Fallout is back in season on Amazon Prime, having aired two episodes already. And unlike other, major hits like The Last of Us (which follows the original games’ stories down to a T), this endeavor pursues an original narrative. It is still one of the most successful adaptations to date…
“Original”, of course, does not mean “neglecting”, since the show has plenty of easter eggs throughout this yet-so-small second season — and they’re plenty, I might add, comprising full games and even DLCs, like Fallout New Vegas and Mothership Zeta, for instance.
That, of course, comes from a first season that was also chock full of little reminders that this is a show about a game franchise, like the faulty water chip or the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. So, with the very necessary disclaimer of “beware of minor spoilers ahead”, here’s what we’ve seen so far:
Fallout best easter eggs for the second season
- The Reclamation Day
This one is easy, as it is mentioned a fair number of times throughout episodes one and two of the new season. In Fallout canon, the “Reclamation Day” is the date where Vault residents get to finally be let out back into the outside world in order to recreate civilization after the nuclear…well…fallout destroyed America.
It is extensively featured over most Fallout games, and in this new season, it is mentioned by Norm (Moisés Arias) when he wakes up all of Vault-Tec’s junior executives from deep frozen slumber.
In the expanded, online world of Fallout 76, for instance, the player’s character actually leaves his Vault on Reclamation Day, being the only game that stuck to the original lore plan.
- Shady Sands in its prime (and primed to fail)
Shady Sands is heavily important to the narrative construction of Maximus (Aaron Moten), one of the triad of protagonists that highlight the Fallout show — the other two being Ella Purnell’s Lucy and Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard/Ghoul. The knight from the Brotherhood of Steel is a survivor that came out of the city’s nuclear obliteration.
Now, the show itself has shown bits and pieces of the city before its explosion, but this season’s second episode allowed us to dab a little into their daily lives on its final day. Shady Sands is also one of the major hubs that the player can visit in the original Fallout game, from 1997.
Oh, and the city’s destruction, which is now cemented in the definitive lore of the franchise, also gives way to two more Fallout easter eggs, those being…
Nuke-resistant refrigerators
As a child, a key tool for Maximus’ survival — hell, the only tool he had at that — was a refrigerator that he got put in by his parents mere moments before the nuke that destroyed Shady Sands went off.
Now, the fridge itself, even when used in the game, was an easter egg of its own, reminding you of old movies’ memes such as Indiana Jones’ blown off fridge, for instance. But in Fallout games, the incredibly sturdy tool of refrigeration can also be seen hiding a variety of contents — in New Vegas, for instance, you could find a gambler’s hat and a skeleton inside of one.
“Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter”
Some people may not be aware of this, but Skyrim’s “took an arrow to the knee” was not the only, nor the first, phrase that made the meme realm of gaming.
During the Shady Sands destruction spot on the second season of Fallout, a mind controlled stranger mutters “Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter” — he’s the one who walks into town with the bomb that would eventually destroy it.
The phrase itself is a throwaway line of dialog that some unimportant NPCs from Fallout New Vegas also repeat ad infinitum, although they’re just complaining about how boring it is to repeatedly patrol portions of the Nevada desert region.
- Area 51
Fallout 3’s most famous DLC — Mothership Zeta — introduced several hours of new content, missions, plotlines and characters for the game. And there is a nod to that in the show’s new season: in the second episode, the Brotherhood of Steel manage to get a new base of operations, none other than Area 51 itself.
Now, the real life region is always the centerpiece of many a conspiracy theory about alien lifeforms having already visited Earth, with some even stating an actual alien corpse is or was housed and dissected there.
In Fallout, two Knights from the Brotherhood manage to pry open a fridge within an Area 51 warehouse and, lo and behold, there’s an alien corpse there — a Zetan individual, to be precise, as an obvious nod to the third game’s most popular DLC.
The knights just throw the body away, though, as their minds are actually blown…by the fridge it was inside of.
How about you? What other easter eggs have you picked up and we missed? Let us know in the comments!
Fallout is aired with weekly new episodes through Amazon Prime Video streaming service. You access that through the Amazon page or through dedicated apps in approved devices, such as the Fire Stick.
