OK. So. I have a lot of exasperation over our protagonists in this episode. But in a good way! Mostly.

Let’s discuss Fallout.

So the second episode sees Lucy find her way to the ‘town’ of Filly, which by all accounts is a dangerous place to be even if you’re not a sheltered Vault-dweller, in pursuit of Moldaver. Maximus, meanwhile, is on the trail of Wilzig, who is on the run with stolen tech, when he realises his knight isn’t as admirable as he thought. And The Ghoul is also pursuing Wilzig, who has a hefty bounty on his head. (No pun intended.) The three cross paths, though not for long – just long enough for some entertaining hell to break loose.

Oh boy. OK, I’m going to start with Maximus this time. This episode sees his ambitions come out further, in the guise of Doing What’s Right (according to Maximus, that is). Our brainwashed boy clashes with his knight after an attack by an irradiated bear reveals Maximus’s idol to be a tired, jaded, bitter coward of a human being. After an attempt to run and save his own hide fails painfully, leaving it up to Maximus to kill the bear, he gives Maximus an earful about his failings as a squire and about how the Brotherhood’s “mission” is bullshit. Maximus responds to all this by telling him he “doesn’t deserve that armour”, and lets him bleed out before taking the armour himself.

Now, here’s the thing. On one hand, Maximus is right. His knight let him down and they could both have died. And the hypocrisy of him trying to blame Maximus for anything when they were only out there because he got bored and wanted to shoot something is so real it hurt to roll my eyes that hard. But I’m not just rolling my eyes at the asshole knight here.

Maximus, sweetie, I know you think this guy was an exception to the Brotherhood’s rule when it comes to integrity and personality, but I’m pretty sure you’re in for a shock in that regard.

Extremist militant cults are not a good place to grow up. Maximus deserves points for his courage, but he clearly wants to be a hero so badly that he’s blind to the reality of his situation – and that’s going to punch him in the gut before long, I bet.

Speaking of gut-punches from reality, Lucy gets hers early in this episode. Vault-dwellers are no heroes either to the people who weren’t lucky enough to grow up in one, and Ma’s point about Lucy’s privilege is so sharply on point it’s painful. Lucy tries to counter the argument, but it’s clear that she’s been rattled. She’s out of her protective gilded cage now, and it’s plain to see she was not ready for what lies beyond it. But her own courage, her own backbone, is the kind that I suspect Maximus only dreams of. She’s got a delightfully awkward way of going about it, but when she encounters Wilzig and realises he’s in immediate danger from The Ghoul, Lucy steps up to try to do the right thing, not for glory but just because it’s right.

Listen up, Maximus. You’ve got a long way to go. You want someone to admire? Look no further.

That said, I think his run-in with The Ghoul was only the start of his own rude awakening. Right now Maximus is a boy with his head in the sand, or in the clouds, pretending at being a hero when he has no real idea of what that means. I want very much for him to learn that lesson, however painful it is – he is a good person, deep down, I think. He just needs a wake-up call pretty urgently.

So! Everybody knows who Moldaver is – except Lucy, who’s beginning to learn that there’s possibly even more to her Vault-dweller world than she thought, thanks to Wilzig dropping some juicy hints about his own connection to it (and to her??). Too bad he expired in the wasteland before Lucy could finish getting him where he apparently needed to be. But she’s got to push on, even if she has to do it with only a severed head for company. And no doubt The Ghoul is on her trail too.

Man. Doing the right thing, even if it only feels like the curious thing right now, might get Lucy in a world of trouble. I mean, you know what they say about curiosity.

Good thing I bought popcorn. I want those answers too, now…