Fallout S2 E5 – “The Wrangler”

In this week’s heavy-hitting chapter, Lucy and The Ghoul finally step into the neon-drenched (and monster-infested) ruins of New Vegas, but don’t expect a warm welcome. While Lucy struggles with a mounting addiction and the moral weight of surviving the Mojave, The Ghoul is forced to confront his own ghosts when a face-to-face meeting with a legendary tech titan from his past sheds new light on how the world actually ended.

Meanwhile, back at the ruins of Vault-Tec HQ, Norm stumbles upon a secret so dark it makes the Great War look like a minor misunderstanding. As alliances fracture and a familiar face returns with a sinister new upgrade, Lucy has to decide if she’s willing to become the very thing she’s been running from just to stay alive. It’s a high-stakes gamble where the house always wins—and the house is currently trying to kill everyone.

Review

Alright, let’s talk about “The Wrangler.” First off, Walton Goggins continues to be the MVP of this entire franchise. Watching him play the swaggering, pre-war Cooper Howard against Justin Theroux’s Robert House was like watching two heavyweight champions trade blows, but with more “mathematical paradigms” and fewer boxing gloves. Theroux steps into the role of Mr. House with the perfect level of “I’m smarter than you and I’ve already calculated your death,” which adds a great layer of dread to the flashbacks.

The episode does a fantastic job of balancing the humor with some genuinely “bad effects” on the human soul. Lucy’s descent is getting hard to watch, but in a “good TV” way. Seeing her go from a wide-eyed vault dweller to a Power Fist-wielding shoplifter who accidentally (but effectively) murders a guy in a Freeside grocery store is a trip. The show pulls no punches showing how the wasteland erodes your humanity. On the technical side, the special effects for the Deathclaws were terrifying—seeing three of those things stalking the New Vegas Strip was a total “run for your life” moment that felt like it jumped straight out of the game’s hardest difficulty setting. The CGI on the Deathclaws felt weightier and more organic than the stuff we saw in Season 1.

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5/5)

Complete Synopsis & Plot Breakdown

The episode kicks off with Lucy and The Ghoul arriving at the gates of New Vegas, only to realize the Strip is currently a playground for a pack of Deathclaws. After a frantic chase through the ruins, they manage to slip into the Freeside district. Lucy is in a bad way—she’s hooked on Buffout and desperately needs Addictol. While The Ghoul heads to a bar to drown his centuries of sorrow, Lucy tries to buy the cure at a local shop, only to find the “owner” is actually a killer who murdered the real proprietor. After a tense “speech check” style standoff, Lucy kills the man. It’s her first cold-blooded human kill, and you can see the light in her eyes dimming.

In the 2077 flashbacks, we finally see the legendary meeting at the Lucky 38. Cooper Howard and his wife Barb meet with Robert House, who reveals he’s predicted the exact date of the apocalypse using math. However, he’s rattled because Cooper’s presence in Vegas has shifted his calculations. House isn’t the one dropping the bombs—he’s just the one trying to profit from them—and he reveals that an “unknown third party” might be the real trigger. This sends Cooper into a spiral, realizing his wife and Vault-Tec are even deeper into the conspiracy than he thought.

Back in the present, Norm and a group of “Bud’s Buds” junior execs reach the old Vault-Tec Headquarters. Norm hacks into his mother’s old terminal and discovers the truth about F.E.V. (Forced Evolutionary Virus). Before he can dig deeper, he’s caught and nearly strangled by Ronnie, a loyal Vault-Tec lackey.

The climax brings it all together: Hank MacLean has captured the Snake Oil Salesman and successfully used a mind-control device on him. He sends the now-puppet Salesman to meet The Ghoul with an ultimatum: trade Lucy for the location of The Ghoul’s wife and daughter. Desperate after 200 years, The Ghoul betrays Lucy and sedates her. But Lucy—now a survivor—wakes up just in time to use her new Power Fist to punch The Ghoul through a third-story window, impaling him on a pole below. As she stands over the wreckage, her father, Hank, steps out of the shadows to claim her.

Photos

Notes

“Fallout” season 2, episode 5 is titled “The Wrangler.” It released on Prime Video in mid‑January 2026 and continues the New Vegas arc while sharply escalating the stakes for Lucy, The Ghoul, Hank, and Norm.

Basic episode info

• Title: “The Wrangler”
• Season: 2, Episode 5 (overall episode 13 of the series)
• Notable creatives: Directed by Liz Friedlander, written by Owen Ellickson.

Main plot threads

• Lucy and The Ghoul survive a Deathclaw encounter in New Vegas, but their partnership fractures after he agrees to trade her to Hank in exchange for sparing his frozen wife and daughter.
• Lucy’s morality continues to erode as she steals chems, accidentally kills a shopkeeper, and ultimately turns The Ghoul’s betrayal back on him with a power fist.

Hank and Vault storylines

• Hank finally gets his brain‑computer interface working by successfully exerting mind control over the Snake Oil Salesman, confirming he can remotely control people topside.
• Norm travels with the Vault 31 management group to Vault‑Tec HQ, discovers “F.E.V.” (Forced Evolutionary Virus) research, and is captured when his cover is blown.

Pre‑war Cooper / House material

• Extensive flashbacks show Cooper meeting the real Robert House in Vegas, learning House has mathematically predicted the date of the nuclear war and believes an unknown third party will drop the bombs.
• Cooper’s connection to the apocalypse is emphasized, and the episode ends with him confronting Barb in their hotel room after everything he overheard about Vault‑Tec’s plans.