Fallout (2024) / Funny - TV Tropes (2024)

Great idea!

Fallout revels in Black Comedy, and the Live Action series is no exception.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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E 1 - The End

The interview Lucy is seen taking is for a marriage application with the other vaults 33 is connected to. The reasoning being? There's no one inside Vault 33 who she isn't related to.
Chet, the doorkeeper, tries to pretend there's a mechanical glitch and the door won't open, so they have to call the marriage off. Lucy comes over and quietly reminds him that even though he's in love with her, cousins fooling around is fine for kids, but isn't a "long term sustainable sexual practice." He grudgingly gives up.
Upon meeting Lucy's new husband, who's quite ruggedly handsome, Steph mutters "lucky" under her breath, much to the chagrin of her husband who is standing right behind her.
At dinner, Lucy asks her new husband "what's your sperm count?" in front of everyone.
During the dinner party one of the members of Vault 32 steals a slice of cram from Steph's plate with her knife, very clearly holding it as if they've never used utensils before.
Norman's utter failure to act casual after the attack.
Norman: How's your day going?
Vault Dweller: [pushing a cart of corpses] ...as bad as everybody else's.
Chet tries to convince Lucy to take him with her outside. She quietly tranqs him.
After Maximus is named squire, one of his bullies (Thaddeus) has been given the duty of handing him the mission paperwork. That done, Maximus curtly says "you're dismissed, aspirant," and smirks once he's gone.
The mission paperwork includes a picture of a man labeled "TARGET"... and a dog, labeled "COMPANION."
All the squires have giant packs that they have to quickly pick up once their Knights start walking towards their Vertibirds.
A mariachi man is seen standing guard at a fort as he puts his gun away to eat something, he's struck in the chest by something, as the camera pans down to reveal he's been victimized by a doll's foot, courtesy of the Junk Jet.
The group coming to dig the Ghoul out of the graveyard brings a chicken with them; apparently feral ghouls can't abide chickens, so if he tries to kill it, they know he's crazy. The chicken is the only one the Ghoul doesn't kill.

E 2 - The Target

As Wilzig is escaping the Enclave compound he runs into a turret with a mounted display saying "PLEASE REMAIN CALM". The turret then somehow proceeds to miss every single bullet, as the Title Card shows up and is riddled with bullet holes.
Knight Titus is too busy sending Maximus to investigate the highly radioactive waste dump to realize a Yao Guai has managed to sneak up on him. Then he twigs it right as it prepares to start opening the canned food which has wandered into its lair, and his reaction is something to behold:
Titus: Oh f*ck. Oh f*ck. Holy sh*t. f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck-
- The Machine Monotone that the T-60c armor gives its wearers makes this and later scenes where Maximus shows high emotions even funnier.
- Just the fact that, during his scenes in the previous episode, Titus was built up to be something of a stoic badass, the kind you would expect any Brotherhood Knight to be. Then he's revealed to be nothing more than a cowardly and abusive pushover whose first reaction after losing his gun to the Yao Guai is to turn and run away. And as this happens immediately after he tells Maximus that only acts of bravery can earn him a suit of power armor, one has to wonder just how this pathetic loser was ever considered worthy of wearing power armor in the first place.
- What makes it especially hilarious is that the Yao Guai that wipes the floor with Titus is dropped with a single bullet to the head from Maximus's pistol when famously Yao Guai are very tanky in the actual game, which means that had Titus actually stood his ground and fought even without his gun he could have easily won but him being a Dirty Coward basically had him more or less kill himself to a laughably pathetic encounter.
- While he's lying on the ground bleeding out after the encounter, Titus takes the opportunity to rant at Maximus about how sick he is of the Brotherhood sending him off on "stupid missions" like this, including ones to requisition pre-War tech like... toaster ovens.
Titus: You know what you can do with a f*cking toaster oven?!
Lucy comes across a seriously dehydrated settler working on a water filter. His response when Lucy asks what he's working on?
Settler: It's meant to be a water filter. No matter how much sand I put in it I just get more sand.
- Really, the whole scene with the Settler, from Lucy cheerfully waving her tranq gun around when trying to wave down the Settler, to the Settler chugging all her water supply before giving a Long List of relatives that died in Filly (including an aunt who died there once), to the Settler propositioning Lucy with the disclaimer that he's sick and dying so he won't be much of a bother to her for very long.
Maximus taking Titus' power armor out for a joyride, throwing a brick several miles out to the ocean and accidentally demolishing a building with a rock he kicked at it. Immediately afterwards he rounds the building to find two men fighting each other and breaks up the fight. The instigator simply complains the man he was attacking was f*cking his chickens. Maximus' disgusted reaction and response sums it all up perfectly.
Maximus: Okay.
The Ghoul gets pinned down by Ma June's men and takes shelter behind a crate, not before snagging a few cherry tomatoes to snack on. He tells the other guy taking shelter that he loves cherry tomatoes and would offer him one... except he's got a hole in his neck, which the other guy promptly dies from.
Lucy tries to deescalate the shootout between the Ghoul and Ma June's men in Filly, giving a grand speech about the Ghoul's aggressiveness and that she is reluctantly going to have to use force against him. Everyone can only gawk at her like she's the biggest idiot in the Wasteland.
Ma June: f*cking Vault Dwellers...
After Maximus heroically arrives in his power armor and introduces himself as a Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel, he orders the Ghoul to "stand down or be cut down." The Ghoul (who is over 200 years old and had probably thought he'd Seen It All) honestly can't believe what he's witnessing.

The Ghoul: You gotta' be f*cking kidding me
Maximus versus the Ghoul:
- Maximus does get an early lead on the Ghoul due to his power armor giving him superior strength and durability... but then the Ghoul runs up a rickety flight of stairs that Maximus can't follow. The Ghoul taunts Maximus that it's hard to go up stairs when wearing a "twelve piece cast iron skillet set". Maximus' response is to just collapse the building with a punch.
- Maximus tries pursuing the Ghoul further into Filly, only for a floorboard to collapse under his weight and get his foot stuck. Even the background music cuts out as Maximus tries and fails to get his foot unstuck.
- When it's clear the Ghoul is more dangerous than he initially appears, Maximus tries retreating with his armor's jet thrusters. The Ghoul snags him with a chain, causing Maximus to comically smack against a nearby building before spiraling off into the distance as his armor malfunctions. Lucy, not seeing any of this, assumes Maximus won and is triumphantly flying off to parts unknown.
The Snake Oil Salesman from earlier is in town peddling his wares when he notices Lucy helping Wilzig hobble away on his artificial leg. He immediately begins claiming loudly, in various different ways, that his tonics will restore missing feet.
As Lucy and Wilzig stop to rest and the doctor explains that he's not going to make it, he says he took a Vault-Tec brand cyanide capsule, which he describes as being probably the most humane product Vault-Tec ever produced. And tasting like banana.
Wilzig: I don't know why it wasn't more popular.
See Also
111 Video Game Details in the Fallout TV Show - IGN

E 3 - The Head

Maximus sells his own teeth so he can pay for repairs to his armor. He even pays the repairman extra if it's done quickly. The part is easily repaired in a second.
Maximus' attempt to intimidate the scrappers trying to steal his armor. Not only is he smaller than at least half of them, but his speech is slurred from having his teeth pulled to cover the repair costs for the part mentioned above.
Maximus fakes his own death and pretends to be Knight Titus. Then he gets a new squire, who just happens to be one of his old bullies Thaddeus. He takes full advantage of it.
- He puts his armor's hand (still bloody from killing a scavenger) over Thaddeus' head, causing him to beg for mercy.
- He forces Thaddeus to clean his codpiece, just like Titus did to him.
- He makes Thaddeus climb a dead tree to find nonexistent apples.
The Vault 33 council wants to demote Norm as punishment for helping his sister escape, but can't think of a job he'll like less than anything he's already tried.
Councillor: Are you aware that every job you've ever had has reviewed your performance as "lacks enthusiasm"?
Norm: No, but that sounds accurate.
The Vault 33 residents suggest rehabilitating the captured raiders. Several people volunteer to teach them calculus, Shakespeare, and Kant. Norm is clearly trying very hard not to scream.
Norm then undercuts the council's authority by saying "apologies, Overseer," and two of them accept the gratitude at the same time.
A mechanic arrives with important news that he wants to give to the council in private. They insist he give it in public. He says the water chip has been destroyed, and they only have two months of water left. They quickly dismiss him, and he has a look on his face like "yeah, I said it should be private."
Maximus and Thaddeus come across Dr. Wilzig's mangled, decapitated corpse out in the Wasteland. In order to be sure it's him, Maximus has Thaddeus hold the picture he got back at base up to Wilzig's neck stump to confirm that yeah, that's him alright.
After their fight with the Gulper, Lucy sputters to the Ghoul that he should follow The Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have done unto you. The Ghoul, pissed that the fight smashed his supply of drugs, drags Lucy off and tells her the Wasteland has its own Golden Rule: "Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullsh*t every goddamn time". This line is quoted most often as one that shows whoever was writing the dialogue had definitely played the games.
Thaddeus Screams Like a Little Girl when the Gulper tries to eat him. Meanwhile, Maximus lets out a rather monotone "f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck" as he rushes out of the water and around the Gulper to try and save his Squire from the beast. And then, when he actually manages to kill the Gulper and save Thaddeus, it pukes up everything it ate recently. Maximus visibly recognizes Lucy's boot, while Dogmeat (who has been barking in the background for the entire scene) comes over to investigate the head.
Thaddeus: ...is that the head?
Maximus: ...huh.

E 4 - The Ghouls

While it's also pretty sad (as she's lost her husband and is clearly not taking it well), Steph dressing Chet up like Bert so she can get it on with him is so out of nowhere that it ends up being hilarious, especially since she's heavily pregnant and Bert's portrait is sitting nearby with an almost bored expression on its face.
You'd expect the ringleaders of a drug smuggling/organ harvesting ring to be hardened, fierce criminals, but the men who run the Super Duper Mart where the Ghoul sells Lucy to get drugs? They're a pair of disinterested shlubs who sit on a couch watching TV and seem more confused/bored by Lucy's attempts at resisting than genuinely threatened.
The Skewed Priorities of Snip-Snip deciding that he has to surgically graft a new finger on Lucy and try to comfort her, right before tranquilizing her so he could harvest her organs. Not to mention Lucy's naive positivity Failed a Spot Check on why a robot called Dr. Snip-Snip has a drawer full of severed fingers.
Lucy: Thank you. You know, that... that creature that brought me here, he...
Snip-Snip: You seem unhappy.
Lucy: He did not treat me very courteously.
Snip-Snip: Really?
Lucy: When I pointed out that he wasn't following the Golden Rule, he put a leash around my neck and he made me drink from puddle water that I'm pretty sure was just some kind of animal pee.
Snip-Snip: Well, that is interesting.
Lucy: And I thought I was here to be a sеx slave.
Snip-Snip: [horrified] What?! No! What a disgusting idea.
Lucy: [chuckles]
Snip-Snip: I'm simply going to harvest your organs.
Lucy: Huh?
Snip-Snip: [tranqs her]
- As he's a Mr. Handy, Snip-Snip also has a rather warped sense of morality. He's horrified at the thought of turning Lucy into a sex slave, but at the same time he sees absolutely no issue with cutting her open and removing her organs while she's still conscious and aware of everything.
  Snip-Snip: Apologies for the mess. Time flies by lately. Especially since my temporal sensors went out in the Great War. That must have been a week ago, at least.
Norman goes to fetch Chet so they can go explore Vault 32 and find out what happened. He opens the door to Chet's room to find him standing there awkwardly, wearing Burt's old sweater (which is a size too small for him) and scarf while Stephanie has a Screaming Birth right behind him. The two look at each other in silence for a moment.
Norman: So... you want to get out of the house for a while?
Chet: Yes, please.
Lucy tries to threaten Snip-Snip to get the chemheads to cooperate. They are more confused than threatened.
Huey: ...it's a f*cking robot.
Squirrel: Yeah, you might as well be holding an air conditioner hostage.
Huey: Well, an air conditioner sounds nice, though.
Squirrel: Yeah, an air conditioner would be a big deal. But you know what I mean.
After having explored Vault 32, which is an absolute horror show of various gruesome deaths, Chet comes to a logical conclusion.
Chet: Okay. I think it's safe to say they went bananas.

E 5 - The Past

After the encounter with the Fiends, and Maximus explaining to Lucy that they're cannibals, she finally says the quiet part out loud (in a tone of mild annoyance rather than the expected Heroic BSoD tantrum):
"I hate it up here."

E 6 - The Trap

Maximus' complete lack of sexual education. When Lucy suggests having sex, he refuses because he's afraid of his co*ck "exploding like a pimple."
- Becomes a Brick Joke later when he eats some oysters from the goodie basket the Vault 4 dwellers gave him and asks Lucy if she "wants to make his co*ck explode" now.
The Overseer says newcomer surface dwellers often have trouble with flush toilets.
The Overseer complains about Political Overcorrectness because the surface dwellers take exception to being called "surfies" as well as a joke he frequently tells. When Lucy asks what the joke was, he says he can't remember but it bombed.
Maximus' utter joy at the Mundane Luxury of Vault 4, from the goodie basket filled with popcorn and caviar to running water to a fuzzy bathrobe and slippers. He even uses the latter as justification for flipping on his earlier suspicions of Vault 4 while Lucy is trying to convince him that things aren't what they seem.
Max: (completely deadpan) They gave me a robe... And slippers.
The Ghoul's plot for the episode begins with him waking up on the floor of the Super Duper Mart after the bender he presumably went on after stealing the organ thieves' supplies. He is accosted by a protection racket that acts to a tee like Corrupt Hick cops, including taking orders from "The President of the Governmint" (yes, that is how it is spelled on the sign), a Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit who the Ghoul happens to know.

E 7 - The Radio

The video showing the last moments of the scientist couple from Cooper's Vault advertisem*nt. As his wife desperately barricades the door, the husband's last words focus on how he still believes a society run by unregulated scientists is still the ideal system and that his failure should not be used as a case study. Then he gets eaten by a Gulper. Who turns out to be the current Overseer's great-uncle.
Maximus witnesses Lucy seemingly being dragged off to be executed, while currently living his best life with a bowl of popcorn and a very comfortable chair. As he watches her pass by he looks down sadly at the bowl of popcorn, with a look of disappointment as if he has to make a truly difficult decision. Finally he gets up to rescue Lucy, but not before grabbing one last handful of delicious, delicious popcorn.
Lucy gets sentenced to death for knowing the horrors of the 12th floor of Vault 4, as well as hurting the dwellers when she resisted arrest. The Overseer announces her death sentence as he holds a machete "...you are hereby sentenced to death...by banishment to the surface!" Then he tries to cut Lucy's bindings, and he realizes that the machete is too dull^Note. So he decides to rip them off with his bare hands.
- More surprisingly, the crowd cheers (including the scientist whose face got scarred by Lucy) when she is freed, as if they just witnessed an actual execution. She is also given enough supplies for two weeks for her banishment!
- Maximus notices that she is being carried to the "execution block". So he removes the fusion core from the Vault's power supply and installs it to his power armor for her "rescue". He then proceeds to thrash the place around (where the music, "Only You" by The Platters, is played), during which he inadvertently smashes Lucy's banishment supplies. As a result, Lucy and Maximus are kicked out of the Vault without any weapons or supplies.
The only local radio station refuses to play anything but fiddle music. His audience is so sick of it that he's had to set up booby traps outside his radio tower to protect himself from "critics."
- Said death traps include a bear trap at least four feet in radius and a human-sized mousetrap, which somehow, the DJ's detractors had managed to fail to notice and get killed by.
Thaddeus tries to shoot Maximus and Lucy when they corner him at the radio station, only to wildly miss every shot. He then complains about how lousy he is without a scope. To add insult to injury, he then steps on a booby trap and gets an arrow through his throat. He stands there gagging for a moment... before pausing and asking why he isn't dead yet.
When Lucy and Maximus have their kiss, the severed heads they're carrying also end up touching lips.

E 8 - The Beginning

Bud clearly didn't put much thought into protecting Vault 31 should someone without authorization trick him into opening the door. You'd think, being willing to exist as a Brain in a Jar, he'd have given himself a cool robot body, but no. It's literally just a brain in a jar mounted on a roomba, and poor Bud is currently trapped by a fallen mop. When Norman enters the Vault and Bud realizes what's happened, he has to feebly ask Norman to hold still while he injects him with a syringe, since his "body" is so terrible that he can barely drive straight. Norman just calmly steps to the side when he first tries and Bud gives up. To add to the hilarity, in-script, the character is literally referred to as "Brain-on-a-Roomba."