Summary
Shows or movies often put Easter Eggs in to hint at where the sequels are going to go next. Whenever a live-action or animatedvideo game adaptationcomes out, eagle-eyed fans are on the lookout for them. Sometimes it can be blatant and sometimes it can be more obscure. How does Amazon’sFalloutadaptation handle Easter Eggs?
Are there even any worth mentioning to newbies or longtime fans? Well, the nice thing aboutFalloutis that it can be binged and rewatched immediately, unlike movies that take a while to analyze at home after theatrical releases. There are a lot of easy ones to spot, like Vault Boys, products like Sugar Bombs and Nuka Cola, drugs like Jet and Stimpaks, and so on. Those are obvious, but let’s get a bit more obscure with these Easter Eggs.
This list contains spoilers
1Reused Plots
From Missing Fathers Jarred Brains
The TV show borrows a lot from the games for its plots which are part Easter Eggs, part remixed ideas. For example, the plot ofFallout 3involves the player leaving their home, Vault 101, to go after their father. This father left to look for a water purifier that is fabled to clean any water it touches. Similarly, the first game has players leave their shelter, Vault 13, to find a replacement water chip.
In episode one, Lucy’s father is kidnapped from Vault 33 and she leaves to find him likeFallout 3. Then in episode three, a Vault 33 citizen tells everyone that their water chip has shorted out although no one leaves to replace unlikeFallout 1. Finally, there is a brain in a jar in the finale of season one that can talk, mirroring Professor Calvert fromFallout 3’sDLC, Point Lookout who is also a talking brain in a jar.
2Reused Areas
From Shady Sands To New Vegas
There are four major nods to locations in season one of theFalloutseries. First, there is Shady Sands, which is featured as a central plot point, especially in episode six. That’s where Maximus was from before a bomb dropped on it. Shady Sands was a location first inFallout 2and it served as the capital of the New California Republic.
In episode four, Lucy and Cooper travel to a Super Duper Mart which was featured inFallout 3andFallout 4. Both are separate entities from one another. Thaddeus runs into a Red Rocket gas station in episode seven, which has only appeared inFallout 4. Lastly, the final shot of season one shows Hank strolling up to the gates of New Vegas, the central location fromFallout: New Vegas.
3The Secrets Of The Vaults
They Are Not Sanctuaries
In episode eight, there is a flashback that shows various titans of the industry discussing plans about how to maximize Vault-Tec’s potential. The board members offer up ideas on how Vaults could serve as experiments. For example, one person suggests overcrowding, which happens to Vault 27, as mentioned in theFallout Bible. Another leans into human experimentation with genetics, which is probably a reference to Vault 87, which housed nothing but Super Mutants that can be encountered inFallout 3.
Vault 106 experimented with psychedelic drugs to make its users go wild inFallout 3. Vault 29 separated parents from children, and everyone within that Vault was discovered to be no older than fifteen inFallout 76. It seems like this board meeting decided on the random Vaults that players could discover throughout the game series.
4Getting Fridged
A Nod To Indiana Jones
Those were the big Easter Eggs but there are plenty of smaller ones too. For example, Maximus has flashbacks multiple times throughout the season of exiting a fridge after Shady Sands gets blasted. He then meets a Knight within theBrotherhood of Steelwhich inspires him to join the order.
Maximus stepping out of a fridge could be a reference to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In that movie, Indiana hides in a somewhat bigger fridge to shield himself from a nuclear test blast. Both examples are completely ridiculous as they wouldn’t save Indiana or Maximus realistically, but this is fiction, after all.
5There Are Super Mutants After All
One Of The Missing Races
There are a few races within theFalloutuniverse, but the TV show only highlights two. There are humans, and then there are Ghouls. There is a sub-genre of Ghouls within that class, but they are basically mutated humans who need drugs to survive or else they become zombified, aka Feral Ghouls.
The show is missing Synths, which is this franchise’s version of Androids. It’s also missing those aforementioned Super Mutants. Unlike Synths, however, Super Mutants do get a quick nod in the show. The shot is quick, but in episode two, there is a green hand poking out of a cloth on top of a gurney. This is at the Enclave during the montage following Dr. Wilzig’s experiments that eventually lead to thecreation of Dogmeat.
6Butt Jerky
A Poorly Time Nod To Alex Jones
This one might be a bit of a stretch, but the show could be calling out to conservative radio show host Alex Jones. In episode four, Cooper and Lucy stumble upon an abandoned clinicwith a Ghoulinside. His name is Roger, and he’s about to turn into a Feral Ghoul unless they hand over some drugs. To save River the humiliation, Cooper executes him and then proceeds to chop meat off his butt.
Lucy is disgusted by this, reassuring Cooper that her father, Hank, would never sink that low. Cooper doesn’t think so, which is when he says, “I bet he had a bib with a drawing of his neighbor’s face on it,” referring to Hank just itching to eat his neighbor’s butt or any other part of him. In a 2020 episode of his show, Alex Jones said he would not hesitate to eat his neighbors if it came to providing for his family. Specifically, he mentions the butt, which can be broken down fromthis Huffington Post story.
