Onward with Episodes 3 and 4.
Oh, we get a "previously on" this time.
Moldever! That's the villain's name. Or Moldevre? (Hold on, need to look it up. Moldaver. I can kinda see how I got "Milgrave" out of that).
I'mma guess this guy is the Ghoul in his past life (okay, yup, that's his voice. This might even be the guy from the prologue in episode 1, but I don't think the voice is right).
Oh, never mind, this is absolutely the same guy, the voice was wrong because it was a movie shoot, lol.
"The audience. Yeah? They already know you're a good man. They wanna see that even a good man as yourself can be driven too far sometimes."
As an audience myself, I rather like when good characters stick to their morals, unless there's a compelling story-based reason to push them over the edge. What-ifs are what the fanfics are for.
"You see, it turns out, Bob's a bit of a communist."
So are we talking like Red Scare? Or sometime after that? I guess it doesn't matter since it's the past.
The guy's reaction to the lavender taffy is exactly my reaction to the one time I tried vodka. Right down to spitting it out.
The morbid humor of carrying a disembodied head by the hair while chill music plays. Which is somehow less jarring than the branded box of deviled eggs Lucy is just carrying around. I am concerned by "pure dried whole". Was this meant to be astronaut food?
That is a very fake disembodied head. Thankfully.
Maximus had better hope there's not a tracker on that armor. Oh hey, salvagers found it first.
Judging by the almost immediate arrival of the Brotherhood, there is in fact a tracker in that armor.
What the heck kind of animal was that? Looked like a mutant axolotl (a gulper, apparently. That has never told me so much and yet so little).
I was gonna say Maximus is having too much fun bullying this guy, but the word "bully" made me realize, I think this is one of Maximus' bullies. So he's not just being a jerk for the heck of it (I swear, being faceblind is like being asked to solve a mystery every time a minor character shows up).
"..."
"Do you think this was him?"
"Hard to tell. Show me the illustration."
Hmm, yes. Identification of a headless corpse using a portrait.
I wonder if Lucy's Geiger counter is going off because of the Ghoul or the gulper. Probably both.
OKAY, yup, mutant axolotl.
And the bully feels bad. Maybe Maximus will lay off on him a bit.
Oh hey, Lucy's partner is alive! And she is encouraging Norm to commit murder.
I think the bully's about to be axolotl food (okay, very nearly, but not quite. He is so lucky that thing didn't have teeth).
Okay, so the bully said ghouls are radioactive, and they were tracking the Ghoul via a Geiger counter. But Lucy's counter specifically does not go off around the Ghoul, because now it's going off randomly. Which is a bad thing for them, no doubt, but it also calls into question whether the bully was working with accurate information. Interesting. Or a plot hole.
With the black and white TVs, Bob getting fired for allegations of communism, and the nuclear threat, I am dating the past as between 1945 and 1965.
Oh, a clinic. Nothing bad ever happens in clinics and hospitals.
Oh, a ghoul. This one's in a bit rougher shape than the Ghoul. Oh, he's dead now. Just gonna minimize the window for this bit.
Okay, so Lucy's mother died in the Great Plague of '77. That would be 2177, so take off 219 years and... That narrows the past down to between 1958 and 1965.
The would-be overseers are having an election. Probably the most toothless election ever, the way they're complimenting each other's posters.
Okay, it's the water that's setting off the Geiger counter. Kind of annoying how it just randomly stops clicking when she gets close to it.
I have a name for the blond now! You are Steph. And you are. Trying to replace your late husband with the former gatekeeper. And that is going exactly where I thought it was going to go, okay.
So what I am getting from this scene is that one: when Steph told Lucy she was looking forward to raising their kids together, she meant "our separate kids whom we had separately because we're both married to different people". No idea how I misinterpreted that. The other thing I'm getting from this scene is that Steph wanted this guy, not her late husband. Entirely possible I'm misinterpreting that too.
And now there is a robot. And it has a caduceus painted on it. Who is making medical robots in this wasteland.
"I am simply going to harvest your organs."
Me, out loud: "Oh."
Honestly, that tracks. Makes more sense than a random benign medical robot.
Returning to Vault 32. This is fine. Not like there were bodies there that looked like they'd been dead for a while or anything.
Why is this TV also in black and white? You're telling me they have fancy wrist-worn computers and whatever technology goes into keeping the Vaults habitable, and no one in 200 years has had the free time and gumption to modernize TVs even slightly?
And also I guess the mice are relevant or something. Did everyone in Vault 32 kill each other?
And another black and white TV. I have never seen something so sleek and futuristic, yet so stuck in the past.
Not how defibrillators usually save lives, but that certainly works.
"Oh gosh."
That's one way to react to realizing you just set loose a bunch of hungry ghouls. And that you're on the menu.
And They All Died. For real this time.
(Norm's mother died in 2177 and I'm thinking this new information means she opened Vault 32's door at least two years ago? So current year is estimated at 2179 and the past is between 1960 and 1965).
"Golden rule, motherfucker."
I think that's the first time I've heard Lucy swear properly, and the timing could not have been better.
This ancient video tape has me wondering if the TVs are actually black and white, or if it's just that everything available to be played on them was filmed in black and white.
On double-checking episode 1, the black and white TV in the past was pretty much the same design, but a different model, and probably a different brand. The one in the present and the one in Vault 32 were the same model and brand. Given that the Vaults should not have technology from the same source as the surface unless said technology predates the end of the world, either people are keeping ancient relics fully functional in all their black and white glory, or someone from the surface left that TV in Vault 32 on purpose.
Either way, this world's television truly did not advance beyond black and white. Fascinating.
Wonder what Maximus is up to. No sign of him in this episode.
