'Fallout' Season 2 reveals how Shady Sands was nuked

Fallout Season 2, Episode 2 Shows Us How Shady Sands Was Destroyed

The Peace of Shady Sands Was Beautiful Before Its Destruction 

In a harrowing flashback, Fallout season two, episode two takes us back to the day Shady Sands was destroyed by a nuclear bomb. The day begins like any other in the idyllic post-apocalyptic city of Shady Sands. We see a happy, thriving hub full of life; people are chatting on the streets, buying goods at the market, swinging on swings in the park, and there’s even what looks like a little library. The flashback shows us a young Maximus and his parents living in Shady Sands. Maximus’ father is even working on a device that draws clean, radiation-free water from the ground. It seems the world holds much promise for the denizens of Shady Sands; their future is bright.

An Intruder Arrives, Speaking an Ominous Phrase and Bringing with Him a Nuke

The peace of Shady Sands is very real, at least until an unwelcome visitor arrives. A man in a military helmet leading a horse and wagon enters captial city of the NCR. And something is absolutely wrong with him. We see the man repeating the same phrase over and over as he arrives in Shady Sands in Fallout season two, episode. Like a zombie, the man mutters to himself.”Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.”

When we see him next, the man is slumped over by his wagon in the center of Shady Sands. He’s still repeating the same eerie phrase, but now his eyes are bleeding. “Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter,” He intones. Maximus’ father comes to take a closer look, but the man only shakes harder and repeats the phrase more urgently. But then we see something in Fallout, season two, Episode two: on the back of the man’s neck is one of Mr. House’s Brain-Computer Interface Implant chips.

We See Shady Sands Get Nuked in Fallout Season 2, Episode 2

Sensing something is wrong in Fallout season two’s second episode, Maximus’ father quickly looks through the wagon and finds the nuclear warhead meant for Shady Sands. He tries to disarm it, but Vault-Tec has put in a fail-safe, of course. Everyone runs, and Maximus’ parents save him by putting him into a fridge that doubles as a fallout shelter to protect him from the nuclear blast. We see Maximus emerging from this very fridge in his flashbacks to Shady Sands during Fallout season 1. And then, never a show to pull a punch, Fallout season two shows us the moment that Shady Sands is nuked. We see all the beauty, love, and peace the city holds go up in flames, and we experience the pain of its citizens as they realize they are losing their future. It’s an immense sorrow.

Elsewhere in Fallout‘s world, Hank MacLean washes his hands clean of the whole affair as he receives the notice that the Shady Sands detonation was successful on his Pip-Boy. He shakes off any ennui and heads off to read “The Wind in the Willows” to a young Lucy.

Mr. House’s Brain-Computer Interface Implant Device Played a Role in the Nuking of Shady Sands

Fallout season two’s lookback at the nuking of Shady Sands in episode two is more than just a painful moment, though. It gives us a clue about the greater mechanisms at work in the world of Fallout. In episode one of Fallout season two, we learn that Mr. House is working on a Brain-Computer Interface Implant chip. This device allows him to mind-control anyone he attaches it to.

It’s clear that the man who brought the nuclear bomb into Shady Sands in Fallout season two did not do it of his own free will. Instead, the robotic nature in which the man repeats his phrase of choice on Fallout and the device we see on his back, reveal that he was mind-controlled by someone else into taking the nuke into Shady Sands and detonating it. We knew that Vault-Tec was somehow involved in the nuking of Shady Sands before Fallout season two, episode two, but now it feels like it may not have beenVault-Tec acting alone.

Were Mr. House and Hank MacLean Working Together to Destroy Shady Sands? 

So did RobCo’s Mr. House and Vault-Tec’s Hank MacLean come together to destroy Shady Sands? It certainly feels like a post-Great War collaboration between the pair may have taken place.

In Fallout season two, episode one, we see that the Vaults in New Vegas, Mr. House’s stomping grounds, are working to perfect the mind-control device. Both Vault 24 and the Vault Hank finds himself in at the end of Fallout season two, episode one, were likely a couple of the ones that were owned by Mr. House, given to him for his own experiments. And it seems like his chief experiment was the Brain-Computer mind-control implant. By all accounts, Hank MacLean’s Vault-Tec Vault, Vault 33, is not working on this Brain-Computer Interface Implant, making it likely that Mr. House somehow lent a hand.

Additionally, Hank is the Overseer of Vault 33. While there’s some implication he could slip out of the Vault unnoticed for a little bit of time, it might be much easier for, say, someone running his own town, like Mr. House may be doing in New Vegas, to handle that part of the operation.

Another hint that someone beyond just Fallout‘s Hank MacLean is involved in the nuking of Shady Sands is the phrase that the mind-controlled man says: “Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.” New Vegas/Las Vegas is surrounded by the Mojave Desert, hinting that the man who brought the nuke into Shady Sands in Fallout season two hails from those parts. Additionally, although Hank MacLean played some role in Vault-Tech, he seems to have been one Buds’ Buds, an executive assistant… not a likely candidate to have his hands on a nuclear warhead. Mr. House, on the other hand…

We feel like Fallout season two, episode two’s lookback at the destruction of Shady Sands seems to imply that Mr. House and Hank MacLean teamed up for this takedown in some fashion.

Why Did Hank MacLean Want to Nuke Shady Sands?

Initially, we thought that Hank MacLean wanted to bomb Shady Sands mostly on behalf of Vault-Tec. But in Fallout season two, episode one, he implies to, presumably, Mr. House, that he’s gone rogue. It feels like Hank MacLean is now on his own quest to rule the post-Great War wasteland with his own plans, not Vault-Tec’s, in mind. Of course, either way, the destruction of Shady Sands was a huge blow to those who might organize opposition to him. It’s suggested that, alongside its people, as we see in Fallout season two, episode two, the NCR’s government also died in the blast, as Shady Sands was the location for both the NCR President and the Hall of Congress. Additionally, Shady Sands represented the thing that Vault-Tec, and anyone else jockeying for Wasteland control, feared most in the Wasteland: people making decisions for themselves. Destroying it seems like a no-brainer for Hank, whether on behalf of Vault-Tec or his own hunger for power.

Of course, we learned in the final episode of Fallout season one that Hank MacLean has a very personal reason for nuking Shady Sands. It seems his wife left him and tried to take their children to live in the surface city. And perhaps she fell in love with Moldaver there. Needless to say, we bet Hank MacLean did not like that very much.

Fallout season two, episode two reveals to us how Shady Sands was nuked. Its destruction was vicious and swift. But it also reveals how many nefarious forces are still at play in Fallout‘s world, trying to bring any signs of a free world to its knees.

New episodes of Fallout season two drop Wednesdays on Prime Video.

Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist and a huge Fallout fan. She absolutely calls herself a Ghoul Gal.