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Ross Bonaime is the Senior Film Editor at Collider. He is a Virginia-based critic, writer, and editor who has written about all forms of entertainment for Paste Magazine, Brightest Young Things, Flickchart, The Free Lance-Star, and more. Ross graduated from George Mason University with a focus in communications and journalism and a minor in film and video studies.
Ross is a Tomatometer-approved critic, a member of the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association, and a member of the Critics Choice Association. He has loved movies ever since he saw Cinderella in the theater as a kid, he can quote 10 Things I Hate About You and Wet Hot American Summer from memory, and is fascinated by all things Georges Méliès and Charlie Chaplin.
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Editor's note: The below recap contains spoilers for 'Fallout Season 2 Episode 5.
The fifth episode of Fallout Season 2, "The Wrangler," is a dense, narrative-packed hour of television that crams a lot into very little. From further explaining the end of the world and Robert House (Justin Theroux) to the continual moral decline of Lucy (Ella Purnell) and the growing humanity of the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a lot is going on as Fallout finally dives into Las Vegas. "The Wrangler" is a great example of Fallout at its best, with flashbacks informing the present, as well as an emphasis on the lengths people will go to protect the ones they love.
New Vegas Is Surrounded by Deathclaws in 'Fallout' Season 2 Episode 5
“The Wrangler” begins where we last left the Ghoul and Lucy, as they’ve just entered Las Vegas and come face-to-face with a Deathclaw. It turns out they’re actually surrounded by three Deathclaws, so of course, they run and hide. The Ghoul throws a grenade as a distraction, and they make their way past a gate and out of harm’s way. The next day, the Ghoul tells Lucy that Vault-Tec made Vaults for their management team, and that’s where his wife and daughter are. The Ghoul has found Vaults in California and Oregon that were empty, and he’s discovered there were quite a few Vaults for management, but he’s never found one in Vegas. Lucy figures out that if her father is in Vegas, then the Ghoul likely thinks his family and their Vault are there as well. But now, it won’t be so easy to get in, since Vegas is surrounded by Deathclaws. The Ghoul and Lucy make their way to Freeside, with Lucy trying to kick her drug addiction while the Ghoul heads to a bar to get drunk.
The Ghoul Meets the Real Robert House (Again) in 'Fallout' Season 2 Episode 5
Image via Prime VideoThe Ghoul saddles up to the bar and requests a bottle, while the bartender says the arrival of Deathclaws is just another change in management in Vegas. The Ghoul tells the bartender to stop talking, and as he leaves, The Ghoul catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, a cold reminder of how far he’s come. The episode flashes back to a news report, which mentions that different technology companies, including Valut-Tec and Rob-Co, are heading to Las Vegas to decide the future of the free world. The leader of this summit is Robert House, the founder of Rob-Co Industries.
Also heading to the summit are Cooper Howard (Goggins) and his wife Barb (Frances Turner), who are met at the airport by a young Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) with a Vault-Tec briefcase chained to his wrist. Hank goes off to make a call to Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury), who is in a nearby phone booth and is glad Cooper is doing the right thing by killing Robert House. Cooper finds a vial full of a red substance in the coin return, and Moldaver reiterates to him that the ends justify the means — that it’s all over if Vault-Tec gets hold of the bombs. Cooper offers to make a deal: he’ll stop the exchange and get the cold fusion back, but he won’t kill a man to do it, leaving the vial in the phone booth.
Cooper and Barb enter Las Vegas and head to the Lucky 38 Resort and Casino, which is being picketed by those upset about how these companies are influencing the government. Also outside is a cardboard cutout of Cooper, advertising for Vault-Tec, as he sees Representative Welch (Martha Kelly) being literally thrown out of the building. Cooper helps her up and tells her to keep fighting the good fight. Inside the Lucky 38, while Barb goes to talk to Rob-Co representatives, Cooper follows Hank to the bar, but then sees Robert House coming off an elevator. He approaches Cooper and whispers that Mr. House would like to see him. Cooper and the man everyone believes to be the real House make their way up the elevator and are greeted by the robot Victor from Episode 3. They're at the top of Lucky 38 in a suite with a huge computer setup, and behind it sits the real Robert House (Theroux), whom Cooper recognizes as the man who talked to him in the bathroom back in Episode 3. House has been eager to meet him, but reveals he also knows Cooper has come to Vegas to kill him.
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Later in the episode, in the same flashback, House admits he’s waited a long time to meet Cooper, and that their destinies are mathematically intertwined. Meanwhile, the fake House reveals he's pretending to be the real man for the last 10 years (hey, it’s a living). House reveals he was in Alaska with Cooper — not physically, of course, but House did have access to the armor Cooper was wearing. He saw everything Cooper witnessed, including the “demon in the show,” which House believes is connected to the future of the nation as well as Cooper’s wife.
Like Cooper, House says, he’s an apex competitor, the best at what they do. And House knows everything, including who is making what technology, so he can acquire it at the most lucrative moment in its span of functionality. House opens a wall and divulges that this week, he’s acquiring cold fusion from Vault-Tec and Barb Howard. House believes the tech will let him live forever in robotic form to protect Vegas from the upcoming nuclear war. Cooper mentions this war will be initiated by his wife, which House says is unclear. Cooper insists it'll be started by Vault-Tec then, but House doubts that, despite what both Cooper and House heard during that meeting. When Cooper says he thought House knew everything, House reveals that he uses mathematical paradigms to try and predict future events. One day, the data said the world would end, specifically on April 14, 2065, at 5:17 A.M. House asks whether this date is of any importance to Cooper, and Cooper admits that it’s his daughter’s birthday.
House points out that Barb was supposed to come by herself, and when Cooper decided to join her, the date the world was going to end jumped forward by one month. House doesn’t know how Cooper fits into all this, but he absolutely does, and House doesn’t like unknown variables. Cooper reveals that the people who wanted him to kill House think that House is going to end things by selling Vault-Tec the weapons it needs, but House insists the bombs won’t be dropped by him or any of the idiots at that meeting. There’s another player at the table, the same entity responsible for the demon in the snow — even though he doesn’t know who that is. House lives by the maxim that the house always wins, but now, he questions, what if he’s not the house? What if someone else is? As House puts on a strange helmet lit with odd diodes, Cooper posits that maybe House is just a lunatic. When House yells at Cooper, Cooper takes his leave, with House saying he’s trying to figure out who is going to destroy the world.
As Cooper takes the elevator back down, House declares that he knows exactly who Cooper is, and he’s not a cowboy; he’s a killer. When the episode jumps forward to the Ghoul sitting in that Freeside bar, it's clear this meeting still lingers with him after two centuries. After his conversation with the real House, Episode 5 reveals that Cooper settled in at the Lucky 38, drinking everything he could get his hands on. Protestors are being thrown out and people are patting Cooper on the back, but he’s in a daze as he makes his way through the lobby, shocked by what he’s heard from Robert House. In his drunken stupor, he’s led over to a mechanical ride that boasts a rocket instead of a bull. When Cooper eventually falls off the bomb, Barb is there to console him. After his wife takes him to their hotel room, Cooper coolly says that they need to talk.
The Snake Oil Salesman Is Back in 'Fallout' Season 2 Episode 5
Image via Prime VideoEpisode 5 also finally catches up with the Snake Oil Salesman (Jon Daly), who hasn't been seen last season, joyously heading down the road to Vegas with suitcase in hand. Even though he gets attacked by Radroaches at one point, they can’t keep his spirit down! At night, the Snake Oil Salesman is in the process of seducing a robot when Hank sneaks up on this “romantic” moment, hitting the Salesman over the head with a crowbar and knocking him out.
As Hank drives past Vault-Tec’s Cryogenic Biorepository, there are tanks with Barbara and Janey Howard’s names on them, although they’re too frosted over to offer any confirmation about whether they’re still inside. Hank brings the Salesman into his lab and connects one of his mind-control devices to the back of the Salesman’s neck, offering him the opportunity to forget everything, everyone, and every experience he’s ever known — which the Salesman agrees to quite quickly. As Hank cranks up the mind-control machine, however, the Salesman’s head doesn’t explode as all his other test cases have.
The Vault 31 Escapees Discover Norm's Deception in 'Fallout' Season 2 Episode 5
Image via Prime VideoMeanwhile, Ronnie (Adam Faison) has led Norm (Moisés Arias) and the rest of the Vault 31 escapees to Vault-Tec’s offices. Inside, the place is trashed, with corpses all around. They quickly plan on leaving when they hear a loud noise coming from behind a wall and are then held up by two squatters, Ma June (Dale Dickey) and Barv (Edythe Jason) — who we haven’t seen since the series' second episode — complaining about more Vault dwellers coming into their space. Barv tells the Vault 31 escapees that the noise behind the wall is a "roach farm," and even though they sound huge, they aren’t ready for market yet. Meanwhile, Ma June reveals she met Norm’s sister back in Filly, before the Brotherhood of Steel burned it down. Ma June says Lucy is dead, but Norm insists she doesn’t know that yet. Ma June says she’ll give him the same advice she gave Lucy: “Go home.” Eventually, Ma June and Barv leave the Vault dwellers behind, telling them they can pick up supplies on their way home.
As the escapees comb through the offices, Ronnie tries to contact Vault-Tec's investors — always important, even at the end of the world — while Norm talks to Claudia (Rachel Marsh) about what plans Vault-Tec might’ve had for the people in Vault 32 or 33. Since she'd only been on the job for a week before they were frozen, she doesn’t know much, but she does remember an executive named Barbara Howard, who was in charge of the Vault proposals. The pair finds her office, and Norm starts looking through Barb’s computer, with Claudia asking Norm if he’s really Bud’s successor. He admits that he’s not, and Claudia warns that the rest of the group will go nuts if they do find out — all of which Ronnie overhears from the hallway. As Claudia leaves to find a drink, Norm searches for "Future Enterprise Ventures" on the computer and finds no results, but when he types in F.E.V., it comes up with “Forced Evolutionary Virus.” Before Norm can read what that means, Ronnie unplugs the computer and fights Norm, strangling him with an electric cord and knocking him out.
Might as Well Face It, Lucy's Unaddicted to Drugs in 'Fallout' Season 2 Episode 5
In Freeside, Lucy makes it to Sonny’s Sundries, where she discovers that Addictol, which can get her unaddicted to drugs, has had its price raised 800%. As Lucy walks away, she sees the store’s back door open and sneaks in. She outmaneuvers the shopkeeper and grabs the Addictol, but before she leaves, she also finds a Powerfist weapon, which she also nabs. Lucy bags up her stolen supplies and notices a naked, dead body crammed into a barrel. When she's caught by the shopkeeper, she tells him she walked in the wrong door (she needs to up her Sneak perk, it seems). After noticing a picture of Sonny, Lucy realizes this man isn't the shopkeeper, who claims Sonny had to "leave town." When Lucy asks whether Sonny is actually the man in the barrel, the shopkeeper insists he tried to rob the place. The shopkeeper grabs his gun, and Lucy warns him that she’ll maim him, yet ends up shooting and killing him instead. When another customer walks in and asks Lucy who she is, she replies, “I don’t know.”
Out of the shop, Lucy takes the Addictol and immediately pukes the toxins out of her body. She finds the Ghoul in a hotel, and after she vomits a bit more, the Ghoul reveals that they’re not alone — and he’s even more morose than usual. They’re joined by the Snake Oil Salesman, who is now wearing a tie and khakis, and somehow looks even more nuts. He's come with a message from Hank, who's secure in an underground facility, and there's no way to reach him without an invitation. The Salesman also reveals that Hank is looking after the Ghoul’s wife and daughter while they’re resting in stasis, and that it would be a shame if Hank had to wake them prematurely. Hank is willing to make a deal: he’ll keep the Ghoul’s family safe, as long as he brings Lucy safely back to her Vault.
Through tears, Lucy admits they were actually starting to get along before the Ghoul shoots her with a tranquilizer. Lucy tries to fight back against the Ghoul, but she’s seemingly out. The Ghoul says when she wakes up, she’ll be home, and that family is a fucked up thing. But Lucy hasn’t been knocked out, as she puts on her Powerfist and takes the Ghoul by surprise, punching him out the window, which leaves him impaled on a pole. Lucy's still a little hazy as she fights succumbing to the tranquilizer, but then Hank enters the room, calling her his little "Sugar Bomb," and she finally passes out.
"The Wrangler," fitting to its name, has to wrangle a lot of details, storylines, and characters into the final hours of Season 2, but does so extremely well. This season has often focused primarily on Lucy's fall from grace and the Ghoul's troubled past, and narrowing in on that leads to an incredibly strong episode that puts them in interesting places. We knew getting to Las Vegas was going to be wild, but "The Wrangler" truly shows just how much it's going to test our characters going forward.
Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 is now streaming. New episodes premiere every Wednesday on Prime Video.
Release Date April 10, 2024
Network Amazon Prime Video
Showrunner Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan
Directors Frederick E. O. Toye, Wayne Che Yip, Stephen Williams, Liz Friedlander, Jonathan Nolan, Daniel Gray Longino, Clare Kilner
Writers Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan
Pros & Cons
- "The Wrangler" is able to compress a ton of information into a great episode of Fallout.
- The narrow focus on the Ghoul and Lucy is a solid choice for an episode this packed.
- While we get some important answers, the episode also leaves more questions to consider.
- Vegas is wild!
English (US) ·