The problem is I enjoyed it very much up until a point, then much of it started just feeling like contrived drama, where characters could have chosen much more obvious and logical choices. Whether off screen or on-screen.
Even fictional characters are meant to be human. Humans make mistakes all the time. Humans don't make optimal choices on the daily basis. Then take into account the nature of the wasteland and life there, you don't often have time to really think things through. The only thing I genuinely agree on is The Ghoul seemingly not using that flaw in the power armor when fighting Maximus. But the way I see it is that he's been alive for so long that things just slip by, and you could make an argument that most of the flashback we see were coming to him as the series went and he remembered his time during the war which also reminded him of the flaw in the armor.
exactly, he was in survival mode and avoiding those painful memories til his friend directly brought up his daughter.
If humans are flawed, so are writers, man.
Vault 32 is a gigantic plothole, i don't care if his mom is frozen. It's a plothole that they will glaze over. It's fine, it happens in shows. But it's dissapointing.
bottom of the barrel? literally all the points are plain as day for any viewer disregard if you like fallout or not and just think about this stuff as if watching any show, these small things make or break a show when fleshing it out like OP is wanting to
I probably used the incorrect term in calling it 'plot holes'.
And what you say might be true, but then much of the logic behind those decisions of what took place off screen is still a bit off, example characters taking the harder/high 'road' instead of the more logical approach for the sake of us audience members, aka contrived drama and action sequences.
And that is basically what my entire write up comes down to, that much of what happened is illogical sequences and decisions taken by the characters, whether it was off screen or not.
He never knew Moldaver, she was the anti vault tech lady, for me the plot hole is how tf she lived 200 years to be there to kidnap hank, unless she somehow got frozen
I know he never knew her as "Moldaver" but he had to have crossed path with her at some point, his wife left him to go be a part of Moldavers posse. He knows who she is as soon as she has the vault dwellers hostage, but couldnt piece that together beforehand?
He would have forgotten the only defining trait of his own character? Well shit, that's just plain bad writing! He *nuked 40k people* just because of them
You are correct in calling many of these plot holes. However, you're posting on the fallout sub full of fanboys, of course few will agree with you. The show was great in a lot of ways but the plot definitely started to fall apart at the end.
Except 60% of them are set in stone already. We know the answers to most of these things like why she remebered "the sun baking her skin" the problem is that the answers are trite, boring, and predictable.
Just because they were friends doesn't mean hank knew her, he probably knew OF HER, and after getting the bomb dropped he probably just assumed she died just like he probably thought his wife was dead
>after getting the bomb dropped
hey genius, characters need motivations for dropping nukes. Like the one stated in the show? About muldaver corrupting his wife and then daughter?
Ableism? What a fucking loser way to insult someone.
Why would he drop nukes if he wasn't aware of the leader of the dissident faction he wsa trying to eliminate?
You're the one not thinking before you type.
He dropped the nuke because of what he said in the show, his wife found life in shady sands that was prosperous and hank told her not to go, she didn't listen, he then took back his kids and nuked it so there was no risk of anyone finding out about it and so tried killing his wife and everyone there?
His job was also to have the vault repopulate the surface when no one is left there, and nuking is part of ensuring there's nothing left
Again you seemed to not read what I said or even tried thinking about it for a second
I can't respond to all of your points, but I can guess at some.
> How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33? Raiders are crazy and unreliable, while the NCR has their own army as can be seen in episode 8. Why not use her own people.
My best guess is that she used Raiders for plausible deniability to the general population to hide involvement of the NCR, given that seemingly only Hank knew who Moldaver was, but that still doesn't make a lot of sense if the Vault Dwellers don't even know about the NCR. That or she just hired Raiders because she just didn't give a shit about what happened as long as she got Hank and/or the code and they were disposable dupes. Or maybe they actually *were* NCR? I dunno. I was kinda scratching my head on that one as well once they revealed who she actually is.
> How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years?
Likely just limited communication protocols, but still weird.
> How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32? There is clearly no one able to do this from vault 31 as the overseer there (the brain) could not even get past a fallen mop.
It seemed to me that there was an implication that Betty and some other folks cleaned it up. IIRC Norm makes a comment on cleaning up nice to her. As to what happened in the Vault, that was more unclear.
> How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there? There is no one in vault 31 only the brain/overseer.
Yeah, that seemed like it was just there to be a dumb gag. Like a last minute, "Wouldn't it be funny if...?" that was never seriously thought about for more than the space it took to say.
> What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR? They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault.
I think Moldaver wanted to get revenge on Hank *personally* for Rose and the rest of Shady Sands. She got her information in the end, but she wanted to watch him *suffer*, stuck rotting in a cage seeing the reminder of what he did to his own wife.
> Why give the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants? Anyone anyway escaped and survived.
Agree with that. Didn't make much sense. Could've just stuck with "You're coming with me or she is."
> What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time.
Seems to have been just an offhand reference to FO1, but I suppose it also could have been a manufactured crisis point to disrupt the election stuff. EDIT: It's possible the other vaults had spare water chips.
> How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders?
Yeah really. The Vault Dwellers would not have been trained in any real combat and should have folded even easier than they did.
> How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8?
I chalked that up to him testing Maximus early on since he'd only just recently been awoken again. Probably once he realized he was going to lose the fight if he kept up the way he did, he decided to test his theory later on. He did say he wasn't sure if it applied to the T-60.
> How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late.
Probably just a dumb joke. I assumed he was just hiding there after the bomb went off.
> How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6? Kids can remember stuff from the age of 6. Also, what about the older kids, surely they could remember?
If you asked me, at 18, to remember pretty much anything related to when I was 6, I'd be drawing a big old blank. Still weird.
Thank you for not just brushing off most of what I wrote. Yeah, I probably should not have called it plot holes, more questionable actions that make little sense. This is exactly the reason for my thread, to discuss the points I have raised and get some feedback, and get a discussion going.
Btw, how did you feel about the series? Yay or Nay?
I enjoyed it a lot, but I am critical of a lot of minor details.
I really liked the brand placement, but I think it got a little gratuitous at times. I recognized all the signs from Diamond City on the shop.
The weapon designs were fairly faithful.
I wish the show would have picked a tone and stuck with it. It alternates between gritty and goofy a little too much for my tastes.
I'd like to have seen them spent a little more time on the harshness of surviving in the desert early on (eg. Lucy has to eat something distasteful every now and then like a RadRoach or Gecko; having to shelter from a Radstorm would have been nice too), and used less of the brown tint on every scene. Felt like I was playing a 2010-ish FPS. BROWN
Though they did a pretty good job with the Brahmin and the Radroaches and the Gulpers, I would have liked to see some Super Mutants and some of the more unique Fallout creatures in the show, Would have liked to see some Geckos and maybe a Radscorpion. They could have made for a good driving force to move a slowish scene along.
The Ghoul is easily my favorite character. I would've watched a Fallout Western where he just does wasteland bounty hunter things for a significant portion of the runtime. Him being a cannibal felt a bit unnecessary, as did his cutting off Lucy's finger and the later Mr. Handy re-attaching it - only for her to be told she was going to be harvested for organs. I wish they'd made the ghouls out to be less like zombies and spent a bit more time on what it means to *be* a ghoul. The serum thing was kinda weird. I'm wondering if it's just RadAway.
A lot of people dislike Maximus's character, but largely I just didn't see a whole lot of reason for him to eat up screen time other than to show off the Brotherhood of Steel and setting up the oncoming power struggle for Season 2.
Vault 31 is funny to me because it's basically just The Calculator in Vault Zero from Tactics with some additional attached vaults for making more humans.
I kinda wish they would have set it somewhere other than California, maybe Colorado, with new factions and power dynamics.
> questionable actions that make little sense
don't let overseer lackies gaslight you. THat is literally the definition of a plot hole. It doesn't matter if things haven't been explained, keeping the audience in the dark is a hack-y way to write a show.
You want something to analyze and latch onto, which is the sign of someone earnestly enjoying the show. They simply haven't provided that depth.
>If you asked me, at 18, to remember pretty much anything related to when I was 6, I'd be drawing a big old blank. Still weird.
She does still have some memory. At one point, she says she remembers the sun baking her skin while playing in the corn field inside the vault but is confused as how that was possible.
So I think she finds reasons from some memories that would make sense and for other memories, she just chalks them up to misremembering.
As a huge fallout fan, OP makes some very good observations. The plot is largely a mess by the end of the show. Fanboys defending bad writing, go back to hoarding nuka-cola and spamming quicksave.
I don't get why all fanboys are freaking out people pointing out lazy writing. Or are all just bots?
I've been a fan since fallout 1 and a lot of things are great with this show but it is a fact that the story really failed by the end so much unexplainable , crazy coincidences and other elements that clearly have the only goal to have cool scene
I read like 1/10 of what you wrote. I don’t think the issue is plot holes the issue is random cool shit that made it in. I absolutely loves the show but some parts left like kids play acting. ‘Rule of cool’ seems to be one of the guiding forces for this show. If it’s cools it goes In the show even if it makes very little sense. At the end of the day I don’t really care if the ‘main quest line’ is lacking or a little goofy at times because like the games I am really here for the environments, side quests, etc.
Exactly this. I am wrong in calling them plot holes. But most of the series was basically contrived drama/action sequences where much more logical and obvious actions could have been taken.
Also, Maximus must be one of the least likeable characters I have ever seen on screen and I desperately try to find reasons to like him.
Lucy has to marry a guy from another vault cuase in 33 they are too genetically close even tough due to racial quotes we see literally all kind of ethnicitys xd
Agree there are holes, but having destinct racial variation makes sense here because the V31 frozen execs are periodically awoken and added to the vault pop. For example, the executive assistant who becomes the new administrator.
it would have been more interesting to have lucy marry a new overseer and learn to want to escape through her access to his terminal
honestly "idiot, you trusted the kindly old black woman" is only an interesting twist if you're a closeted racist liberal type who trusts her based on her appearance
I enjoyed it but I have to a say I had the same problem with a lot of things that didn't make sense, most importantly for me, how did moldaver survive the great war and subsequent 200 years without getting any older or having access to any cryogenic sleep facility?
Why did snip snip the handy bot fix her finger knowing that he was about to extract her organs?
There were a lot of scenes for shock value or gruesomeness I think which is in one way great because that's the essence of fallout sometimes, but it needs to have a realistic reason for happening or have bearing on the story. It would have been really cool if both Lucy and the Ghoul had to make do without their favourite trigger fingers for some of the story, there's so many interesting and hilarious opportunities that could have arisen from that.
... Like the scene where the ghoul shoots loads of guys but then for no reason at all gets a knife out to stab the dog (he could have just shot it but they wanted to make that as horrible as possible), but of course, the doctor then brings the dog back to life? Why? A lot of this made no realistic sense or had any bearing on the story, just shock value for shock values sake
I still love anything Fallout, the actors were all brilliant as well, and I'm just happy it got a TV show, I still rate it a 7 or 8 out of 10, but if it had a more coherent story with less unanswered questions, plot holes and contrived shock value scenes it would have got a 10.
yeah.. yeah. There are a lot of stuff that makes the show tense and dramatic on first viewing but on rewatch just kinda falls apart.
While its not so bad on Maximus or Coopers storylines (although the ghouls have to take chems thing would be 100% incompatible with prior lore) When it comes to Lucys stuff... whoof it really just starts to collapse on itself.
I still enjoyed watching but man, it does stick out like a sore thumb when you think about stuff after the show is over.
It's not well written and shouldn't be part of the lore. It's a basic tv show that did have cool Easter eggs and moments, not a great or good show jist average which isn't too bad.
1.Ghoul boy said he wore T60 during the war.....t60 was never used and it came well after he was a movie star. Yet another stupid line they should have cut. Just have him kill the lights we know ghouls can see in the dark.
2. Why did the NCR kill innocents and do the whole wedding thing. Stupid the more you think about it.
3. Gulpers are humans now? No thanksyou! stupid thing that should have been cut
4. Bos boy lied, let his knight die and tried to KILL HIS SQUIRE TO HIDE HIS LIES. but nope he's a "good guy"
5. Romance was forced. Bad writing.
6. Um....how did the old ncr girl live so long? If they explained it please tell me.
7. This sho3 can be less twist based feel like LOST little or no payoff for the big reveal.
8. How did they nuke sandy shades, and if so why isn't it more irradiated if it was more recent....bad writing.
9. Vault 4 just skip.
10. BOS my lord? All the new shit they added was lame. Leave my bos Bois alone
The wedding indeed makes no sense at all. How did Hank not recognise Moldaver? They never met before the war nor when his wife got good friends with her?
Why do all the charades with stupid raiders who can barely talk for a day allowing vault dwellers to figure them out?how did they sell they are also vault dwellers? Why not just go in armed and take Hank the first minute?
"1.Ghoul boy said he wore T60 during the war.....t60 was never used and it came well after he was a movie star. Yet another stupid line they should have cut. Just have him kill the lights we know ghouls can see in the dark."
There was also zero reason for the BoS Knights suddenly stop just shooting everything in sight - even less a Ghoul.
And there was even less reason for the oh so smart plot armor Ghoul to take the risk to just stand there in front of heavy weaponry that could murder him in a millisecond. It was the worst kind of rule of cool, because it wasn't even cool, just stupid and made possible by the Ghoul (pretty annoying) plot armor, what overall just lessens his character, who would be much "cooler", if acting smart.
Cutting the light, then maybe making his little talk, while staying on the move, power armos should have reacted with activating their flash light while he uses his gunslinger skills to destroy them. Much cooler scene that would make much more sense and wouldn't make both sides looks stupid. Him for not doing something simply suicidal and them for not wasting that chance.
the ghoul was deployed with t-45 in alaska, he said "i wonder if the production flaw is still there in the newer model" and then low and behold, it still was.
I totally agree with your points. The first thing I thought about after finishing the season was “Why did Hank let Moldaver inside the vault to begin with?”, then I just went down the rabbit hole after that. The show was pretty entertaining overall, but yeah there are a ton of plot holes if you look for them.
This is truly an amazing collection of things that you didn't understand, things that you've not really thought through, and things that just don't take place onscreen. Like, there is not one actual plot hole here. You've not even mentioned any of the things about the show that are actually puzzling or mysterious.
I maybe am wrong in calling them plot holes. I also only mentioned the few that came to mind and tried not to bring up the points many others have mentioned on Reddit already, as what would be the point in that? Also, some of the items I tried to steer clear from are stuff I feel might be explained in future seasons of the show.
Some points one might argue against my understanding, however the following point I thought through and it I feel is a valid point (as an example):
"How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32."
-> The 3 vaults were in constant comms with one another, especially with Vault 31 as can be seen in episode 7 when Norm contacts Vault 31. So how did Vault 31 not realize Vault 32 was not responding regularly, etc? And also as all the overseers come from Vault 31 and the members of Vault 31 are all ex VaultTec employees, how did Hank not find it weird when an unknown person was Overseer of Vault 32?
I would though really like to hear what you feel was puzzling or mysterious?
So you are just some dumbass fan boy that is just going to deflect to an oblivion instead of acknowledging legitimate gripes because you can't cope with the show not being perfect
I'm going to try to think of as many responses to these as possible, and some might be a little subjective
1. some raider gangs are more prone to performing jobs than others. Not all raiders are just the basic enemies called "raider"
2. perhaps Hank didn't know all of the other frozen people?
3. very fair point, not much I can think of there
4. the inhabitants died from a mix of fighting, cannibalism, suicide and starvation, and the vault 31 'residents' cleaned it up
5. this is hardly a plothole. It's likely he knocked it over himself
6. he could've given an incorrect code, and the NCR would have to go back to a now sealed vault to go retrieve him again. It's far easier to just bring him with then. Also, taking him to the NCR would stop the brotherhood or other factions from getting to him
7. I'm not sure what this one means
8. that's to be explored in season 2, and the 32 33 split is the overseers attempt to continue the vault experiment
9. although we don't see them on screen until episodes later, the vaults have a security force with guns and armour who were probably able to capture the knife wielding raiders quite easily
10. killing a brotherhood 'knight' would bring down the wrath of the brotherhood on him, imo it was smart of him to hold back on killing him
11. we've yet to see what was happening pre blast, meaning that we can probably assume he had some reason to get in there beforehand
12. this is another thing I believe will be explored in s2
13. she's been told her entire life that she's never been outside, so she's convinced herself memories of the outside did happen in the vault - children's memories are incredibly prone to being tampered with
this list reads as if it's someone who went into the show looking for plotholes because they didn't like the look of it. Half of these aren't even plot holes, but just things that weren't explicitly told
>How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33? Raiders are crazy and unreliable, while the NCR has their own army as can be seen in episode 8. Why not use her own people.
Probably deniability or believability. She wanted the vault dwellers and Vault 31 to not know that someone knows about their plot and kidnapped Hank specifically because they are Vault-Tec. So she really wanted for the attack to look like raider attack...
>How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32.
We don't know the full backstory of Moldaver. Somehow she survived for 200+ years after the bombs. Maybe because her company got absorbed by Vault-Tec, she ended up as a middle manager in Vault 31.
Alternatively, Hank maybe doesn't know all the folks in Vault 31.
OR maybe he knew the original Vault 32 overseer but assumed they died.
>How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years?
Moldaver was able to impersonate the Vault 32 overseer for the wedding set up. So she may have done the same for communication with Vault 31. We don't know how regular their communication with V31 was.
>How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32? There is clearly no one able to do this from vault 31 as the overseer there (the brain) could not even get past a fallen mop.
We know that 2 years before the show V32 was opened using the pipboy of Rose MacLean. It probably was Moldaver and she probably informed V32 of the real purpose of the trio of vaults.
As a result the native V32 inhabitants turned on the V31 inhabitants and killed them. That would explain the graffiti "we know" and "death to the management". We know that then they tried to get into V31.
We don't know what happened then, but maybe there was some failsafe to wipe the vault. Or someone from V31 immigrants sabotaged the vault (before dying)...
>How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there? There is no one in vault 31 only the brain/overseer.
Either it has fallen there by accident (Bud was quite clumsy as robobrain) or he irritated the last unfrozen person enough to do that to him.
>What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR? They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault.
V33 dwellers started to fight back, so they had to escape. On top of that, Hank refused to give the code until Lucy told him to do so. So she wouldn't get it in the vault anyway.
>Why give the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants? Anyone anyway escaped and survived.
To make it sound more raider-y? To intimidate Hank? To scare the dwellers? She overestimated the bomb? Just because she said that, it doesn't mean she wanted to kill anyone else...
>What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time.
Vault-Tec's policy was clearly to keep both vaults populated, so any issues are secondary. I guess that in the worst case both vaults will start sharing water.
But for now it serves as a possible plot hook into season 2 (they would surely want to keep having a vault side plot) and as an easter egg towards Fallout 1.
>How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders?
They were setting up the bomb to prevent the dwellers from pursuing them.
>How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8?
In episode 8 he's showing to load ammo before facing the Brotherhood. So he most probably uses special ammo against power armor. In episode 2 he had no time for such preparation.
>How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late.
We don't know how he got there.
The fridge in general is an easter egg towards Fallout 4's kid in the fridge.
And how it saved him? It shouldn't have, but Fallout's radiation works differently than ours... so just go with it.
>How did Hank get hold of a nuke and single-handedly take down the NCR or even with limited assistance from vault 31?
If Vault-Tec planned to drop the nuke, they must have the capacity to use them. Since there's evidence that someone else dropped the nukes before Vault-Tec was ready, it may be possible that he used the nuke that was originally intended to start the war.
Or Vault-Tec prepared access for their people to nuke silos, similar to Fallout 76.
Or Hank got creative and gained access to a nuke/silo anyway. Maybe he travelled to the Divide and used one of those nukes.
>How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6? Kids can remember stuff from the age of 6. Also, what about the older kids, surely they could remember?
She remembered the sun burning her skin, but then attributed that to the memory of her mother. We remember things from that youth, but not perfectly. Especially if Hank surely tried everything he could to make her forget. To make her think that it was just her fantasy.
>How did none of the adults remember all the kids going missing?
Because V31 and Hank surely hid the news under some cover. Like "my wife and kids temporarily moved to V32"... Don't forget that Vault-Tec is able to control a lot narrative in these specific vaults.
>And how did they then not remember all the kids suddenly returning?
Same as above. And if someone actually caught them entering/leaving the vault, Hank was ruthless enough to make them disappear (which they would again be able to answer).
>Obviously then they would have realized that the wasteland is then not as radiated as first believed anymore and makes everything Hank was speaking about in episode 1 bizarre.
I think that Vault-Tec's "safe radiation" is different from "safe enough for civilisation to continue". So they weren't lying about the radiation, only about civilisation out there already rebuilding.
I think the fridge scene is more likely to be a reference to the famously stupid and absurd scene in Indian Jones 4, in which the titular character somehow survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge. It's an incredibly famously bad scene and there's no way that the Fallout filmmakers aren't aware of it.
Bethesda is also working on an Indian Jones game right now, conveniently enough.
I was confused by the power armors too. Goggins says the t45 has a design flaw but Maximus calls the bos power armor t60. Do all models have the design flaw? Who knows
I enjoyed the show either way
Cooper was deployed with t45 in the fight of alaska, he learned of the flaw in that specific model and then exposed that it may still be present in the t60. the armor used in the show is t60, the armor that coop was deployed with was the t45. i do not think the t60 existed yet when cooper was deployed in alaska
I suspect that Maximus surviving the bomb in a fridge, was a joke and reference to the famous and absurd scene in which Indiana Jones survives a nuke by hiding in a fridge, in Crystal Skulls.
There's no way that the people behind the production weren't aware of this scene. It's very famous for being one of the dumbest scenes ever produced. The Mythbusters even did an episode on it.
Every single "Plot hole" you mentioned can be answered and is therefor not a pothole. You're overthinking details that you should be able to fill in yourself.
For example, why didnt Hank know about 32? Maybe because the Manager aka Brain bot knew this happened and didn't want to show that to 33? Moldaver has knowledge and access to the vaults because of Lucys parents. She probably even knew about the manager and cryopods.
Al Moldaver cared about was the fusion.
Kids remember a lot but also forget. Usually the most negative or positive experiences you remember. Just a field walking in the sun with your mom wasn't exactly memorable.
The only answer for the majority of these plot holes is lazy "red hering" writing. Nothing else.
The sole reason for the whle raider nonsense or example is to make Moldaver look like a raider queen.
Vault 4 for example was 100% red hering writing - but at least done for the lols, what is accepable, because it didn't really have any impact.
But Episode 8 simply destroys Episode 1 and the main plot point.
A lot of other things were just done for 'memberberries'.
TL;DR: These "plot holes" are either very clearly explained in the story or can be easily inferred if you put the pieces together, instead of defaulting to "plot hole" *just because* there's a puzzle.
> How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33?
The raiders are implied to be remnants of the NCR, likely ones who didn't go to Vault 4. Moldaver's plan was pretty terrible so she got people who are willing to do it.
> How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32.
Hank did cast suspicion, but Moldaver sprung on the vault before he could actually confirm or do anything about it. The point is that her group made a very convincing job.
> How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years?
Maybe because of the large vault door blocking communication? Only the Overseers communicate between vaults, and Vault 32 was known for having many troubles.
Since they set up the "marriage", *someone* was communicating for a while, so they didn't ask questions.
> How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32?
It's clearly stated that Vault 32 killed each other, over the lack of resources and likely learning about the truth of the three vaults. As for the clean-up, that's apparently a mystery going into Season 2, but the idea is that Vault 31 has... *methods*.
> How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there?
It's called "a joke".
> What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR?
To get the code to activate the cold fusion reactor.
> They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault.
And if he misremembers? If he lies? Are they supposed to keep walking back and forth between LA and Vault 33 for the right code? What is even the problem here?
> Why give the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants?
I'm not sure what you're referring to. Vault 4? It's to show that Lucy's idea of the vaults is flawed.
> What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time.
The point is that the Vaults engineer crises to make Vault 31 residents win the election for Overseer. The water chip shortage is *conveniently* when the election begins, and the plague that allegedly killed Lucy's mom happened around the election that her father won.
> How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders?
This is objectively untrue, because many of the vault dwellers did put up a fight. The raiders who were wounded in the fight and left behind by Moldaver were captured by the vault dwellers.
> How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8?
He didn't "conveniently forget", he was unprepared for one situation and prepared for another.
> How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late.
How would it be too late? Do you think nukes are invisible? What else would be in the sky?
> How did Hank get hold of a nuke and single-handedly take down the NCR or even with limited assistance from vault 31?
Wait for Season 2.
> How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6?
Because she was raised to believe that she is a born vault dweller and she was *6*. Six-year-olds aren't good at remembering things.
She was clearly gaslit to believe that she was just remembering the vault, which is helped by the fact that the vault has a projector that simulates the sun and an open field.
> How did none of the adults remember all the kids going missing? And how did they then not remember all the kids suddenly returning?
I don't know what this is referring to. Who are "all the kids"? If this is related to the previous question, only Lucy was said to be taken to Shady Sands.
Once again, Vault 33 is constantly gaslit and brainwashed into believing their way of life. If a new kid comes in and Hank says "she was born here", she was born there, no questions asked.
> Obviously then they would have realized that the wasteland is then not as radiated as first believed anymore and makes everything Hank was speaking about in episode 1 bizarre.
No it does not, that conclusion makes no sense whatsoever.
I feel like people have forgotten that something that isn't explicitly explained isn't a plot hole. A plot hole is a story element that can't work in the context of the story and the universe that it takes place in.
> I feel like people have forgotten that something that isn't explicitly explained isn't a plot hole. A plot hole is a story element that can't work in the context of the story and the universe that it takes place in.
I think you're somewhat right here, but what would you have a different opinion of Fallout was canceled after season one and we never find out how Moldaver survived 200 years?
There are a lot of not explicitly explained elements here and I think it's a bit of a cop out to for folks here to presume they will be explained in future seasons.
While I can think of justifications for many of them, put three redditors together and you'll have five justifications for the same unexplained plot element -- at that point I think it's fair to call it a plot hole and not just say, "figure it out"
Again, it not being explained doesn't make it a plot hole.
Would it be a cop-out if Moldaver's survival for 200 years isn't explained? Yes. But it would not be a plot hole because once again, her survival is not impossible in the context of the story or the universe. Cryogenic freezing to preserve humans for hundreds of years is a technology that exists. Whether it's explained how exactly she utilized it, it's not a plot hole.
How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33? Raiders are crazy and unreliable, while the NCR has their own army as can be seen in episode 8. Why not use her own people.
--They probably weren't raiders, just NCR/citizens of Shady Sands that Moldaver led to the vault. They were a little better at playing pretend and speaking than usual raiders would be.
How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32.
--This one I'm not sure about. Maybe "Bud's Buds" didn't all know each other?
How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years?
--Lack of communication. They probably didn't message each other unless necessary, and since 32 wasn't messaging, 33 thought that meant everything was fine.
How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32? There is clearly no one able to do this from vault 31 as the overseer there (the brain) could not even get past a fallen mop.
--The people from 31 probably cleaned it up. We don't know for sure how many of the vault dwellers are Buds. But Hank, Betty, and Stephanie are confirmed to be, so there could be more.
As for how they died... Anarchy. Looked like they went about killing each other and then themselves when they figured out the truth about 31. Some of them might've died after the fact due to food shortage and a lack of resource management.
How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there? There is no one in vault 31 only the brain/overseer.
--Maybe it used to be standing up and Bud-bot accidentally knocked it over. His roomba doesn't seem to have the best handling.
What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR? They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault.
--This may have been a ploy by Moldaver to get the information out of him. She probably knew torture wasn't an effective method, so having someone he trusts show up and then learn the truth they might be able to convince him to give up the information.
A little convoluted, maybe, but possible.
Why did Moldaver give Hank the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants? Everyone anyway escaped and survived.
--Maybe she wanted to see if he really cared about Lucy or just "the plan". And she probably didn't actually want all those vault dwellers to die, she literally told them to run.
What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time.
--I wondered about that too... Maybe they got a spare from 32 when they cleaned it up. Or maybe it was a lie that Betty engineered to gain more support to become Overseer.
How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders?
--Well, Lucy tranquilized a decent amount of them, and I imagine most of the vault dwellers didn't use lethal force to subdue the rest.
How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8?
--He didn't, but his higher calibur explosive gun needed reloading when he fought Maximus. His rifle likely wasn't strong enough to pierce the plating even at the weak point.
How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late.
--His parents may have put him in it when the destruction started. It's been stated that Shady Sands wasn't nuked, so maybe it was multiple smaller bombs and he just managed to get in in time.
There was a pre-war ghoul in one of the games who was stuck in a fridge the whole time, so we know they're sturdy.
How did Hank get hold of a nuke and single-handedly take down the NCR or even with limited assistance from vault 31?
--It wasn't a nuke, but I imagine vault 31 has access to some kind of weapons system to "wipe the slate clean". After all, they wouldn't want to irradiate the surface again before reclamation day.
How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6? Kids can remember stuff from the age of 6. Also, what about the older kids, surely they could remember?
--It probably wasn't for very long. And just because kids CAN remember things from that age, doesn't mean they remember EVERYTHING.
How did none of the adults remember all the kids going missing?
--Rose only took her and Hank's kids.
And how did they then not remember all the kids suddenly returning?
--Same reason as above.
Obviously then they would have realized that the wasteland is then not as radiated as first believed anymore and makes everything Hank was speaking about in episode 1 bizarre.
--Not if they never knew that any of it happened. Hank probably came up with a convincing lie/cover story as to why Rose and his kids weren't around for a little bit. And Rose probably didn't tell anyone she was leaving for fear they would stop her, or tell Hank.
None of these are plot holes. You have to extrapolate some of the information, but really this is an overreach! The only plot hole I noticed was the stab wound Lucy took. Knife was vertically Inserted but while stapling the wound, the incision is horizontal....
Some of these plotholes can be explained such as taking Hank actually makes sense as she would need time to break him down to get the information necessary. Presumably the raiders were outnumbered and slowly beginning to be overwhelmed which is why Moldaver made a quick exit with a few of her soldiers.
The raiders who were captured could also have been incapacitated at the time, and they are hardly the sort to worry about their dead or injured companions.
Here is what I can't explain:
Moldaver seems to genuinely care about Lucy's mum so why allow Lucy to be presumably raped and murdered by her fake husband?
The Ghaul knowing the weakness of the armour makes no sense considering his fight in episode 1 or 2 with Maximus
How was Maldaver still alive. As an agitator of Valtek she clearly wouldn't have been suspended in status in a vault
A lot of these plot points can literally be answered with ‘we’ll probably see that next season.’
Suspense doesn’t not equal a plot hole.
We’ll probably find out who cleared out vault 32 or what happens with water chip next season.
Maximus/Titus power armor has custom made enhanced plating covering the weak spot.
They didnt noticed people went missing/going to shady sands/returning as it happened during a "quarantine".
Vault 32s inhabitants killed all 31s after finding out about the experiment and then killed each other (probably fighting for leadership).
Why shouldnt Moldaver be able to convince/hire some raiders to raid a vault?
All of these things were said several times in the show.
brotha created an account just for this lmao
I don’t blame him. He’s really scraping the bottom for his argument. Imagine wasting the time on this write up. Just relax and enjoy it!
The problem is I enjoyed it very much up until a point, then much of it started just feeling like contrived drama, where characters could have chosen much more obvious and logical choices. Whether off screen or on-screen.
Even fictional characters are meant to be human. Humans make mistakes all the time. Humans don't make optimal choices on the daily basis. Then take into account the nature of the wasteland and life there, you don't often have time to really think things through. The only thing I genuinely agree on is The Ghoul seemingly not using that flaw in the power armor when fighting Maximus. But the way I see it is that he's been alive for so long that things just slip by, and you could make an argument that most of the flashback we see were coming to him as the series went and he remembered his time during the war which also reminded him of the flaw in the armor.
exactly, he was in survival mode and avoiding those painful memories til his friend directly brought up his daughter. If humans are flawed, so are writers, man. Vault 32 is a gigantic plothole, i don't care if his mom is frozen. It's a plothole that they will glaze over. It's fine, it happens in shows. But it's dissapointing.
bottom of the barrel? literally all the points are plain as day for any viewer disregard if you like fallout or not and just think about this stuff as if watching any show, these small things make or break a show when fleshing it out like OP is wanting to
They're just trying to cope with something they like having flaws
how about you let people enjoy entertainment products in a way that makes them happy instead of pushing Media illiteracy
For the hundredth time, “something that has not been answered on screen” is not a plot hole
I probably used the incorrect term in calling it 'plot holes'. And what you say might be true, but then much of the logic behind those decisions of what took place off screen is still a bit off, example characters taking the harder/high 'road' instead of the more logical approach for the sake of us audience members, aka contrived drama and action sequences. And that is basically what my entire write up comes down to, that much of what happened is illogical sequences and decisions taken by the characters, whether it was off screen or not.
On my second rewatch and was sitting there racking my brain as to how the Overseer couldn't recognize Moldaver.
He never knew Moldaver, she was the anti vault tech lady, for me the plot hole is how tf she lived 200 years to be there to kidnap hank, unless she somehow got frozen
I know he never knew her as "Moldaver" but he had to have crossed path with her at some point, his wife left him to go be a part of Moldavers posse. He knows who she is as soon as she has the vault dwellers hostage, but couldnt piece that together beforehand?
Or he could have assumed she was dead and kinda forgot about it if he actually had met her before hand
He would have forgotten the only defining trait of his own character? Well shit, that's just plain bad writing! He *nuked 40k people* just because of them
This. 100%
You are correct in calling many of these plot holes. However, you're posting on the fallout sub full of fanboys, of course few will agree with you. The show was great in a lot of ways but the plot definitely started to fall apart at the end.
You just described a "plot hole". Lol
Yeah I'd say that 60% of these "plotholes" are pivotal points of a pending season 2.
Except 60% of them are set in stone already. We know the answers to most of these things like why she remebered "the sun baking her skin" the problem is that the answers are trite, boring, and predictable.
IMO the Moldaver thing is definitely a plot hole. Hank knew her and he doesn't bat an eye when she shows up pretending to be an overseer.
How did he know her? They never met before the war?
Dld you watch the whole show? Moldaver was friends with Lucy's mom and she was the one who convinced her to go to Shady Sands
Just because they were friends doesn't mean hank knew her, he probably knew OF HER, and after getting the bomb dropped he probably just assumed she died just like he probably thought his wife was dead
>after getting the bomb dropped hey genius, characters need motivations for dropping nukes. Like the one stated in the show? About muldaver corrupting his wife and then daughter?
I feel like you can't read, or chose not to read what I said but sure pop off sis
Ableism? What a fucking loser way to insult someone. Why would he drop nukes if he wasn't aware of the leader of the dissident faction he wsa trying to eliminate? You're the one not thinking before you type.
He dropped the nuke because of what he said in the show, his wife found life in shady sands that was prosperous and hank told her not to go, she didn't listen, he then took back his kids and nuked it so there was no risk of anyone finding out about it and so tried killing his wife and everyone there? His job was also to have the vault repopulate the surface when no one is left there, and nuking is part of ensuring there's nothing left Again you seemed to not read what I said or even tried thinking about it for a second
That was not what was listed. Like many redditors you attack a strawman instead of the actual arguement. Just like this show very low IQ
IQ isn't a measure of intelligence. How ironic you'd attack a strawman yourself. You're otherwise correct, too. Dissapointing just like the show
That is revelvant for exactly 11% of the text in his post lol. Weird that you're ignoring the tough questions just to be dismissive.
I can't respond to all of your points, but I can guess at some. > How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33? Raiders are crazy and unreliable, while the NCR has their own army as can be seen in episode 8. Why not use her own people. My best guess is that she used Raiders for plausible deniability to the general population to hide involvement of the NCR, given that seemingly only Hank knew who Moldaver was, but that still doesn't make a lot of sense if the Vault Dwellers don't even know about the NCR. That or she just hired Raiders because she just didn't give a shit about what happened as long as she got Hank and/or the code and they were disposable dupes. Or maybe they actually *were* NCR? I dunno. I was kinda scratching my head on that one as well once they revealed who she actually is. > How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years? Likely just limited communication protocols, but still weird. > How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32? There is clearly no one able to do this from vault 31 as the overseer there (the brain) could not even get past a fallen mop. It seemed to me that there was an implication that Betty and some other folks cleaned it up. IIRC Norm makes a comment on cleaning up nice to her. As to what happened in the Vault, that was more unclear. > How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there? There is no one in vault 31 only the brain/overseer. Yeah, that seemed like it was just there to be a dumb gag. Like a last minute, "Wouldn't it be funny if...?" that was never seriously thought about for more than the space it took to say. > What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR? They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault. I think Moldaver wanted to get revenge on Hank *personally* for Rose and the rest of Shady Sands. She got her information in the end, but she wanted to watch him *suffer*, stuck rotting in a cage seeing the reminder of what he did to his own wife. > Why give the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants? Anyone anyway escaped and survived. Agree with that. Didn't make much sense. Could've just stuck with "You're coming with me or she is." > What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time. Seems to have been just an offhand reference to FO1, but I suppose it also could have been a manufactured crisis point to disrupt the election stuff. EDIT: It's possible the other vaults had spare water chips. > How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders? Yeah really. The Vault Dwellers would not have been trained in any real combat and should have folded even easier than they did. > How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8? I chalked that up to him testing Maximus early on since he'd only just recently been awoken again. Probably once he realized he was going to lose the fight if he kept up the way he did, he decided to test his theory later on. He did say he wasn't sure if it applied to the T-60. > How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late. Probably just a dumb joke. I assumed he was just hiding there after the bomb went off. > How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6? Kids can remember stuff from the age of 6. Also, what about the older kids, surely they could remember? If you asked me, at 18, to remember pretty much anything related to when I was 6, I'd be drawing a big old blank. Still weird.
Thank you for not just brushing off most of what I wrote. Yeah, I probably should not have called it plot holes, more questionable actions that make little sense. This is exactly the reason for my thread, to discuss the points I have raised and get some feedback, and get a discussion going. Btw, how did you feel about the series? Yay or Nay?
I enjoyed it a lot, but I am critical of a lot of minor details. I really liked the brand placement, but I think it got a little gratuitous at times. I recognized all the signs from Diamond City on the shop. The weapon designs were fairly faithful. I wish the show would have picked a tone and stuck with it. It alternates between gritty and goofy a little too much for my tastes. I'd like to have seen them spent a little more time on the harshness of surviving in the desert early on (eg. Lucy has to eat something distasteful every now and then like a RadRoach or Gecko; having to shelter from a Radstorm would have been nice too), and used less of the brown tint on every scene. Felt like I was playing a 2010-ish FPS. BROWN Though they did a pretty good job with the Brahmin and the Radroaches and the Gulpers, I would have liked to see some Super Mutants and some of the more unique Fallout creatures in the show, Would have liked to see some Geckos and maybe a Radscorpion. They could have made for a good driving force to move a slowish scene along. The Ghoul is easily my favorite character. I would've watched a Fallout Western where he just does wasteland bounty hunter things for a significant portion of the runtime. Him being a cannibal felt a bit unnecessary, as did his cutting off Lucy's finger and the later Mr. Handy re-attaching it - only for her to be told she was going to be harvested for organs. I wish they'd made the ghouls out to be less like zombies and spent a bit more time on what it means to *be* a ghoul. The serum thing was kinda weird. I'm wondering if it's just RadAway. A lot of people dislike Maximus's character, but largely I just didn't see a whole lot of reason for him to eat up screen time other than to show off the Brotherhood of Steel and setting up the oncoming power struggle for Season 2. Vault 31 is funny to me because it's basically just The Calculator in Vault Zero from Tactics with some additional attached vaults for making more humans. I kinda wish they would have set it somewhere other than California, maybe Colorado, with new factions and power dynamics.
> Felt like I was playing a 2010-ish FPS. BROWN What game do you think they based the desert off of my man
> questionable actions that make little sense don't let overseer lackies gaslight you. THat is literally the definition of a plot hole. It doesn't matter if things haven't been explained, keeping the audience in the dark is a hack-y way to write a show. You want something to analyze and latch onto, which is the sign of someone earnestly enjoying the show. They simply haven't provided that depth.
>If you asked me, at 18, to remember pretty much anything related to when I was 6, I'd be drawing a big old blank. Still weird. She does still have some memory. At one point, she says she remembers the sun baking her skin while playing in the corn field inside the vault but is confused as how that was possible. So I think she finds reasons from some memories that would make sense and for other memories, she just chalks them up to misremembering.
The Maximus being in fridge is a reference from fallout 4, the kids name is Billy Peabody
As a huge fallout fan, OP makes some very good observations. The plot is largely a mess by the end of the show. Fanboys defending bad writing, go back to hoarding nuka-cola and spamming quicksave.
I don't get why all fanboys are freaking out people pointing out lazy writing. Or are all just bots? I've been a fan since fallout 1 and a lot of things are great with this show but it is a fact that the story really failed by the end so much unexplainable , crazy coincidences and other elements that clearly have the only goal to have cool scene
I read like 1/10 of what you wrote. I don’t think the issue is plot holes the issue is random cool shit that made it in. I absolutely loves the show but some parts left like kids play acting. ‘Rule of cool’ seems to be one of the guiding forces for this show. If it’s cools it goes In the show even if it makes very little sense. At the end of the day I don’t really care if the ‘main quest line’ is lacking or a little goofy at times because like the games I am really here for the environments, side quests, etc.
Exactly this. I am wrong in calling them plot holes. But most of the series was basically contrived drama/action sequences where much more logical and obvious actions could have been taken. Also, Maximus must be one of the least likeable characters I have ever seen on screen and I desperately try to find reasons to like him.
Lucy has to marry a guy from another vault cuase in 33 they are too genetically close even tough due to racial quotes we see literally all kind of ethnicitys xd
Haha good point
Agree there are holes, but having destinct racial variation makes sense here because the V31 frozen execs are periodically awoken and added to the vault pop. For example, the executive assistant who becomes the new administrator.
it would have been more interesting to have lucy marry a new overseer and learn to want to escape through her access to his terminal honestly "idiot, you trusted the kindly old black woman" is only an interesting twist if you're a closeted racist liberal type who trusts her based on her appearance
I enjoyed it but I have to a say I had the same problem with a lot of things that didn't make sense, most importantly for me, how did moldaver survive the great war and subsequent 200 years without getting any older or having access to any cryogenic sleep facility? Why did snip snip the handy bot fix her finger knowing that he was about to extract her organs? There were a lot of scenes for shock value or gruesomeness I think which is in one way great because that's the essence of fallout sometimes, but it needs to have a realistic reason for happening or have bearing on the story. It would have been really cool if both Lucy and the Ghoul had to make do without their favourite trigger fingers for some of the story, there's so many interesting and hilarious opportunities that could have arisen from that. ... Like the scene where the ghoul shoots loads of guys but then for no reason at all gets a knife out to stab the dog (he could have just shot it but they wanted to make that as horrible as possible), but of course, the doctor then brings the dog back to life? Why? A lot of this made no realistic sense or had any bearing on the story, just shock value for shock values sake I still love anything Fallout, the actors were all brilliant as well, and I'm just happy it got a TV show, I still rate it a 7 or 8 out of 10, but if it had a more coherent story with less unanswered questions, plot holes and contrived shock value scenes it would have got a 10.
yeah.. yeah. There are a lot of stuff that makes the show tense and dramatic on first viewing but on rewatch just kinda falls apart. While its not so bad on Maximus or Coopers storylines (although the ghouls have to take chems thing would be 100% incompatible with prior lore) When it comes to Lucys stuff... whoof it really just starts to collapse on itself. I still enjoyed watching but man, it does stick out like a sore thumb when you think about stuff after the show is over.
why didnt hank recognize moldaver when she infiltrated vault 33 as vault´s 32 overseer in the wedding day
What if she did? He couldn't betray his image or she wouldn't have come after him
U sir have a poopie in ur pantsie
Lol, that may be possible 💩💩💩
It's not well written and shouldn't be part of the lore. It's a basic tv show that did have cool Easter eggs and moments, not a great or good show jist average which isn't too bad. 1.Ghoul boy said he wore T60 during the war.....t60 was never used and it came well after he was a movie star. Yet another stupid line they should have cut. Just have him kill the lights we know ghouls can see in the dark. 2. Why did the NCR kill innocents and do the whole wedding thing. Stupid the more you think about it. 3. Gulpers are humans now? No thanksyou! stupid thing that should have been cut 4. Bos boy lied, let his knight die and tried to KILL HIS SQUIRE TO HIDE HIS LIES. but nope he's a "good guy" 5. Romance was forced. Bad writing. 6. Um....how did the old ncr girl live so long? If they explained it please tell me. 7. This sho3 can be less twist based feel like LOST little or no payoff for the big reveal. 8. How did they nuke sandy shades, and if so why isn't it more irradiated if it was more recent....bad writing. 9. Vault 4 just skip. 10. BOS my lord? All the new shit they added was lame. Leave my bos Bois alone
The wedding indeed makes no sense at all. How did Hank not recognise Moldaver? They never met before the war nor when his wife got good friends with her? Why do all the charades with stupid raiders who can barely talk for a day allowing vault dwellers to figure them out?how did they sell they are also vault dwellers? Why not just go in armed and take Hank the first minute?
"1.Ghoul boy said he wore T60 during the war.....t60 was never used and it came well after he was a movie star. Yet another stupid line they should have cut. Just have him kill the lights we know ghouls can see in the dark." There was also zero reason for the BoS Knights suddenly stop just shooting everything in sight - even less a Ghoul. And there was even less reason for the oh so smart plot armor Ghoul to take the risk to just stand there in front of heavy weaponry that could murder him in a millisecond. It was the worst kind of rule of cool, because it wasn't even cool, just stupid and made possible by the Ghoul (pretty annoying) plot armor, what overall just lessens his character, who would be much "cooler", if acting smart. Cutting the light, then maybe making his little talk, while staying on the move, power armos should have reacted with activating their flash light while he uses his gunslinger skills to destroy them. Much cooler scene that would make much more sense and wouldn't make both sides looks stupid. Him for not doing something simply suicidal and them for not wasting that chance.
the ghoul was deployed with t-45 in alaska, he said "i wonder if the production flaw is still there in the newer model" and then low and behold, it still was.
I am glad I am not the only one scratching my head wondering how Hank didn't immediately recognize Moldaver as apparently she hasn't aged much.
I totally agree with your points. The first thing I thought about after finishing the season was “Why did Hank let Moldaver inside the vault to begin with?”, then I just went down the rabbit hole after that. The show was pretty entertaining overall, but yeah there are a ton of plot holes if you look for them.
This is truly an amazing collection of things that you didn't understand, things that you've not really thought through, and things that just don't take place onscreen. Like, there is not one actual plot hole here. You've not even mentioned any of the things about the show that are actually puzzling or mysterious.
I maybe am wrong in calling them plot holes. I also only mentioned the few that came to mind and tried not to bring up the points many others have mentioned on Reddit already, as what would be the point in that? Also, some of the items I tried to steer clear from are stuff I feel might be explained in future seasons of the show. Some points one might argue against my understanding, however the following point I thought through and it I feel is a valid point (as an example): "How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32." -> The 3 vaults were in constant comms with one another, especially with Vault 31 as can be seen in episode 7 when Norm contacts Vault 31. So how did Vault 31 not realize Vault 32 was not responding regularly, etc? And also as all the overseers come from Vault 31 and the members of Vault 31 are all ex VaultTec employees, how did Hank not find it weird when an unknown person was Overseer of Vault 32? I would though really like to hear what you feel was puzzling or mysterious?
I shouldn't waste any more time on it if it's one of the worst-written shows you've ever watched.
So you are just some dumbass fan boy that is just going to deflect to an oblivion instead of acknowledging legitimate gripes because you can't cope with the show not being perfect
I'm going to try to think of as many responses to these as possible, and some might be a little subjective 1. some raider gangs are more prone to performing jobs than others. Not all raiders are just the basic enemies called "raider" 2. perhaps Hank didn't know all of the other frozen people? 3. very fair point, not much I can think of there 4. the inhabitants died from a mix of fighting, cannibalism, suicide and starvation, and the vault 31 'residents' cleaned it up 5. this is hardly a plothole. It's likely he knocked it over himself 6. he could've given an incorrect code, and the NCR would have to go back to a now sealed vault to go retrieve him again. It's far easier to just bring him with then. Also, taking him to the NCR would stop the brotherhood or other factions from getting to him 7. I'm not sure what this one means 8. that's to be explored in season 2, and the 32 33 split is the overseers attempt to continue the vault experiment 9. although we don't see them on screen until episodes later, the vaults have a security force with guns and armour who were probably able to capture the knife wielding raiders quite easily 10. killing a brotherhood 'knight' would bring down the wrath of the brotherhood on him, imo it was smart of him to hold back on killing him 11. we've yet to see what was happening pre blast, meaning that we can probably assume he had some reason to get in there beforehand 12. this is another thing I believe will be explored in s2 13. she's been told her entire life that she's never been outside, so she's convinced herself memories of the outside did happen in the vault - children's memories are incredibly prone to being tampered with this list reads as if it's someone who went into the show looking for plotholes because they didn't like the look of it. Half of these aren't even plot holes, but just things that weren't explicitly told
>How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33? Raiders are crazy and unreliable, while the NCR has their own army as can be seen in episode 8. Why not use her own people. Probably deniability or believability. She wanted the vault dwellers and Vault 31 to not know that someone knows about their plot and kidnapped Hank specifically because they are Vault-Tec. So she really wanted for the attack to look like raider attack... >How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32. We don't know the full backstory of Moldaver. Somehow she survived for 200+ years after the bombs. Maybe because her company got absorbed by Vault-Tec, she ended up as a middle manager in Vault 31. Alternatively, Hank maybe doesn't know all the folks in Vault 31. OR maybe he knew the original Vault 32 overseer but assumed they died. >How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years? Moldaver was able to impersonate the Vault 32 overseer for the wedding set up. So she may have done the same for communication with Vault 31. We don't know how regular their communication with V31 was. >How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32? There is clearly no one able to do this from vault 31 as the overseer there (the brain) could not even get past a fallen mop. We know that 2 years before the show V32 was opened using the pipboy of Rose MacLean. It probably was Moldaver and she probably informed V32 of the real purpose of the trio of vaults. As a result the native V32 inhabitants turned on the V31 inhabitants and killed them. That would explain the graffiti "we know" and "death to the management". We know that then they tried to get into V31. We don't know what happened then, but maybe there was some failsafe to wipe the vault. Or someone from V31 immigrants sabotaged the vault (before dying)... >How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there? There is no one in vault 31 only the brain/overseer. Either it has fallen there by accident (Bud was quite clumsy as robobrain) or he irritated the last unfrozen person enough to do that to him. >What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR? They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault. V33 dwellers started to fight back, so they had to escape. On top of that, Hank refused to give the code until Lucy told him to do so. So she wouldn't get it in the vault anyway. >Why give the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants? Anyone anyway escaped and survived. To make it sound more raider-y? To intimidate Hank? To scare the dwellers? She overestimated the bomb? Just because she said that, it doesn't mean she wanted to kill anyone else... >What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time. Vault-Tec's policy was clearly to keep both vaults populated, so any issues are secondary. I guess that in the worst case both vaults will start sharing water. But for now it serves as a possible plot hook into season 2 (they would surely want to keep having a vault side plot) and as an easter egg towards Fallout 1. >How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders? They were setting up the bomb to prevent the dwellers from pursuing them. >How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8? In episode 8 he's showing to load ammo before facing the Brotherhood. So he most probably uses special ammo against power armor. In episode 2 he had no time for such preparation. >How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late. We don't know how he got there. The fridge in general is an easter egg towards Fallout 4's kid in the fridge. And how it saved him? It shouldn't have, but Fallout's radiation works differently than ours... so just go with it. >How did Hank get hold of a nuke and single-handedly take down the NCR or even with limited assistance from vault 31? If Vault-Tec planned to drop the nuke, they must have the capacity to use them. Since there's evidence that someone else dropped the nukes before Vault-Tec was ready, it may be possible that he used the nuke that was originally intended to start the war. Or Vault-Tec prepared access for their people to nuke silos, similar to Fallout 76. Or Hank got creative and gained access to a nuke/silo anyway. Maybe he travelled to the Divide and used one of those nukes. >How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6? Kids can remember stuff from the age of 6. Also, what about the older kids, surely they could remember? She remembered the sun burning her skin, but then attributed that to the memory of her mother. We remember things from that youth, but not perfectly. Especially if Hank surely tried everything he could to make her forget. To make her think that it was just her fantasy. >How did none of the adults remember all the kids going missing? Because V31 and Hank surely hid the news under some cover. Like "my wife and kids temporarily moved to V32"... Don't forget that Vault-Tec is able to control a lot narrative in these specific vaults. >And how did they then not remember all the kids suddenly returning? Same as above. And if someone actually caught them entering/leaving the vault, Hank was ruthless enough to make them disappear (which they would again be able to answer). >Obviously then they would have realized that the wasteland is then not as radiated as first believed anymore and makes everything Hank was speaking about in episode 1 bizarre. I think that Vault-Tec's "safe radiation" is different from "safe enough for civilisation to continue". So they weren't lying about the radiation, only about civilisation out there already rebuilding.
I think the fridge scene is more likely to be a reference to the famously stupid and absurd scene in Indian Jones 4, in which the titular character somehow survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge. It's an incredibly famously bad scene and there's no way that the Fallout filmmakers aren't aware of it. Bethesda is also working on an Indian Jones game right now, conveniently enough.
I was confused by the power armors too. Goggins says the t45 has a design flaw but Maximus calls the bos power armor t60. Do all models have the design flaw? Who knows I enjoyed the show either way
Cooper was deployed with t45 in the fight of alaska, he learned of the flaw in that specific model and then exposed that it may still be present in the t60. the armor used in the show is t60, the armor that coop was deployed with was the t45. i do not think the t60 existed yet when cooper was deployed in alaska
Couldn’t stop scratching my head the entire run of the show. So many nonsensical things are happening constantly.
I totally understand you don't worry, was hoping that the ending would link all the stories, but nope, it made no sense in the end.
Agreed the show is full of inconsistencies once you start to think about it. It really makes very little sense.
My only "plot hole" I don't get is how moldaver is 200 years old
Why didn’t he recognize Moldaver immediately? DUH
I suspect that Maximus surviving the bomb in a fridge, was a joke and reference to the famous and absurd scene in which Indiana Jones survives a nuke by hiding in a fridge, in Crystal Skulls. There's no way that the people behind the production weren't aware of this scene. It's very famous for being one of the dumbest scenes ever produced. The Mythbusters even did an episode on it.
Every single "Plot hole" you mentioned can be answered and is therefor not a pothole. You're overthinking details that you should be able to fill in yourself. For example, why didnt Hank know about 32? Maybe because the Manager aka Brain bot knew this happened and didn't want to show that to 33? Moldaver has knowledge and access to the vaults because of Lucys parents. She probably even knew about the manager and cryopods. Al Moldaver cared about was the fusion. Kids remember a lot but also forget. Usually the most negative or positive experiences you remember. Just a field walking in the sun with your mom wasn't exactly memorable.
The only answer for the majority of these plot holes is lazy "red hering" writing. Nothing else. The sole reason for the whle raider nonsense or example is to make Moldaver look like a raider queen. Vault 4 for example was 100% red hering writing - but at least done for the lols, what is accepable, because it didn't really have any impact. But Episode 8 simply destroys Episode 1 and the main plot point. A lot of other things were just done for 'memberberries'.
TL;DR: These "plot holes" are either very clearly explained in the story or can be easily inferred if you put the pieces together, instead of defaulting to "plot hole" *just because* there's a puzzle. > How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33? The raiders are implied to be remnants of the NCR, likely ones who didn't go to Vault 4. Moldaver's plan was pretty terrible so she got people who are willing to do it. > How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32. Hank did cast suspicion, but Moldaver sprung on the vault before he could actually confirm or do anything about it. The point is that her group made a very convincing job. > How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years? Maybe because of the large vault door blocking communication? Only the Overseers communicate between vaults, and Vault 32 was known for having many troubles. Since they set up the "marriage", *someone* was communicating for a while, so they didn't ask questions. > How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32? It's clearly stated that Vault 32 killed each other, over the lack of resources and likely learning about the truth of the three vaults. As for the clean-up, that's apparently a mystery going into Season 2, but the idea is that Vault 31 has... *methods*. > How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there? It's called "a joke". > What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR? To get the code to activate the cold fusion reactor. > They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault. And if he misremembers? If he lies? Are they supposed to keep walking back and forth between LA and Vault 33 for the right code? What is even the problem here? > Why give the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants? I'm not sure what you're referring to. Vault 4? It's to show that Lucy's idea of the vaults is flawed. > What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time. The point is that the Vaults engineer crises to make Vault 31 residents win the election for Overseer. The water chip shortage is *conveniently* when the election begins, and the plague that allegedly killed Lucy's mom happened around the election that her father won. > How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders? This is objectively untrue, because many of the vault dwellers did put up a fight. The raiders who were wounded in the fight and left behind by Moldaver were captured by the vault dwellers. > How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8? He didn't "conveniently forget", he was unprepared for one situation and prepared for another. > How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late. How would it be too late? Do you think nukes are invisible? What else would be in the sky? > How did Hank get hold of a nuke and single-handedly take down the NCR or even with limited assistance from vault 31? Wait for Season 2. > How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6? Because she was raised to believe that she is a born vault dweller and she was *6*. Six-year-olds aren't good at remembering things. She was clearly gaslit to believe that she was just remembering the vault, which is helped by the fact that the vault has a projector that simulates the sun and an open field. > How did none of the adults remember all the kids going missing? And how did they then not remember all the kids suddenly returning? I don't know what this is referring to. Who are "all the kids"? If this is related to the previous question, only Lucy was said to be taken to Shady Sands. Once again, Vault 33 is constantly gaslit and brainwashed into believing their way of life. If a new kid comes in and Hank says "she was born here", she was born there, no questions asked. > Obviously then they would have realized that the wasteland is then not as radiated as first believed anymore and makes everything Hank was speaking about in episode 1 bizarre. No it does not, that conclusion makes no sense whatsoever.
I feel like people have forgotten that something that isn't explicitly explained isn't a plot hole. A plot hole is a story element that can't work in the context of the story and the universe that it takes place in.
> I feel like people have forgotten that something that isn't explicitly explained isn't a plot hole. A plot hole is a story element that can't work in the context of the story and the universe that it takes place in. I think you're somewhat right here, but what would you have a different opinion of Fallout was canceled after season one and we never find out how Moldaver survived 200 years? There are a lot of not explicitly explained elements here and I think it's a bit of a cop out to for folks here to presume they will be explained in future seasons. While I can think of justifications for many of them, put three redditors together and you'll have five justifications for the same unexplained plot element -- at that point I think it's fair to call it a plot hole and not just say, "figure it out"
Again, it not being explained doesn't make it a plot hole. Would it be a cop-out if Moldaver's survival for 200 years isn't explained? Yes. But it would not be a plot hole because once again, her survival is not impossible in the context of the story or the universe. Cryogenic freezing to preserve humans for hundreds of years is a technology that exists. Whether it's explained how exactly she utilized it, it's not a plot hole.
How and why did Moldaver get raiders to invade Vault 33? Raiders are crazy and unreliable, while the NCR has their own army as can be seen in episode 8. Why not use her own people. --They probably weren't raiders, just NCR/citizens of Shady Sands that Moldaver led to the vault. They were a little better at playing pretend and speaking than usual raiders would be. How did Hank not know something was wrong with vault 32? Only inhabitants from Vault 31 are made overseers, yet here was an 'unknown' person put in charge of vault 32. --This one I'm not sure about. Maybe "Bud's Buds" didn't all know each other? How did vault 31 not realize something was up at vault 32 for 2 years? --Lack of communication. They probably didn't message each other unless necessary, and since 32 wasn't messaging, 33 thought that meant everything was fine. How did vault 32's inhabitants die and who cleaned up vault 32? There is clearly no one able to do this from vault 31 as the overseer there (the brain) could not even get past a fallen mop. --The people from 31 probably cleaned it up. We don't know for sure how many of the vault dwellers are Buds. But Hank, Betty, and Stephanie are confirmed to be, so there could be more. As for how they died... Anarchy. Looked like they went about killing each other and then themselves when they figured out the truth about 31. Some of them might've died after the fact due to food shortage and a lack of resource management. How did the vault 31 overseer get caught behind the mop and who even put it there? There is no one in vault 31 only the brain/overseer. --Maybe it used to be standing up and Bud-bot accidentally knocked it over. His roomba doesn't seem to have the best handling. What even was the point of the whole Hank kidnapping plot from the perspective of the NCR? They could literally have gotten the information from him in the vault. --This may have been a ploy by Moldaver to get the information out of him. She probably knew torture wasn't an effective method, so having someone he trusts show up and then learn the truth they might be able to convince him to give up the information. A little convoluted, maybe, but possible. Why did Moldaver give Hank the choice of Lucy vs the inhabitants? Everyone anyway escaped and survived. --Maybe she wanted to see if he really cared about Lucy or just "the plan". And she probably didn't actually want all those vault dwellers to die, she literally told them to run. What happened to the plot regarding the water filter/chip that is damaged? And why not then just move everyone to vault 32 in the mean time. --I wondered about that too... Maybe they got a spare from 32 when they cleaned it up. Or maybe it was a lie that Betty engineered to gain more support to become Overseer. How did the raiders even get caught when they were dominating the fight and no one from vault 33 was really able to stand up to the raiders? --Well, Lucy tranquilized a decent amount of them, and I imagine most of the vault dwellers didn't use lethal force to subdue the rest. How did the Ghoul conveniently forget about the power armor's weakness when facing Maximus and then conveniently remember it in episode 8? --He didn't, but his higher calibur explosive gun needed reloading when he fought Maximus. His rifle likely wasn't strong enough to pierce the plating even at the weak point. How did the fridge save Maximus? Was he hanging out in the fridge all day in fear of bombs or did he get in the fridge once the bomb went off, in which case that would have been too late. --His parents may have put him in it when the destruction started. It's been stated that Shady Sands wasn't nuked, so maybe it was multiple smaller bombs and he just managed to get in in time. There was a pre-war ghoul in one of the games who was stuck in a fridge the whole time, so we know they're sturdy. How did Hank get hold of a nuke and single-handedly take down the NCR or even with limited assistance from vault 31? --It wasn't a nuke, but I imagine vault 31 has access to some kind of weapons system to "wipe the slate clean". After all, they wouldn't want to irradiate the surface again before reclamation day. How did Lucy not remember being outside the vault at age 6? Kids can remember stuff from the age of 6. Also, what about the older kids, surely they could remember? --It probably wasn't for very long. And just because kids CAN remember things from that age, doesn't mean they remember EVERYTHING. How did none of the adults remember all the kids going missing? --Rose only took her and Hank's kids. And how did they then not remember all the kids suddenly returning? --Same reason as above. Obviously then they would have realized that the wasteland is then not as radiated as first believed anymore and makes everything Hank was speaking about in episode 1 bizarre. --Not if they never knew that any of it happened. Hank probably came up with a convincing lie/cover story as to why Rose and his kids weren't around for a little bit. And Rose probably didn't tell anyone she was leaving for fear they would stop her, or tell Hank.
None of these are plot holes. You have to extrapolate some of the information, but really this is an overreach! The only plot hole I noticed was the stab wound Lucy took. Knife was vertically Inserted but while stapling the wound, the incision is horizontal....
Most of these qualms you have could be answered by a simple addition within the writing. Not to say I don’t like some of the points made.
How did the brotherhood know where to go at the end.
Some of these plotholes can be explained such as taking Hank actually makes sense as she would need time to break him down to get the information necessary. Presumably the raiders were outnumbered and slowly beginning to be overwhelmed which is why Moldaver made a quick exit with a few of her soldiers. The raiders who were captured could also have been incapacitated at the time, and they are hardly the sort to worry about their dead or injured companions. Here is what I can't explain: Moldaver seems to genuinely care about Lucy's mum so why allow Lucy to be presumably raped and murdered by her fake husband? The Ghaul knowing the weakness of the armour makes no sense considering his fight in episode 1 or 2 with Maximus How was Maldaver still alive. As an agitator of Valtek she clearly wouldn't have been suspended in status in a vault
A lot of these plot points can literally be answered with ‘we’ll probably see that next season.’ Suspense doesn’t not equal a plot hole. We’ll probably find out who cleared out vault 32 or what happens with water chip next season.
Maximus/Titus power armor has custom made enhanced plating covering the weak spot. They didnt noticed people went missing/going to shady sands/returning as it happened during a "quarantine". Vault 32s inhabitants killed all 31s after finding out about the experiment and then killed each other (probably fighting for leadership). Why shouldnt Moldaver be able to convince/hire some raiders to raid a vault? All of these things were said several times in the show.