17 December 2025

Fallout Season 2 Episode 1 Has a 10/10 Fakeout That Sets the Stage for Season 3

By newsgame

Spoilers for Fallout S1 E1 Ahead. I will avoid spoiling as much as possible, but one key scene remains in focus.

Fallout executive producer Jonathan Nolan recently confirmed that Season 3 had been greenlit, even before Season 2 debuted. If that doesn’t speak to Amazon and Bethesda’s confidence, nothing does. Fallout season 2 has just debuted its first episode, after all, and Nolan hopes to begin shooting Season 3 in summer 2026.

That all comes down to dedication, it would seem, as Nolan highlights the ability of the cast and crew to get back to filming as quickly as possible. It seems that Fallout is not just a great video game adaptation in the eyes of fans, but also those working on it. And while we are a long, long way from learning what Fallout season 3 will be about, Episode 1 offers as strong a teaser as it comes.

Fallout S2E1 Casts a Wide Shot on New Vegas, But a Spotlight on Fallout 4

In one scene, fans will see that Cooper Howard is visiting Sanctuary Hills, a suburban neighborhood just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. It will be immediately recognizable to fans because this is the neighborhood seen in Fallout 4‘s intro. Not only do players see the iconic Fallout house of Nate and Nora (and their son Shaun) and the Vault-Tec Salesman, but they also see an alarm go off and the neighborhood rushes out for the nearby Vault 111.

Fallout 4 Salesman No Paid Mods Microtransactions

This fakeout moment works, even if just for a second. It’s the Fallout 4 introduction remade to a T, and it’s so well done that as soon as the initial shock of the location passes, there’s a second shock that the Bombs are dropping. However, this moment quickly fades—fans will no doubt recall that Cooper Howard was at a birthday party with his daughter when Fallout‘s Great War began (and ended). Howard will point out that it’s just a test, but the extreme reaction shows that Fallout 4‘s intro wasn’t just a one-off. The fear of the Great War was a daily reality.

This Scene Doesn’t Break Fallout 4 Canon

This scene works so well, but fans may think of one key moment as strange: why is the Vault-Tec salesman, in his Fallout 4 attire, at the house? Luckily, this is easily explained by one of Fallout 4‘s possible protagonists. When players receive the knock on the door in-game, the non-selected spouse will comment: “Can you get that? It’s probably that salesman. He comes for you every day.”

A Throwaway Line Saves the Logic of This Scene

This one line puts everything in order. Actors like Walton Goggins don’t want to play the Fallout games to save the originality of their character, which is fair enough, but the writers are clearly paying close attention. “He comes for you every day” may be hyperbole, but it explains that the salesman has appeared in this neighborhood several, several times. Unfortunately, he was also there when the Great War happened, and he was not allowed into Vault 111. Despite being a Vault-Tec employee, he was not included on the entry list, and he was left to become one of Fallout 4‘s ghouls.

The Bigger Picture Here is That the Commonwealth is on the Horizon

This is an impressive scene from the way it plays with expectations, down to it knowing the fine details of Fallout 4, and it seems to be a heavy teaser for what could come in Season 3. Simply put, why else would the writers go to the lengths to include this elaborate Easter egg if the Commonwealth was not coming into play as a physical location soon?

If I’m right, then it would mean that there’s a large swath of travel from New Vegas to New England, but luckily, this could be easily explained away between seasons. It ultimately remains to be seen if this is just a simple Easter egg or something more, but the elaboration of it makes me think the Commonwealth in Fallout (the show) will be bigger than anyone realizes right now.