Episode 6 of Fallout season 2, “The Other Player,” follows a staggering number of plotlines (though not all), balancing some easier than others. As with the previous episode, “The Other Player” gives significant attention to the flashback storyline with Cooper as he clashes with his wife and attempts to take matters into his own hands with Hank. In the present, Lucy navigates Hank’s office space of mind-controlled people, eventually arresting her father to bring him to justice within the Vault. The smaller plot lines in this episode follow The Ghoul, the Vaults, and Maximus. The Ghoul is rescued by a mysterious individual, forced to reckon with the massive hole in his stomach. In the Vaults, the members of the Incest Support Group defy their leadership and the concerns over resources. Finally, Maximus wanders the Mojave until he comes across The Ghoul’s dog.
The most noticeable aspect of this episode was its effort to touch on as many plotlines as possible. While some are naturally left behind, the smaller glimpses at Chet, for example, were great. For storylines such as Maximus’, there could have been more scenes with him wandering the desert to further his character, but his brief moments served their purpose. More importantly, his destination by the end of the episode promised an extremely compelling future for his character. The highlight of the episode, though, is Lucy’s dynamic with her father. Most interestingly, Hank’s goals remain ominous, but his willingness to be arrested by Lucy made for a fairly unpredictable storyline. Additionally, his attempt to prove to Lucy that his mind control was beneficial for these people was a compelling route, forcing Lucy to reckon with a greater internal struggle. Of course, the erasure of these people’s free will remains a point of conflict, but the climactic struggle of this episode put Lucy in an even more compelling place than where she started the episode.
In the wake of Cooper’s meeting with Robert House, the flashback storyline tightens its focus on simply Cooper and Barb. The cold open, being an overly corporatized pitch meeting of various means of nuclear war, was scary as much as it was darkly funny. Overall, the characters converging in both the flashback and the main storyline are exciting, as most characters this season have had simple, clear-cut goals: finding their way to another character. Despite being predominantly dedicated to setting up the future, this episode leaves the story in an engaging place, building immense intrigue for how these characters will clash in the remaining episodes. The episode suffers from similar issues that permeated throughout the rest of the season, with most characters having fairly simplistic goals, and each episode giving mismatched attention to major characters. Finally, the circumstances of the Ghoul being saved were interesting in the moment, but are potentially worrisome when considering that they present an entirely new mystery and character into the often-bloated story. In many ways, “The Other Player” both felt like a decent conclusion to the various plotlines of previous episodes, while also seeming to mostly serve the purpose of setting up the end of the season.
Rating: 7/10