Fallout Season 2 Episode 3 Review: The Profligate

When we learned that Macaulay Culkin would be on Fallout Season 2, we couldn’t wait to see who he would play. It all came up on Fallout Season 2 Episode 3.

The episode is a little stagnant, slowing down Lucy’s story considerably. Things with The Ghoul don’t move much forward until the very end.

It’s really Maximus’s storyline that keeps this episode interesting, especially as we realize he’s made it to the soda factory.

Maximus and Thaddius Reunite

Let’s start with the highlight of the episode. The Fallout Season 2 trailer gave us a look at where Thaddius has ended up after becoming a ghoul.

He is now the “manager” of a soda factory, where children of all types — humans and ghouls — are working for him. It’s apocalyptic child labor, but I feel that this is the lesser of all the evils out there, considering that at least these kids are mostly safe.

It’s only when Maximus turns up that things take a turn, and it’s not even our favorite Brotherhood member.

Maximus ends up at the factory with Xander after they head out on an adventure to get out of Area 51. 

The Brotherhood factions want Quintus to hand over the cold fusion relic to the Commonwealth, and if he doesn’t, there will be civil war, but Xander isn’t just going to stick around to see what Quintus decides to do.

Xander wants to shoot some robots, and we get to see all the flashy gadgets that the Commonwealth has.

There’s a sense of jealousy from Maximus, but something I adore is that Xander doesn’t gatekeep anything. He wants Maximus to have fun, and there’s almost this sense that he wants Maximus to switch over to the Commonwealth.

That could have been possible had it not been for the Thaddius situation. As soon as Xander was going to kill Thaddius and the bunch of kids in the soda factory, Maximum had to do something.

He is not a man who will allow innocent victims, and not all ghouls are bad people — they’re not all abominations, as this post-apocalyptic world sees them.

Maximus would have this view even if Thaddius weren’t there, as we saw him immediately step back from the fight as soon as he saw one small boy.

Despite the pain of feeling as Lucy left him behind, Maximus hasn’t lost the goodness in his heart, and now I want the two of them reunited again.

The problem is that Maximus has to kill Xander to save the children, and he can’t exactly go back to the Brotherhood now. It looks like an adventure for Thaddius and Maximus to come.

Lucy Needs to Shut Up

Sometimes, Lucy needs to shut up.

I’m all for women speaking their minds, and there are times when she needs to call people out, but the way she goes up against The Legion is ridiculous.

Lucy literally watches them kill the woman she had just saved, and just because she “lost [her] Legionnaire.” 

That’s a huge deal in this world, but wouldn’t the woman have known this? Wouldn’t she have warned Lucy that going back to her people wasn’t a good idea?

Going back to die shows how brainwashed she was.

But back to Lucy, who quickly points out that the Legion wears Roman clothing but uses German titles, and it doesn’t make sense. Then she points out a flaw in a medieval term. 

She’s like the annoying kid at a party who points out the flaw of everything, and she’s not learning when to shut up to save herself.

It’s no wonder she ends up on a crucifix. 

Maybe she could have helped negotiate the conflict to avoid civil war between the two Legion Kaisers, but she already made it clear that she talks too much and doesn’t respect the Legion. By telling them that they’re probably the bad guy, she cemented her death.

She’s just lucky that she and The Ghoul have a special bond on Fallout Season 2. He was always going to save her!

But for Lucy, it was a pretty stagnant episode. She was left on a crucifix for the whole episode, slowly dying. She didn’t even look for a way to escape, which didn’t seem right for her.

I will say I enjoyed seeing Macaulay Culkin’s character. He does such a great job of just embodying whatever and whoever he plays.

With the way the episode ended, we’ve probably not seen the last of him, and he may end up taking some of Lucy’s words to heart eventually.

An Explosive Ending

Meanwhile, we get a flashback to how Cooper and House met for the first time, but it’s clear that Cooper has no idea who he is talking to.

Why would House specifically go to the military award ceremony to speak with Cooper? Does he know something about Cooper’s mission to kill him?

Look, he’s a brilliant and dangerous man, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he had bugged something or had ears somewhere. It could even be a Copenhagen Test thing where he’s managed to hack eyes and ears. 

At least, we got to see them meet, because I get a sense this is going to be important when in the present day, The Ghoul heads to what could be House’s, erm, house! 

He knows the robot Victor, and there’s a suggestion that House did something to ensure some survival — and that isn’t surprising, as Hank already believed that in the Fallout Season 2 premiere.

The Ghoul is a man who has clearly known many people. Again, that’s not surprising considering he’s been alive and kicking for 200+ years.

He decides to head out to a New California Republic base, where one of the soldiers there knows him.

Unfortunately for him, the NCR is down to just two soldiers. They’ve been cut off from the rest of the world by the Legion for the last 10 years, and they bring up Shady Sands as if it were yesterday, but it was 20 years ago.

The NCR is stuck, but they want to fight. Well, The Ghoul is making sure they’ll get to do that, leading The Legion to them and igniting the war with an explosion.

If it wasn’t for the explosive ending, The Ghoul and Lucy’s arc throughout Fallout Season 2 Episode 3 just felt wasted. I hope it picks up on Episode 4.

I’m going to have to binge-watch Fallout Season 2 once the entire season is out, because there’s a lot that will eventually connect. 

These slower episodes are needed because of that, but as a standalone episode, this one didn’t work. At least, one bad episode does not a show destroy.

Fallout airs on Wednesdays on Prime Video.

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