"The Head"

"The Head" is the third episode of the first season of the Fallout TV series.

Synopsis[]

Summary[]

Sometime before the Great War, Cooper Howard is filming the Western movie The Man from Deadhorse at California Crest Studios. He films a scene where his character, a sheriff, declares "Feo fuerte y formal" ("He was ugly, strong, and had dignity") as he confronts the villain Joey Toro, played by Jorge. Cooper objects to his character killing the villain as the script dictates. The film's director Emil Dale explains that the scene is meant to show that even a good man can be driven to commit terrible acts. Cooper tries to call in one of the writers, Cadillac Bob, and the director tells him Bob has been fired after he was discovered to have communist ties. The director details that the movie's theme focuses on strong individualism in a lawless world. Cooper cuts the conversation short when he sees his wife Barb nearby. She gives him a piece of lavender taffy, which he finds disgusting. Barb gives Cooper his costume for a photo shoot, and they cheerfully head toward the trailers with their daughter Janey, who races her father there.

In the present day, the Ghoul inspects Wilzig's headless corpse with CX404. He starts coughing and downs a vial containing an unknown chem to ease his symptoms. They both leave to look for the missing head.

Lucy wanders through the wasteland carrying Wilzig's head. Inspecting the head by her campfire, she notices a pulsating blue bead in the skin behind the ear, which shocks her when she tries to touch it. She sticks a tracking chip in the head just in case.

Maximus assesses his damaged power armor, removing a crucial broken piece. The voice of Petty Officer Shortsight of the Brotherhood of Steel comes through the armor's radio transmitter and questions "Knight Titus" for missing his scheduled check-in. They're unaware that Maximus had left Titus to die and taken his armor. Maximus takes advantage of this and the fact that the T-60 has a modulator to disguise his voice. Impersonating Titus, Maximus reports having been attacked by an "abomination" and claims his squire was killed in battle. Shortsight insists on sending a replacement squire, causing Maximus to panic and destroy the transmitter. He leaves behind the armor to search for a mechanic to repair the damaged piece.

In Filly, the residents are recuperating from the previous battle. Maximus finds a mechanic who demands five caps to repair the piece; Maximus only has four. Hence, he sells one of his teeth to pay for the rest. The mechanic briefly welds the piece and takes his money.

Returning to the armor, Maximus finds scavengers trying to steal it. They beat him up and manage to open up the armor. Maximus returns for a second round and, this time, sticks his arm in the sleeve of the armor, using it to crush the head of the scavengers' leader, Tom. The others flee while Maximus sees a Vertibird arrive with his new replacement squire. To his shock, his new squire is Thaddeus, his main Brotherhood bully. He hastily reattaches the repaired piece and puts on the armor before Thaddeus greets him. Maximus also contemplates crushing Thaddeus's head, but the latter begs for his life and swears his loyalty to him. Maximus decides to make Thaddeus his personal manservant instead. Thaddeus reports that whoever finds the target will control the wasteland, and they are to kill anyone on their path to find it.

Lucy navigates Hollywood Boulevard, which has become a flooded lake. She has a tender moment feeding a fawn before it is suddenly dragged into the irradiated lake by a mutated gulper. The gulper also steals the head and swallows it. Before she can try to retrieve it, the Ghoul shows up, draws a gun on her and demands the head, but soon realizes the gulper got it.

Inside Vault 33, Chet mourns Lucy's departure. He and Norm are punished for helping Lucy escape by being reassigned, with Chet lamenting he has lost his identity without his job as gatekeeper. The council struggles to decide where to place Norm since he has shown equal apathy in every job he's ever had, but they eventually settle on having him serve food to the imprisoned raiders.

Maximus enjoys ordering Thaddeus about with difficult and inconsequential chores, such as climbing a tree to pick a (nonexistent) apple. As they travel, Maximus talks about being prevented from following Lucy and Wilzig by the Ghoul. Thaddeus assumes he killed the Ghoul according to the Brotherhood's policy against mutants, but Maximus says the Ghoul is alive. Thaddeus interprets this to mean that Maximus allowed the Ghoul to get a head start to lead them to Wilzig. Thaddeus begins tracking the Ghoul's radiation trail. They later find Wilzig's headless corpse. Maximus deduces that his head is the true target and falsely assumes the Ghoul is responsible for decapitating Wilzig. Thaddeus claims that the Brotherhood will someday "eradicate every last one of those freaks." Thaddeus refills Maximus's water bag and reminisces about his childhood growing up on a fly farm. At "Titus"'s urging, he admits that he used to beat up Maximus because he was also beaten up as a young recruit and regrets that Maximus didn't live long enough to find someone to beat up himself.

The Ghoul ties Lucy to a waterside pulley and repeatedly lowers and raises her from the water. She begs him to stop torturing her and he recalls a pre-War study claiming that torture is ineffective, which he agrees with. Lucy questions why he is torturing her if he believes that; he clarifies that he is not torturing her, but using her as bait. The "bait" successfully lures the gulper and emerges, but the Ghoul cannot suppress it, and it attempts to swallow Lucy. Lucy beats the monster with the Ghoul's bag to defend herself, and it eventually retreats. The Ghoul opens his bag and realizes his supply of vials has been destroyed. Furious, he yells expletives at Lucy and she snaps at him for his cruelty, bringing up the golden rule ("Do unto others as you would have done unto you"). The Ghoul abandons the gulper and CX404 and starts dragging Lucy away with him despite her insistence that they retrieve the head. He tells her the wasteland has its own golden rule: "Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time."

In Vault 33, a meeting is held in the atrium to decide the fate of the imprisoned raiders. Woody Thomas suggests they educate and gradually integrate the raiders into Vault society, which most of the dwellers agree with. In particular, Davey offers to teach the raiders Shakespeare and Marlowe. At the same time, Marianne the Vault scholar insists on teaching them morals first in the form of Kant and Mill, and a third dweller offers to teach calculus. Meanwhile, the suggestion does not sit well with Norm and Steph. Scoffing at the thought of educating the raiders, the council calls out Norm, who suggests they simply execute the prisoners, but the idea is shot down. Just then, an engineer comes in, saying he has bad news to deliver in private. Woody and Reg make him tell the entire assembly despite his reservations. The engineer announces that the Vault's water chip is broken; without it, the Vault's water supply will last less than two months. The residents begin to panic, and the meeting is adjourned. Steph, whose husband Bert was killed by the raiders, quietly tells Norm she agrees with his idea.

Maximus and Thaddeus track the Ghoul's trail to the lake, which apparently leads into the water. It dawns on Thaddeus that the trail may be mixed up with a different "abomination" as the gulper attacks them. Maximus orders the less protected Thaddeus back to shore while he shoots the gulper, but misses all of his shots. The gulper lunges from the water and attacks Maximus but is wounded by a gunshot from Thaddeus. Angered, it crawls onto shore and attempts to swallow Thaddeus. Maximus pulls him out, causing the gulper to regurgitate its stomach contents. They see CX404 licking the regurgitated head nearby and celebrate their success.

The Ghoul marches Lucy through the desert, and they walk through the ruins of California Crest Studios. Lucy begs the Ghoul to share some of his drinking water with her; he ignores her and lets some water spill out for good measure. They pass some filthy and irradiated water, and the Ghoul tells Lucy that nothing stays clean on the surface. She asks if radiation caused his current appearance, and he responds, "Something like that." Lucy sees a billboard showing Vault Boy giving a thumbs-up, and the Ghoul spitefully shoots a hole through the mascot's head.

In the past, Cooper Howard emerges from his trailer at California Crest Studios wearing a Vault jumpsuit. He arrives on the set for a photo shoot where Barb, who works as a Vault-Tec Corporation executive, has asked him to shoot some advertisements for the company to give them a celebrity endorsement, meeting junior executives George Yaffe and Sarah Clements in the process. Before the shoot begins, Cooper asks the executives whether the Vault jumpsuits are radiation-proof; they shoot glances at each other before hastily saying yes. During the shoot, Cooper suggests he give a thumbs-up for some of the pictures, and one of the Vault-Tec employees agrees, indicating that Vault Boy will be modeled after Cooper.

Credits[]

The sequence focuses on a stretch of elevated freeway in Hollywood, with the Hollywood Sign visible in the distance. The shot starts on a partially ripped Vault-Tec "Prepared for the Future" billboard, such that Vault Boy is divided in half with Cooper Howard as the other half (further hinting at their connection). The camera pulls back to travel along the underside of the freeway, revealing destroyed vehicles and buildings, skeletons, and a makeshift graveyard. Eventually, the camera reaches another billboard advertising the Mister Handy, which reads "Mr Handy: Your New Best Friend." Eventually, the camera passes into a destroyed urban area and cuts to black.

Cast[]

Starring:

Guest starring:

Co-starring:

Stunt performers:

Soundtrack[]

• The Ink Spots - "Maybe"
• Johnny Cash - "So Doggone Lonesome"
• The Ink Spots - "We'll Meet Again"
• LaVern Baker - "Tweedle Dee"
• Glenn Miller - "In the Mood"
• Buck Owens and the Buckaroos - "Act Naturally"

Behind the scenes[]

The scene of the Ghoul marching Lucy across the desert and denying her water is likely a reference to the spaghetti Western film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which was a major influence on the Fallout TV series. In the film, Tuco (the ugly) marches the Man With No Name (the good) across the desert and forces him to watch him wash himself as the Man is dying of thirst.

Gallery[]

The Ghoul

The mirelurk attacking Maximus; water effects were handled by Lucas Stringhetti^[1]

References[]