"The Target"

"The Target" is the second episode of the first season of the Fallout TV series.

Synopsis[]

Summary[]

In the past, Enclave researcher Dr. Siggi Wilzig helps breed dogs. He's disturbed the Enclave's practice of incinerating newborn puppies that weigh less than ten ounces and falsifies a record to spare the life of an underweight female puppy. The dog is given the designation CX404. Over the years, Wilzig has specially trained the dog and cared for her while working on an unauthorized research project. The fruit of the project is a small pulsating blue bead that Wilzig injects into his neck. One day, one of his co-workers discovers the project and reports him, but CX404 mauls and kills him to protect her master. Wilzig and CX404 flee the facility under gunfire from a turret.

In the present, Lucy wanders through the ocean-side ruins and discovers the long-dead remains of a family. They apparently poisoned themselves with suicide pills from a bottle labeled "Vault-Tec Plan D". She spends the night by a campfire and is woken up when CX404 approaches her camp and kills and eats a nearby Radroach. Lucy notices Wilzig sitting nearby. He talks about how radroaches became larger and more predatory when they evolved from cockroaches. Wilzig urges Lucy to go home, doubting her ability to adapt to the dangerous and violent wasteland. Lucy asserts that she is not going back without her father. Wilzig suggests that her desires will change when she becomes a "different animal" and leaves with CX404.

On the way to Filly, Maximus attempts to bond with Knight Titus to no avail. Titus demands they touch down early out of boredom. The two trek through the wilderness while Maximus carries the luggage. Simultaneously, Wilzig and CX404 stop to rest by some discarded chemical waste barrels. CX404 enters a cave and leaves carrying a human hand in her mouth. A horrified Wilzig realizes a dangerous monster is nearby. Later, Titus and Maximus happened upon the rest of the site and found evidence that their targets were there. Titus orders Maximus to investigate inside the cave before being attacked by a Yao guai who destroys his weapon. Titus attempts to flee from the bear, but it mauls him outside the cave. Titus screams at Maximus to help him, and he shoots and kills the bear. Maximus removes the helmet off an injured Titus, who orders him to administer a stimpak to him while blaming him for the attack and verbally abusing him. Disgusted by his cowardice and tired of the mistreatment from him, Maximus withholds treatment from Titus. Titus warns his squire that he'll be executed for allowing his charge to die, but Maximus claims he'll be forgiven if he brings back the target.

Lucy encounters a farmer in a house in the desert, attempting to fix a water filter by putting sand in it. She offers him a sip of her drinking water, and he drinks the entire bottle. He directs her to Filly despite having never been himself; he claims people often get killed there, including several of his relatives. The farmer suggests that Lucy live with him and claims to be dying. She declines and starts heading towards Filly.

Maximus puts on the dead Titus's T-60 power armor, which grants him incredible strength. In some ruins, he sees a chicken collector beating a salesman and intervenes, setting the salesman free. He praises Maximus as a "scholar and a gentleman" and admonishes the farmer for punishing his "scientific curiosity". As the salesman runs off, the chicken collector tells Maximus he was beating the salesman for sexually molesting his chickens. Maximus sheepishly backs off and realizes his suit contains jets in the arms.

Lucy walks through the Filly marketplace and is disconcerted by the inhabitants' rudeness and lack of helpful information. Downtown, she doesn't notice the Ghoul sitting wayside, but finds a store filled with multiple items produced by Vault-Tec. The shop owner, Ma June, realizes Lucy is a Vault Dweller and laughs in her face. Her attitude hardens when Lucy mentions Moldaver and orders her to leave immediately. Lucy asserts the Vaults' mission to save America, but Ma June denounces the Vaults as "a hole in the ground for rich folks to hide in while the rest of the world burned." Lucy leaves, despondent. As Lucy leaves the store, Wilzig and CX404 run into her as they arrive in Filly. His knowledge of her Vault surprises her, and he once more encourages her to go home. Ma June greets Wilzig and again orders Lucy to leave. The Ghoul interrupts, and Ma June firmly reminds him that ghouls are banned from Filly. He ignores her and reports the large bounty and Wilzig's head. Ma June reveals she's been paid to transport him out of Filly, and the Ghoul shoots Wilzig's foot off. Ma June loudly offers a thousand bottle caps to whoever can kill the Ghoul.

A shootout breaks out as several Filly residents try to take out the Ghoul and are promptly dispatched. Amid it, the Ghoul eats some cherry tomatoes from a vendor and "pays" for them by dropping some caps on the ground. He takes several bullets in the back to little effect and kills the other shooters. He injures Ma June and is mauled by CX404; he stabs the dog as Wilzig watches in horror. Lucy runs into Ma June's backroom and inspects her ledger, finding a transaction with Moldaver recorded in it. Returning outside, Lucy attempts to non-violently de-escalate the conflict and warns the Ghoul to stand down. The Ghoul, undaunted, steps forward, and Lucy shoots him in the chest with a tranquilizer. He plucks it out of his chest, and calls it "a very small drop in a very, very large bucket of drugs" and aims his gun at her. At that moment, Maximus flies-in. He introduces him as Knight Titus and orders the Ghoul to surrender. He protects Lucy from a bullet, briefly shows his face to her, and asks her to protect Wilzig while Maximus fights the Ghoul. Lucy and Ma June help Wilzig into the shop while Maximus engages the Ghoul.

Inside, Ma June orders her assistant Barv to retrieve a prosthetic replacement foot for Wilzig from a box labeled "Jim's Limbs". Ma June fashions the foot to Wilzig's stump, a process that involves crudely shredding the end of it. Out of options, Ma June asks Lucy to take Wilzig to her client, and she declines until Ma June reveals her client is Lee Moldaver. She suggests using Wilzig as a bargaining chip and programs the coordinates into Lucy's Pip-Boy. Wilzig and Lucy flee the town as the fight outside grows heated. In the marketplace, they pass the snake oil salesman Maximus helped, and he claims to have a serum to regenerate Wilzig's lost limb. They ignore him and press forward.

The Ghoul ultimately exploits Maximus's unfamiliarity with the power armor to overwhelm him. When Maximus gets his foot stuck between floorboards, the Ghoul severs one of his breathing tubes, causing the armor to malfunction and jet him away. He lands in a nearby junkyard, ignored by a nearby raider using a toilet. Back in Filly, the Ghoul finds Wilzig missing from the shop. Outside, a dying CX404 whines from her injury. The Ghoul takes pity on the dog and heals her with a stimpak. Revitalized, she begins pursuing her master's scent while the Ghoul follows.

After walking for some time, Lucy and Wilzig stop to rest at a crashed Russian satellite near Los Angeles International Airport. Wilzig's injury has worsened, and he is visibly bleeding from his prosthetic limb; he claims he will die before reaching the destination. Lucy optimistically encourages him to press ahead, but he reveals that he has ingested a "Vault-Tec Plan D" cyanide pill, "the most humane product Vault-Tec ever made." He says he's still valuable to Moldaver if Lucy can bring his head to her and instructs her to decapitate him with his buzz saw. He calls her "Miss MacLean" and Lucy asks how he knows her name, but he dies before answering. Lucy grimly prepares to cut his head off as he requests.

Credits[]

The credits show the Los Angeles airport. The sequence begins focused on a vertibird with a picture of Nuka-Girl with a blast mark on the face, with the text "Zap Em" written nearby. The camera zooms out, revealing a skeleton sitting against the Vertibird and numerous other vertibirds parked in nearby hangers amidst barbed wire and destroyed barricades. At this point, the main building of the airport and the air control tower are both visible.

The scene zooms further out to show two dead figures in power armor sitting against a structure with a poster featuring Uncle Sam in power armor, reading, "The Brotherhood wants you." The camera pulls back onto the airport tarmac, showing various crashed or parked planes and briefly crossing over a teddy bear in the middle of the runway. Another billboard is seen, and this one is advertising Horizon Airlines with the tagline "Patriots don't spend their travel dollars abroad! Fly Horizon Airlines." The sequence cuts to black as the camera reaches a nearby highway.

Cast[]

Starring:

Guest starring:

Co-starring:

Stunt performers:

Uncredited:

Deleted scenes:

• Jace Wade - Raider leader

Soundtrack[]

• The Ink Spots with Ella Fitzgerald - "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall"
• Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters - "Don't Fence Me In"
• Betty Hutton - "It's a Man"
• The Ink Spots - "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire"

Behind the scenes[]

After Lucy leaves the Vault, she is startled by a tumbleweed; a destroyed Assaultron is shown on-screen shortly later.

• The Assaultron in question is a fanmade suit by amateur cosplayers No Sleep Till Cosplay.^[2]

Gallery[]

Lucy, Siggi Wilzig and Ma June

The Ghoul

Maximus and Titus

References[]