Editor’s note: This recap contains spoilers for Fallout Episode 5.

The Big Picture

• Lucy and Maximus team up, forming an alliance to find the head and save Lucy's father.
• The election in Vault 33 reveals secrets, with Betty winning as overseer as the mystery behind the vaults grows.
• Lucy and Maximus discover a destroyed city and later find themselves in another Vault.

Fallout's fifth episode takes its time building the dynamics between its characters and expanding the mysteries within this destroyed world. As we head into the back half of the first season, alliances start to form that will become important in the show's endgame, as we once more focus primarily on the stories of Lucy (Ella Purnell) on the surface and her brother Norm (Moisés Arias) exploring the secrets of the vaults underground. Episode 5 again finds a great balance in making both of these stories equally fascinating, as this world expands and shifts in truly exciting ways. Considering that this is an episode that focuses on a local election and a character getting shot by a rotten tooth, that's a pretty great accomplishment.

Lucy and Maximus Team Up in 'Fallout' Episode 5

The episode begins with Maximus (Aaron Moten)—still hiding his identity within his stolen Brotherhood of Steel suit—traveling alongside Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton), his squire, the head of Wilzig, and the newly found dog. Maximus and Thaddeus have clearly gotten closer since we last saw them, as they joke around at a campfire. Thaddeus mentions that he’s not officially a squire until he’s branded, which Maximus obliges, leaving a T mark on the back of Thaddeus' neck. Maximus admits that there’s something he needs to tell Thaddeus, who states that he can tell him anything. Maximus reveals that he isn’t Knight Titus, but actually Maximus, which shocks Thaddeus. Maximus says they can still be friends, but Thaddeus isn’t OK with that. He asks what happened to Titus, and Maximus replies that he’s dead. When it’s clear that Thaddeus is no longer on his side, Maximus goes to attack him and steps on his leg, but Thaddeus quickly puts Maximus' armored suit in standby mode, trapping Maximus inside. Thaddeus then takes Wilzig's head and the dog and goes on his way.

The next morning, Maximus is still stuck in the suit, standing up all night. As several radroaches close in on him, one of them is shot off the power armor. We see that the shooter is Lucy, who kills the rest of the radroaches, getting some of her anger out in the process as she stomps one of them to death. Maximus asks Lucy to let him out of the suit, and while she wants to trust him, she’s had a rough week and doesn’t know she can trust. She admits she’s looking for a head, then vomits from radiation sickness. Maximus points out that he has some RadAway in his suit that will cure her, but since practically everyone has tried to kill her since she’s been on the surface, Lucy is still understandably wary. She asks what his name is, and Maximus lies, saying he’s Knight Titus, even as Lucy gives her real name. She decides to trust Maximus, and she already knows how to manually override his armor, and quite a bit about the suits that she’s learned about from old engineering manuals. But as soon as she lets Maximus out, she passes out from the sickness.

Later, Lucy comes to thanks to Maximus’ supply of RadAway. Maximus admits he didn’t realize people lived in the Vaults; he believed that they were filled with monsters. He also mentions that his squire stole something that's vital to the Brotherhood of Steel. Lucy asks if the Brotherhood has more T-60 suits and guns, to which Maximus replies yes. Lucy puts together that both she and Maximus are looking for the head, revealing that she'd implanted a tracker inside. They can help each other: she can help him find the head, which he can take back to the Brotherhood, and in return, the Brotherhood can give her five or six knights to go save her kidnapped father (Kyle MacLachlan). Lucy says that Maximus could’ve lied to her (he did), and he could’ve let her die, but he didn’t. Together, they team up and set off to find the head once more.

In 'Fallout' Episode 5, It's Election Time in Vault 33

As they walk, Lucy asks Maximus what happened in the last 200 years, after the bombs fell. Maximus says that the bombs fell when he was a kid, which seems strange to Lucy. She then shares that the people in the Vault believe the world is what you make of it, and shares a story about how, as a kid, she thought the big light within the Vault was actually the sun, and her mom would take her to it. Because of her mom, the artificial sun felt real to her.

Speaking of the Vaults, back in Vault 33, the dwellers are voting on who will be the new overseer. While Woody (Zach Cherry) and Reg (Rodrigo Luzzi) are in the running, the clear favorite seems to be Betty (Leslie Uggams). We learn that Betty was already overseer once before, and even Reg decides to vote for her instead of for himself. Meanwhile, Norm looks through the Inter-Vault computer archive and learns that every overseer was originally from Vault 31 and transferred to Vault 33. After this discovery, we see that Betty has won the election with 98% of the votes.

Back on their journey, Maximus and Lucy cross a bridge and see two other people on the other side. The other pair asks if Maximus and Lucy are armed, to which Maximus lies and says they aren’t. The other two also claim they’re unarmed, but Maximus decides it’s not safe and tells Lucy to give him her gun. Lucy, predictably, tries to mediate the situation, suggesting that they count to three and everyone raises their arms and walks by each other. At first, it seems like it’s working, but when they come face-to-face, the other couple smiles and starts shooting at Maximus and Lucy. Maximus quickly kills both of them, but not before getting shot in the arm—which he says is nothing more than a cut. Maximus tells Lucy that this pair were fiends, who are people who eat other people. Lucy proclaims that she hates it up here — and from what we’ve seen so far, she has every right to.

At Vault 33, we learn that the vault has a saying when it comes to voting: “When things look glum, vote 31,” which has seemingly been the case literally every time there’s been an election. Norm goes to talk to Chet at his place about the revelation that every overseer has come from 31, and he says that Steph (Annabel O’Hagan) is also from Vault 31. Since Steph is at Chet’s apartment, now that the two are seeing each other, Norm asks Steph about 31. Norm admits that this father didn’t ever say much about Vault 31, and all Steph can think of to say is that the mashed potatoes were a little better there. Norm reveals that that’s also what his father used to say. Betty announces over the loudspeaker that she’s hosting an upcoming vaultwide meeting about the future of Vault 32.

'Fallout' Episode 5 Welcomes Us to Shady Sands, Capital of the New California Republic

As Lucy and Maximus keep on going, they come across a billboard for Shady Sands, which says that it’s the first capital of The New California Republic, boasting a population of 34,000 people. This information shocks Lucy, who had no idea that so many people lived on the surface after the war. Since everyone in the Vaults has apparently been waiting for Reclamation Day, when they would come up to the surface and restart the world, it seems as though her entire existence has been a lie. But Maximus says it didn’t work, and we discover that Shady Sands is now just a crater in the ground.

When Lucy asks what happened, Maximus says that it’s what always happens: everyone wants to save the world, they just disagree on how. Lucy also asks whether anyone survived, and Maximus tells her that he did. Via flashback, young Maximus comes out of a refrigerator in an area that’s been demolished, where he finds a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Lucy then realizes that Maximus’ wound is much worse than he originally let on. The head they're searching for will have to wait; they need to get Maximus some help now. They soon find the Hawthorne Medical Laboratories, Research & Development building. Lucy goes on in, while Maximus is uncertain of what they’ll find inside. But then Maximus follows, looking for Lucy, and as he enters a Medical Supplies area, the floor quickly drops out from under him, and he falls to the ground.

Down in the vaults again, we join the vaultwide meeting, where Betty says that Vault 33 should go see Vault 32 as a community and as a family, as it’s the only way they can rebuild together. Betty says that, after speaking with the overseer for Vault 31, they've agreed the best course of action is for some people in Vault 33 to stay in 33, while others will move into Vault 32. But Chet and Norm are both surprised to find that Vault 32 has already been cleaned up. There are no bodies, no blood, no signs of the carnage that they had found. The only thing that’s seemingly still destroyed is the computer terminal in the overseer’s office, where Norm learned that the vault door was opened by someone with his mom’s Pip-Boy. Betty finds Norm in the office and says the raiders destroyed so much, but not their spirits. Norm asks Betty what happened to his mom’s Pip-Boy when she was buried, and Betty knows immediately that it was buried with her. She knows this because Betty admits that she buried Norm’s mother herself, with the assistance of Norm’s father.

In the episode’s final scene, we find Lucy and Maximus both waking up on stretchers. Lucy gets up and looks out a window, which makes her smile. She tells Maximus that they’ll be all right, as they’re in the best place in the world: a vault. Earlier on in the show, several people told Lucy that she was going to have to adapt to the Wasteland, and that she was already changing. Hell, how many people have left the Vaults, let alone cut off a human head soon after leaving said Vaults? But as this episode concludes, we get ready to see just how much Lucy has actually changed, and what Vault life feels like to her now.

The best parts of this episode center on the new bond between Maximus and Lucy—the rare relationship that seems strong enough to weather the horrific nature of the world as it is today. This is another in a series of episodes that focus more on setting up dynamics and larger mysteries, but like the previous installments that have worked in this same way, Fallout shows that this is just as compelling as absurd action and bonkers violence. Sometimes, it's just as exciting to watch two people come together with a common goal of finding a decapitated head.

Fallout's first season is now available on Prime Video.

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