Fallout Showrunner Explains That Out-of-This-World Easter Egg
Extraterrestrials in my Fallout season 2? It's more likely than you think!
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This article contains spoilers for FALLOUT season 2 episode 2.
Though Fallout is set in the distant future, it’s not fully accurate to call it “science fiction.” Like Bethesda’s iconic video game franchise upon which it’s based, the Prime Video series adopts a retro-futuristic aesthetic. As nuclear weaponry proliferates, all other technology stagnates, with personal computers essentially becoming CRT-monitor bricks attached to citizens wrists. And all that’s before the Great War of 2077 returns the American continent to the Stone Age!
Still, even though Fallout rests under the post-apocalyptic drama banner, that doesn’t mean it’s completely void of any sci-fi trappings. Case in point is the second episode of season two, which features a split-second shot of an unexpected being in an icy environment.
“You are the first person to ask a question about the alien in the fridge,” Maximus actor Aaron Moten tells Den of Geek. “I also was asking questions about the alien. Where are we going with this?”
Yes, Fallout season 2 episode 2 contains an alien in a fridge. The frozen extraterrestrial is uncovered when the Brotherhood of Steel explores their newly claimed base of operations at the highly secretive U.S. Air Force facility Area 51.
“Holy shit,” a Brotherhood member who makes the discovery exclaims. But then he makes clear his excitement isn’t over the alien. “A real fucking ice box!”
The Brotherhood’s muted reaction is due to the fact that aliens really aren’t that big a deal in the Fallout universe. Any player of the games could tell you that playthroughs are dotted with extraterrestrial Easter eggs including crashed UFOs, alien skeletons, and plasma weaponry. With the release of Fallout 3 DLC Mothership Zeta in 2009, the little grey men became an official part of the canon. For Fallout co-showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet, the brief alien moment served as a fun nod for longtime players.
“We just wanted to tease it, that’s all! This season, you know, spoiler alert: not a ton of aliens. But [co-showrunner Graham Wagner] and I were always laughing and talking about the fact that aliens are such a big part of the game (well, not a huge part of the game but they’re in the game). I’ve talked to [Fallout czar Todd Howard] about it as well. I find it so intriguing that alien life was discovered pre-war and that’s part of this massive universe. I’m hoping at some point we can do more with it,” she says.
Though the official introduction of aliens into the Fallout TV universe operates as a wink to players and quick one-off joke, it also serves as a reminder of just how much lore the show’s writers get to play with. And, according to Robertson-Dworet, they’re not anywhere close to running out of new elements.
“Oh my God, there’s so much left,” she says. “That’s the crazy thing about the Fallout universe is that it feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface. We’re two seasons in and there are so many things left from game canon that we would really like to dive into deeper, you know. You can do hundreds of hours of gameplay if you want and we have eight hours to tell our story. We’re already talking about which creatures we’re excited to bring in.”
Truly, there are still so many Fallout creatures to come and so many potential kitchen appliances for them to be found in.
New episodes of Fallout season 2 premiere Wednesdays, culminating with the finale on February 4.