
The episode’s most powerful moment is likely the opening flashback, which finally shows the destruction of Shady Sands – an event previously only talked about in the Fallout games. Shady Sands was once the capital of the New California Republic and a key location in Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, where players could choose to support it. We learned in season one that Hank destroyed Shady Sands, claiming it was to protect Vault-Tec’s plan for repopulating Earth. However, his motivations were also personal: his wife, Rose, had left him and moved to Shady Sands, refusing to return. The flashback portrays Shady Sands as a thriving, even beautiful, town – a hopeful vision of a rebuilt world two centuries after the Great War. Its destruction, by another atomic bomb, is a devastating setback for civilization. Hank receives confirmation of the successful bombing on his Pip-Boy and appears briefly shaken, but remains committed to his mission. The scene cuts to a young Lucy asking her father, “When’s mom coming back?” as they begin to read The Wind in the Willows.