I just... Season 2.
It is season 2. Of potentially 5. maybe even more.
End of 2/5, and we've got Max and Lucy being just "hunky dory".
Max looks happy.
End of 2/5 and we've got Coop thinking Barb is still his wife - despite all of her lies/"I don't know you Barbara" - from over 200 years ago. He thinks they've rigged the game, that they despite everything managed to outplay the other player in this regard. That Barb is leading him to her and Janey.
Coop has hope.
And then who do we have in the background of both those scenes, flickering, looming over both of those relationships?
House.
Foreshadowing? Setup? A warning? I think the fuck it is.
It's ominous.
House: "You're still living in a world of fiction, a world that isn't real."
Implying that Cooper is just as much a part of the experiment as anyone else, and what he believes are his choices, are actually just someone else's.
Cooper: "You're wrong about that."
Stubborn, stubborn Cooper. Even 200 years later he's still making the same choices. Don't think he is Coop! He was right before and you didn't listen to him and look what happened. The house always wins, but even rigging the game he still got outplayed. And if he got outplayed... What chance does Cooper on his own have? House knows it. Its why he tries to tell Cooper they still have business. House is not a good man, but I do believe he doesn't want Cooper to die, or fall into a trap. He specifically wanted Cooper to know he didn't betray him, Barb just slightly cut out of frame, her face not visible. And then Coop turns around looking for "What's about to happen" and it pans over the men in black, and we get a cross cut to the (enclave) President, and then Cooper looks over his shoulder... where the frame lands on Barb. Interesting decisions via cinematography, that's all I'm gonna say. House tried to warn him, but Coops too stubborn to listen, even 200 years later.
Picks up the neatly placed post-card. Introducing a new variable to this experiment.
- - -
Hank: "The surface is the experiment."
- - -
Stephanie Harper: "He said that you (the enclave) were always listening."
- - -
House, who was "unclear" on Barb, who tied her immediately to the "other player." Barb who specifically got her and Janey put into a vault that was owned by Vault-Tecs "Investors."
An Enclave vault.
House who tells Coop that,
"The Enclave is still out there!"
He will most likely tell Lucy the same thing at the start of season 3, and that Cooper is walking into a trap.
All I'm saying is that you look at the end of a part 2 of any long standing live action show: Supernatural, Buffy, the 100, OUAT, GoT, Vampire Diaries, Atla, Charmed, Peaky blinders, the expanse, etc., etc., it's basic narrative story structure to dangle obvious early conclusions to set them up so you can twist later whilst still setting up your final conclusions underneath. Its literally the template of season 1 in contrast to 2, its how to layer your story like a cake, season per season and over a whole several season arc. Right up until the final season where you get to eat it (if the writers/directors/producers do their jobs correctly... Looking at you DnD).
Usually you end 2 with a false death, or a tragedy, an important separation, a false hope, or an ominous undertone as a climax because then post you can begin to turn the narrative back towards true hope, truth and conclusive resolution of those conflicts; as per a 3 act structure. Slightly more complex for 5 onwards but it still follows a similar early progression. You have a narrative low so to speak, and any highs you may have are fleeting. There is something off, something not quite right.
But you seemingly end the 2/5 with hope??? For relationships specifically? It is almost always a false boon. Makes sense right, you have a low, the only way is up. You have a high...
I'm not here to bash ships, and it doesn't mean things can't change a lot later. I'm happy for the people who ship them, that they're getting their moments. But if I shipped them, as someone familiar with the tidal push and pull of storytelling, that season finale would fill me with dread.
How is this going to change/how is this going to go wrong? Where is the conflict? You build the narrative on it, and that conflict isn't done building.
Coop and Max are the closest to "happy" they've ever been. Two people who are part of this "grand wasteland experiment" have what they wanted and are moving forward with it. A survivor of the great war, and a survivor of Shady sands. Max is tied to Quintus (who has Enclave affiliations for sure). Coop is tied to Barb (who has Enclave affiliations).
1 move to e4, (radiation) Kings pawn opening. But for Coop, this is a losing game.
You know who isn't happy? Who doesn't have hope at the end of the season?
Lucy.
The outlier. The variable. The Vault Dweller.
The entire season things have been pulling her to turn around, to return, to go home. Hank the "enclave acolyte" wanted her back in her original vault. Away from the surface.
Just like her mother, she ain't supposed to be up here, this isn't her experiment. She's the anomaly, and the reason Shady Sands (part of that experiment) got destroyed was because of Rose bringing her children to the surface. An unknown outlier affecting their experiment. Bringing Lucy to the surface. This vault dweller and her daughter.
It caused such a big problem for their experiment that they had to nuke an entire city.
"Irksome."
Ma June might describe vaulties as "dipshits" but the original true enemy of the Enclave has always been a heroic vault dweller and those tied to the heritage of the Vaults.
The Wanderer/the Vault Dweller, the Chosen One, The Lone Wanderer. This is what Fallout is about. This is the myth.
The ones the Enclave can never predict. The saviors of the wasteland.
Lucy is the protagonist. Max is her echo. Cooper is her shadow.
This was established in the first episode of season 1.
Max parallels, repeats, their growth moves in similar directions but any influence they have on each other is passive. The Ghoul explores the darkness in the mirror and integrates, actively affects and weaves through the growth of the anima (internally and externally). They're similar, but in the narrative they serve different functions.
Like all Fallout protagonists apart from maybe Sole survivor (Coopers character parallels SS more) she's being set up to be the primary opposition of the Enclave.
Makes sense you have your main hero Vs your big bad so that's not a surprise. Through Hank "Akira Takizawa(ing)" himself before Lucy can get answers about the Enclave, Lucy's narrative arc for season 3 is going to be about findings the answers her father would rather kill himself over than tell her. This aligns with Coopers goal.
It's the same reason as to why they went together at the end of season 1. Same reason Lucy left Max in the first place.
"You coming?"
"Ain't you curious too?"
Lucy is currently - through the text - Coopers "friend" (secret third thing). Cooper is going after the Enclave, after his family, on his own because he's a stubborn bastard and refuses to align himself with anyone else. Because the last time he trusted people the world ended.
Except... he trusted Lucy. Even if there were a lot of layers to his reasoning - he asked her because he wanted her with him, one way or another. He doesn't at the end of this season, because of what happened in episode 5; he lets her make her own choices and walks away, and its noticeable to the audience. It was on purpose; because its part of the conflict. There's a lack of resolution there. Cooper has been told he can't do it alone, the narrative has set it up and Lucy is the answer to that question. Like any fallout Protag, Cooper made a choice. And by him going solo, from that choice, there will be consequences.
The only person, in over 200 years he trusted to go with him to find his family, even though he told the mutant that he works alone. The one person he was honest with about his intentions for surviving, about what he wanted, when all season 1 we have him dodging the question with everyone else... Was Lucy.
Super mutant:
"Well then, you're gonna needs friends..."
Lucy who is going to have a season 3 arc of building allies. Mutants, the NCR, New Vegas and so on. Lucy who is now with Max, who isn't curious/doesn't push for answers like her and Coop do, but does want to protect people and make the people responsible pay.
Cooper needs friends, but refuses to get them.
Lucy who's going to "save the world." Tied to the cold fusion (which is tied to Cooper). Who wants people to get along. Lucy who doesn't want to be another "matching jacket" but does want a morally correct alignment of factions.
Max who is tied to the NCR, and the brotherhood. Quintus and Dane (another separation that needs a resolution for S3, they ended the season setting it up). Max who's arc is going to be about protecting the wasteland from the monster that is Quintus and his campaign of destruction, rebuilding the NCR and becoming a leader.
Whose arc echoes Lucy's, but doesn't necessarily fully align yet like Coops and Lucy's will; integration, syzygy.
House: "I still have business with you."
Cooper: "Not with me you don't"
Cut to him with Lucy and Max.
House will be the catalyst for Lucy going after the Enclave, and in turn, going after Cooper.
House knows the truth, he knows this is all a lie. He was the prophet, he predicted everything and still couldn't stop it.
And his presence in frame over Cooper/Barb and Max/Lucy is ominous, because it implies a fiction that he sees the truth of; flickering/cutting through the illusion. The truth, that this won't go the way they think, that not all is as it seems. Lucy and Max are together and something is wrong. Cooper is alone looking for his family and something is wrong.
But its also a spark of hope that whatever trap or experiment Cooper is falling into, House is going to rig the game so that when the time comes, Lucy will be there to save him.
You don't put a beautiful gun in a beautiful girls hand and have her not use it.
Queens pawn to d4.
The (Atomic) Queens gambit.
