Fallout season 2 ending explained: does anyone die, is there a post-credits scene, and more on the hit Prime Video show’s latest finale
Fallout season 2 episode 8 is out now on Prime Video – and, while it isn’t as much of a *ahem* bombshell finale as the first season’s was, it still delivers enough entertainment value while teasing where its various storylines could go next.
In this article, I’ll go over everything that happens in the Amazon TV show’s latest chapter, titled ‘The Strip’, and look ahead to what plot threads it appears to set up for season 3. Full spoilers immediately follow for this season’s eighth and final episode. Turn back now if you haven’t watched it yet.
Does Lucy destroy the mainframe in Fallout season 2 episode 8? And what happens to Hank?
Picking up where season 2 episode 7 left off, ‘The Strip’ reunites us with Lucy MacLean entering the control chips’ mainframe room.
Once again, we’re reminded that the severed head of Diane Welch – aka the US Congresswoman who advised Cooper Howard to give the cold fusion diode to the President – is what’s powering the mind-control devices Hank has experimented with throughout this season.
Approaching the seemingly still head, Lucy is startled when it comes to life. Clearly in pain, Welch’s decapitated head repeatedly asks Lucy to kill her and end her suffering, which a reluctant Lucy eventually does with a well-placed crowbar strike to Welch’s skull.
A visibly upset Lucy leaves the facility to comprehend what she’s done, but the Prime Video’s shaken protagonist doesn’t have time to dwell on it. The reason? Her sinister father Hank, who’s somehow escaped being handcuffed to a stove by Lucy last episode, appears and, after being questioned by an outraged Lucy, tells her that Welch was chosen as the control chips’ ‘power source’ because of her placid demeanor.
As for what Hank’s endgame with the control devices is, he explains it was creating a small enough version to insert into a person’s neck. He also reveals that Lucy is going to be the guinea pig for this new miniature edition of said chip because, well, Hank is tired of her having autonomy and railing against him. In his words, he “just wants his little girl back.”
And he’d have succeeded if it wasn’t for Cooper Howard/The Ghoul’s intervention. I’ll discuss his season 2 finale journey later on but, for now, all you need to know is The Ghoul rescues Lucy by killing Hank’s lackey who was subduing Lucy to allow for the chip’s insertion, and then shoots Hank to incapacitate him. From there, The Ghoul says it’s up to Lucy to decide Hank’s fate.
A few scenes later, we learn that Lucy has inserted the chip into Hank’s neck before leading him at gunpoint back onto the surface.
There, during an emotion-laden chat between dad and daughter, Hank drops another tease that he’s a member of The Enclave. Oh, and the real experiment that the clandestine US faction has been conducting all along is the surface world itself, not the social/scientific test being conducted in the underground bunkers that Vault-Tec built. That’s the only new information we get out of Hank, too, before he uses his own secret activation device to turn on the chip in his neck, thereby wiping his memory and stopping Lucy from learning anything else.
Emotionally devastated by everything that’s happened, Lucy leaves her amnesiac father as she tries to decide what to do next. Finally, though, a ray of sunshine appears through the gloom, as Maximus – more on him later, too – calls out to her. Reunited for the first time since the Fallout TV show’s season 1 finale, they embrace.
But, there’s no time to catch up, because the remnants of Caesar’s Legion, who are now led by Lacerta Legate, march on New Vegas with the aim of taking it for themselves.
As Lucy and Maximus watch their arrival from Robert House’s penthouse at the top of the Lucky 38 casino, Lucy questions if she made the right decision to destroy the mainframe, especially as a new war for control of New Vegas is about to erupt. Maximus consoles her by holding her right hand with his left before the screen cuts to black.
Does Cooper Howard/The Ghoul find his family in the Fallout season 2 finale?
No, but hope springs eternal for Cooper Howard/The Ghoul as he learns his family is still alive.
Again, picking up where last episode left off, The Ghoul and Robert House – or, rather, the latter’s consciousness that he uploaded to a supercomputer – agree to form to an uneasy alliance. The Ghoul will leave the cold fusion diode, which he came into possession of again in season 2 episode 7, with House if House helps The Ghoul locate his family in the management-only vault that sits under the Lucky 38.
Guided by House via a Pip-Boy, aka one of Fallout‘s iconic wrist-mounted devices, The Ghoul eventually arrives at the same facility where Lucy and Hank are. There, he stumbles upon the pair’s latest familial reckoning and interjects himself into proceedings by helping Lucy – something The Ghoul didn’t have to do after, you know, she left him for dead in this season’s fifth chapter.
Anyway, after leaving Lucy and Hank, The Ghoul locates the biorepository chamber where Barbara and Janey, aka his wife and daughter, are. At his behest, House opens their cryochambers… to reveal that they’re empty. However, as a dejected Howard listens to House babbling some hollow words, he spots a ‘Greetings from Colorado’ postcard in Barb’s chamber. Picking it up and turning it over, he sees that she’s written “Colorado was a great idea” on the back. Remember, the pair discussed starting over in Colorado earlier this season, so this is not only a clear call-back to that moment, but also suggests that Barb and Janey are somewhere in that state.
Despite House’s protestations that he works for House now, The Ghoul removes the Pip-Boy and leaves the facility. The final shot we see of Howard is him overlooking a vast desert area – don’t worry, Dogmeat is with him – as he prepares to embark on yet another long trek across The Wasteland to find his loved ones.
Does Maximus defeat the Deathclaws in Fallout’s season 2 finale?
He does, but he gets more than a helping hand along the way.
With the pack of New Vegas-based Deathclaws having broken through one of the Freeside barricades last episode, Maximus realizes he’s the only one standing between the survival of its townsfolk and them becoming the beasts’ next meal.
As Thaddeus leads the Freesiders to safety, Maximus mounts a one-man stand against the Deathclaws. However, while he kills a number of them with the occasional help from Thaddeus, the NCR Power Armor suit Maximus is wearing soon malfunctions due to the damage inflicted upon it by the Deathclaws.
Exhausted but inspired by his final memory of his father, Maximus exits his power-suit, grabs a nearby sword and shield (read: pool cue and blackjack table top), and prepares to fight the remaining Deathclaws to protect the Freeside people.
Just when it seems like Maximus is a goner, though, two more Deathclaws are taken out not by Thaddeus, but a New California Republic (NCR) ranger. NCR captain Rodriguez, who we’ve intermittently reunited with throughout Fallout season 2, has rocked up with a squad of soldiers and, after telling Maximus they’ll deal with the rest of the Deathclaws, he heads off to find Lucy, which he duly does.
Does Norm survive in the final episode of Fallout season 2?
Yes, but only just. Frog-marched through Vault-Tec’s headquarters by the junior executives of Vault-33, it seems Norm is on borrowed time. That’s until Claudia, the only executive who’s on his side, tries to intervene, is pushed aside by the group’s defacto leader Ronnie, and falls back onto an elevator call button.
Seems innocuous, right? Well, remember when the group came across Ma June and Barv, and were warned that the elevator shafts had been barricaded because of the radroaches? Yeah, well, that.
Long story short: the radroaches fly out of the shaft and attack the group. Norm manages to fight one off before rescuing an executive from another radroach. However, when the duo try to gain access to an office that the others have taken shelter in, Ronnie pushes Norm aside and seemingly leaves him to become radroach food. Luckily, Norm finds a table to hide under and, with their attention drawn to the terrified executives in the aforementioned office, the radroaches break in and continue their lethal assault on their human prey.
Waiting long enough until the coast is clear, Norm emerges from his hiding spot and, entering the office, is met with a scene of bloody carnage. But, wait, someone’s alive – it’s Claudia! Helping her to her feet, Norm vows to get her home. Where home is and how they plan to get there, though, is unclear. The last we see of them, Norm is pulling a seemingly injured Claudia on a makeshift gurney. We’ll have to wait for season 3 – more on that shortly – to find out how they plan to traverse the Wasteland with few rations and no sense of where they are.
What happens in Vault 32 in Fallout season 2 episode 8?
Reuniting us with those who live in Vault 32, we catch up with its overseer Stephanie, who’s locked herself in her office after Chet revealed to the rest of the group that she’s Canadian, not American. As Vault 32’s dwellers bang on her office door and chant for her death – the latter of which a clearly uncomfortable Chet doesn’t agree with – Steph uses her last-resort card.
Opening the box (one owned by Hank MacLean, don’t forget) that Betty gave to her in this season’s penultimate episode, we learn that it contains a jet black-colored Pip-Boy. Activating it, Steph uses its intercom feature to contact – yep, you’ve probably guessed it – The Enclave.
Once the line is connected, she tells The Enclave that she’s another of Hank’s wives. It turns out she was Hank’s secret beau – the pair having met all the way back in 2077 after Steph helped an unconscious Hank back to his hotel room after Cooper had drugged him. So, while Hank was also married to Lucy and Norm’s mom, he had another wife in Steph. You sly dog, Hank…
Anyway, using The Enclave’s secret communications frequency, she ominously tells them to “initiate Phase Two”. Unfortunately, we’re given no indication as to what this part of The Enclave’s plan entails. Does it have something to do with a big fan theory about Vaults 31, 32, and 33 that was confirmed in this season’s sixth chapter? We’ll have to wait for season 3 (don’t worry, we’re getting to it!).
Does Fallout season 2 episode 8 have a mid-credits or post-credits scene? And what is Liberty Prime Alpha?
Yes, like its forebear, Fallout season 2 has an end-credits scene.
This time, it shows us the *ahem* fallout from the battle between the Brotherhood of Steel’s various factions that Maximus and Thaddeus inadvertently caused in season 2 episode 4.
Reunited with Maximus’ friend Dane, we see them deliver something to Elder Cleric Quintus, who tells Dane that “Quintus the Unifier is dead” and, in his place, “Quintus the Destroyer” has risen. As the camera pans down, we see that Dane has given Quintus a series of blueprints for something called the Liberty Prime Alpha suit.
So, what is it? For the uninitiated, Liberty Prime is a giant combat robot that the US army originally built as a superweapon to try and win the Sino-American War that it waged with China. However, because a suitable power source was never located for it, it was never used in battle.
Now that the Brotherhood is in possession of its blueprint, plus the fact that cold fusion – an unlimited energy source – exists, though, I wouldn’t put it past Quintus trying to track down the diode, which we know is in New Vegas, and using it to power his version of Liberty Prime. That’ll likely be one of many storylines that next season will focus on. Speaking of which…
Has Fallout season 3 been announced yet?
Yes! Amazon renewed Fallout for a third season in May 2025, so we’ve known about it for a while now.
Unsurprisingly, Fallout season 3 doesn’t have a release date yet, but executive producer Jonathan Nolan has said (via IGN) that he hopes filming will begin in mid-2026. It’s not impossible, then, that we could be reunited with Lucy and company in late 2027 or early 2028.
Want more details on the show’s next chapter? My Fallout season 3 guide, which will go live later today, will tell you everything we know so far, so check back in with us soon to read it.
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