. Fallout‘s season two finale confirmed a terrifying fact it had teased throughout the season: the Enclave was secretly controlling Vault-Tec before The Great War. And The Enclave is still the biggest player in the Wasteland today, with plans even more nefarious than we ever imagined. Yes, the Enclave is the major villain in the Fallout series, and it’s just getting started.

Although the Fallout video games have never had a single antagonist, one organization always stood as the franchise’s most evil group. Now Prime Video’s Fallout series has centered that monstrous faction, the Enclave, as the ultimate big bad of the wasteland. The show’s season two finale was full of revelations about the cruel, anti-communist, paramilitary organization that named itself the rightful heir to the U.S. government following The Great War.

House first learned someone/something, a proverbial “player” in the game of world domination, was out there when he learned about Deathclaws. Despite his resources, algorithms, and genius, he never fully learned everything he needed to know about his “invisible adversary,” like how it invested in Vault-Tec. When Vault-Tec asked for a special executive vault in New Vegas, it was really on behalf of the Enclave, as the same person(s) ran both, even though most members of both did not know. One person who did was the Enclave’s “acolyte,” Fallout‘s Hank MacLean.

Vault-Tec executive Hank, like the Last President of the United States whom Coop gave the diode to, was always working for the Enclave. He even had a secret, special Enclave Pip-Boy he took with him into the vaults. We learned about it when his secret first wife, Stephanie Harper, used it to call out to the group she didn’t actually work for. Hank told Steph the Enclave is “always listening” and it surely was. We saw the Enclave headquarters in (what appeared) to be the Rocky Mountains. It’s the same place Siggi Wilzig, who worked for the “player” two centuries before and gave his life to get cold fusion away from the Enclave, escaped in season one. It’s also where Barb and Janey Howard might have gone after leaving their cryopods in New Vegas.

In Fallout season two, Hank had been working in the secret Enclave vault, perfecting miniaturization of the mind-control device Robert House had traded with Vault-Tec years before The Great War. Hank succeeded. And not just at shrinking the tech.

He told Lucy his new R&D was already out in the wasteland. No one will even know who out there is automated and who isn’t because the device is so small. But even more terrifying is that those unwitting soldiers—with personalities shaped by sweet, good-hearted Congresswoman Diane Welch’s (thankfully now dead) head—are carrying out orders. They’re orders, Hank says, that were written centuries before.)

Those orders came from the same people he worked for right up until his last act of service. In Fallout season two’s finale, Hank erased his own memories for the Enclave. That guaranteed Lucy couldn’t learn about those orders, who gave them, and who is really in charge. That includes learning more about the scariest thing her father told her. “You think this is the real world,” Hank said. “The surface is the experiment. Not the vaults.”

That is really scary since the Enclave and Vault-Tec, even before we learned they were really two parts of one evil whole, had long experimented on vaults. Stephanie just called in Phase II for her own vaults, which will involve FEV. And yet, somehow, the surface, and therefore nuclear war itself, is apparently all one big experiment. The Enclave, specifically whoever or whatever controls it, blew up the world to see what would happen on Fallout. And since then, they’ve been listening and watching everyone and everything out there. They made life itself a test subject.

The Enclave killed the world so it could study the fallout. And that wasn’t enough. Now it has slaves following commands no one even knows about. Robert House is right. So long as the Enclave endures, “there is no safety.” Not for anyone anywhere. And that’s been true for a long time.

Fallout season two is now streaming on Prime Video.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post FALLOUT Season 2 Confirms Major Villain & Teases Its Plan appeared first on Nerdist.

A woman might move after she realized a Hinge match wasn’t going to work out. That may seem like an overreaction, but it actually might not be. That’s because the Hinge match just happens to live in the same apartment complex, severely complicating the situation and making every elevator ride awkward for the two.

It started when TikTok user L (@okbishhhh) matched with a man who she knew lived in her apartment complex. Both she and her match played cool, acting like they didn’t know each other from occasional elevator rides and a few sparse sightings.

eBay is one of the largest destinations for bargain hunters where a plethora of vintage, preowned, and designer products across the site. Oftentimes, photos and descriptions of items can be deceiving, so you never know the quality of the item until you open that package.

As a result, American buyers (specifically those who have name brand taste) have been switching to Japanese eBay.