© PA Wire
The statement was released two days after Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead in their home
© Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
This holiday season, one cookie tops the list in 38 states
© Getty/iStock
The father of the youngest victim of Australia’s Bondi Beach mass shooting gave an emotional tribute to his 10-year-old daughter, Matilda, at a vigil for victims on Tuesday December 16.
© AFP via Getty Images
The cakes were sold at Kroger Mid-Atlantic and Ukrop's Market Hall
© Getty Images
Season five of Netflix’s romance drama, premiering Thursday, relocates to Rome briefly
© © 2025 Netflix, Inc.
Decision branded ‘cowardly’ after series faced condemnation by Pentagon officials
© Netflix
© Daniel Cole/Reuters
Trump began the ceremony on the third night of the Jewish holiday by paying tribute to the victims of the mass shooting in Sydney
© AFP via Getty Images
Zelensky expects talks in the US as soon as this weekend - as the Kremlin says it is still waiting on an update from Washington
© Getty Images
© Eric Lee for The New York Times
© ASSOCIATED PRESS
© Police de Providence/via REUTERS
Boris and Sofia Gurman, aged 69 and 61, were killed while trying to disarm an attacker during Bondi Beach attack
© Jenny
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
The Fallout TV show is packed full of characters, factions, locations, and items familiar to any who has played the beloved RPGs. There are so many easter eggs to spot that we found 111 video game details in Season 1 alone. With Season 2 heading to a fan-favourite region of the Fallout universe, New Vegas, there's naturally a whole new flood of iconography set to make its way from the games into the Prime Video series. So, we’ll be digging into each and every episode and picking out everything we’ve noticed that relates to the source material. Without further ado, let's take a look at every video game easter egg and details we spotted in the season pemiere of Fallout Season 2.
1. The likes of Lucy and The Ghoul obviously return in Fallout Season 2, but one less obvious returning character is Robert House, who first appeared at the end of Season 1, albeit looking a little different. That’s because he’s now been recast, with Justin Theroux taking over (sort of) from Rafi Silver, in anticipation of a presumably larger role this time around. It makes sense, too, as New Vegas is where the founder of RobCo Industries is found in the game, declaring himself as CEO, President, and Sole Proprietor of the New Vegas strip. We first see him in a flashback sequence at a local bar.
2. New Vegas is also home to some iconic factions that battle for control over the Mojave wasteland. One we see prominently in this episode is the Great Khans, a raider tribe inspired by Mongolian culture of the old world. This can clearly be seen in their horned helmets and recognisable logo that’s proudly on display in Novac.
3. A number of corpses wearing fur hats can be seen as Lucy and The Ghoul investigate an abandoned vault. These are similar to the hats worn by the People's Liberation Army, as seen in Fallout 3 and its Operation: Anchorage DLC, although these are not actually dead members of the PLA, but the rotting carcasses of Americans brainwashed into thinking they’re communists.
4. Before the bombs dropped, we also get a look at a Vault-Tec salesman who looks to be dressed pretty much exactly like the one who rings your doorbell at the start of Fallout 4. We’d be highly surprised if it’s the exact same one, considering they’d have to be in both Boston and Los Angeles near the beginning of the apocalypse, but it's great to see that Vault-Tec enforces a strict dress code policy.
5. In fact, the whole neighborhood that the salesman is roaming around is similar to the one seen at the beginning of Fallout 4. Even a military Vertibird can be seen flying over the street, exactly like it does in the 2015 game.
6. Lucy and The Ghoul walk past a sign pointing towards the Starlight Drive-In Theater as they wander the wasteland. This drive-in cinema is actually a location you can visit in Fallout 4, but I guess there must have been a large chain of these that spread throughout America.
7. Vault 24 is a curious one. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t exist in Fallout: New Vegas, but following its 2010 release, a Vault 24 jumpsuit has been found in the game files of Obsidian’s RPG. It seems like this was a location that was ultimately cut, so it's nice to see it get its moment in the limelight here, even if it doesn’t seem the most welcoming of places.
8. One location that is definitely in Fallout: New Vegas is the Dino Dee-lite Motel. Arguably one of the Mojave wasteland’s most iconic landmarks, in this part of the timeline, the Great Khans have seemingly taken control of it at the expense of the game’s previous occupant, Jeannie May Crawford, who ran it fifteen years earlier in 2281.
9. Dinky the T-Rex is the motel’s looming dinosaur mascot, and he looks just like he does in New Vegas. In a clear reference to the video game, Lucy uses its gaping mouth as a sniper’s nest, just as Craig Boone and Manny Vargas once did.
10. The Dino Dee-Lite motel is what the town of Novac is built around, having gotten its name from the damaged “No Vacancy” sign that sits outside of it. In the game, its residents describe it as “a small oasis in a big desert”, but it looks like it's seen better days in the show.
11. A nice little detail is the shield and skull decoration seen in Novac. This is a reference to the Great Khans ending slide from the first Fallout, which you may have seen based on the choices you’d made in that original Interplay Productions game.
12. And of course, it wouldn’t be Fallout with Nuka Cola. A vending machine for the wasteland’s favourite carbonated drink can be seen in Novac by the motel.
13. Caffeine isn’t the only drug rife in the Mojave, though. This Great Khan member can be seen inhaling some Jet, a powerful hallucinogenic chem that gives the user a brief period of enhanced awareness. In the games, this translates as slowing down the action around you to give the player an edge in combat. Incidentally, the most common form of Jet is created using the fumes emanating from the dung of Brahmin (Fallout’s multi-headed bovine).
14. The Ghoul can be seen using a device that produces a green light or mist to heal the cuts on his neck. This appears to be a brand new device created for the show, but it could be a miniaturised version of Fallout 76’s Stimpack Diffuser, which creates a cloud of green healing mist.
15. Of course, there are also more traditional ways of harming your insides. Big Boss cigarettes are a very common brand in the Fallout universe, and we can see Mr House with a pack of them in the opening.
16. If you’re more of a straight-edge kinda person, perhaps we can interest you in some of the wasteland’s more precious items – purified water. A bottle can be seen on the floor of a vault back in Los Angeles.
17. Another great way to restore some health in the Fallout games is by eating some Sugar Bombs. An incredibly sugary breakfast cereal, a box can be spotted in the far less sweet-looking medical facility inside Vault 24.
18. Back in the very Fallout 4-looking town in the middle of the episode, we can spot a Vault-Tec van, presumably belonging to the aforementioned salesman. In case you don’t know, Vault-Tec is the company responsible for building and maintaining the hundreds of nuclear bunkers across North America.
19. And don’t get too excited, but that isn’t the only van-related detail, as in the episode’s opening scene we are shown a Radiation King van behind Robert House. Radiation King is an electronics company that, among other items, makes many of the televisions spotted across Fallout’s wasteland.
20. Speaking of technology and Mr House, could the neck-mounted radio chips that he uses to overpower the construction worker’s brain be an early prototype of the Mesmetron, or perhaps a competing design from RobCo Industries? The Mesmetron is a mind control device that we’ve only previously seen in Fallout 3. This unique weapon was developed by Implied Hypnotics Inc. and grants the player the ability to confuse enemies, and even make their heads explode.
21. Speaking of non-Fallout: New Vegas-related items from the games making their way into the TV show, the Whack a Commie! arcade machine from Fallout 4’s Nuka World expansion can be seen being played by Cooper’s daughter, Janey, in a flashback.
22. Music is a huge part of the Fallout games, and that’s no different in the show. During the Novac shootout, we can hear “Big Iron” by Marty Robbins. This track features in Fallout: New Vegas and has lived a long life since, becoming a meme in its own right.
23. “It’s All Over” by The Ink Spots can also be heard in the episode. This is from Fallout 4, with The Ink Spots being a 1930s and ‘40s group that has become synonymous with the games, having had songs featured in multiple entries.
24. “Make the World Go Away” is a country song originally written by Hank Cochran. Though not in any Fallout, a cover of it has been used in a video game: GTA San Andreas, which also visits Las Vegas as one of its key locations.
25. A couple of other tracks also get aired throughout the season two premiere: A cover of “Cheek to Cheek” by Frank Sinatra, and “Workin’ For the Man” by Roy Orbison. These have no connection to the already established Fallout universe as far as we can tell, but do fit the vibe perfectly.
And that’s everything we spotted in the first episode of season two of the Fallout TV show. Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments. For more Fallout, check out our review of the premiere, and stay tuned next week for all of episode two’s easter eggs.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
You don't have to pay more for a white-colored graphics card. For a limited time, Amazon is offering its Prime members a Gigabyte Aero GeForce RTX 5070 OC 12GB Graphics Card, decked out in a white and silver colorway, for $499. That's better than most 5070 deals I've seen because the GPU also features a triple-fan cooling system. The RTX 5070 is an excellent GPU for gaming at up to 1440p at comfortable framerates, and even at 4K with the help of DLSS4.
Triple fan cooling
Compared to the previous generation GPUs, the RTX 5070 performs comparably with the RTX 4070 Super, which was already an excellent card for 1080p and 1440p gaming. The RTX 5070 also features DLSS 4 with multi-frame generation, and the performance gap widens in games that support it, including Doom: The Dark Ages, Clair Obscur, Borderlands 4, Battlefield 6, and more. DLSS4 also makes the 5070 a viable card for 4K gaming. This particular Gigabyte model has a triple-fan cooling system, which has the potential to run cooler and quieter than two-fan cards.
Read our RTX 5070 review for our hands-on impressions.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
This review contains spoilers for Fallout Season 2’s premiere episode, “The Innovator”, which is available to stream now on Prime Video. For a spoiler-free look at what's to come, check out our Fallout Season 2 Episodes 1-6 review.
We may have only known them for just under eight hours in total, but it feels really good to be back in the company of Lucy MacLean and The Ghoul. Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins have breathed exceptional life into this odd couple pairing, and their first season triumphs are effortlessly picked up in this second season premiere – Purnell never less than completely charming, even when guzzling flea soup, and Goggins always ready with a sharp blade or sharper word. The strength of this duo is emblematic of Fallout’s strength as a whole – a project that completely understands the often contradictory tone required of this eccentric world, where the goofy walks side-by-side with the terrifying. That deep understanding is vital for this season’s new challenge: the gargantuan task of working within the lore of Fallout: New Vegas, one of the most beloved RPGs of all time. And while the most interesting and iconic stuff is still beyond the horizon of this episode, the authenticity of the show is still plain to see, and it helps this enjoyable premiere rise above a few noticeable blemishes.
While Fallout’s Season 2 premiere never fails to be entertaining, the first half is too preoccupied with reminding you what Fallout is and who all of its characters are to truly get this season’s storyline going with earnestness. The sequence at the Dino Dee-lite Motel, one of Fallout: New Vegas’ most famous landmarks, is an enjoyably silly showcase of just how much The Ghoul takes pleasure in turning humans into bits of pie-filling, and how Lucy will always look for the non-lethal way out of sticky situations. But the entire event is a reiteration of character traits we already know, and so is essentially homework for those arriving late to the party. It’s a revision exercise that feels slightly unnecessary following almost six minutes of “previously on Fallout” montage, and one we’ll likely have to go through again soon considering the show’s third lead, Maximus (Aaron Moten), has yet to show his face.
While Lucy and Ghoul’s journey does eventually stumble into more interesting territory (more on that later), it’s by visiting the past that this premiere episode is able to establish more compelling stories for the show’s future. The pre-war flashbacks return, picking up just seconds after The Ghoul’s former self, Hollywood actor Cooper Howard, eavesdropped on Vault-Tec’s diabolical plans in the Season 1 finale. I’m pleased to see that Sarita Choudhury’s Moldaver is back as part of all this, and that her first task is pressuring Howard into becoming a cold-blooded killer. While it seems like she’ll be no more than a shadowy figure on the sidelines, at least she gets to be the person that kickstarts Cooper’s descent into becoming a frequent creator of bloody messes.
Cooper’s involvement with Moldaver, Vault-Tec, and attempting to prevent armageddon puts him in the fascinating position of being on the frontlines of what has previously only ever been Fallout’s distant backstory. Season 1 used Cooper as a lens through which to truly live the kind of pre-apocalypse existence that the games have only hinted at through shattered retrofuturistic kitchens and rusted robot butlers, but we’re going somewhere very different now: right into the middle of the events that caused Fallout. It’s sacred territory, the stuff I’d usually say should be kept perpetually beyond our reach, only ever learned about through notes and audio logs hidden behind a hacking puzzle. But I can’t deny that I’m excited to see where this more hands-on approach takes both Cooper and Fallout as a whole.
Much of that excitement is generated by Moldaver and Howard’s target: Justin Theroux’s Robert House. Or, as the episode’s ominous intertitle credits him as, “The Man Who Knew.” A cold opening provides an impressive look at Theroux’s take on New Vegas’ most important character, who combines immaculate grooming, unbreakable confidence, and a trademark breathy “hw” sound at the start of his “when”, “where”, and “why”s to create a delightfully insufferable upper-class intellectual. His deal with the striking construction worker is a neat demonstration of how he’s able to use that intellect to orchestrate scenarios to optimum outcomes; he uses money to lure the man into becoming his test subject, and then a mind control chip to take total control. He’s a master manipulator who’ll do anything to bend you to his will. If last season’s finale didn’t make it abundantly clear, billionaires are the problem.
The splattery back-alley experiment is a fantastic introduction to House, but one minorly stained by the show’s attempt to create an in-universe explanation for the character’s re-casting. Rafi Silver, who played House for a single scene last season, returns in a retconned role that appears to be the industrialist’s “public face.” In the strikers’ local bar, workers decry the sight of Silver’s face on the TV, but have absolutely no idea who Justin Theroux is. Perhaps this is supposed to be some kind of twist in the making – “Surprise, this guy was House all the long!” But if that’s the case, perhaps they shouldn’t have given Theroux the exact same hair, make-up, and smoking habit that Silver has. The whole sequence had me confused as to if the person who looked like House was actually House, rather than genuinely hoodwinked by a red herring. While the character does admittedly need to sport his iconic moustache, that could always have been added in a later reveal. And, more importantly, if Amazon was shooting for a twist, they shouldn’t have confirmed Theroux was playing House in both trailers and interviews that landed months ahead of this episode.
Despite this rough edge, I’m excited about House’s position in the show and can’t wait to see him butt heads with Cooper. I’m less enthusiastic about the ongoing tale of interconnected vaults 31, 32, and 33, which so far still needs to prove it was worth continuing into this second season. I’ll admit that I was unoptimistic about this storyline in the first season and was eventually proved wrong by the finale, but what we seem to have this time is multiple vault dweller storylines, rather than just the one spearheaded by Moisés Arias’s Norm. His journey is thankfully off to a reasonably strong start that instantly builds on his discovery of the now-thawing 200-year-old battalion of frozen Vault-Tec managers, and I expect things will heat up as soon as they’ve wiped the frost from their eyes next week. But the other vault-based plots already threaten to be inconsequential, such as the broken water chip (which reared its head last season for little more than a single line of dialogue), Steph’s ascent to overseer, and especially the in-breeding social club started by a very bored Reg. While it’s true that these jumpsuited idiots do provide a few good laughs, I think gags are better delivered within the main narrative and not as comedy sideshows. There may be three vaults, but I don’t think there needs to be three stories… although, like with last season, a good final twist may justify the time spent with these vault boys and girls.
When you can see the exciting sparks of disparate plot threads being welded together, though, it really does feel like the best of Fallout is back. The first season eventually wrought many of its ideas into one satisfying, coherent whole, and it feels like this second season is getting started with that process even earlier. Stories from across both the timeline and breadth of the wasteland are stitched together in this episode’s more propulsive second half, as Lucy and The Ghoul discover the abandoned vault that was once used to trial the mind-control chips we saw Robert House testing in the opening sequence. The “turn Americans into communists” theme of the vault’s experiment is a good laugh – not sharp enough to be genuine satire, but enough to colourfully evoke the idea of a mad Vault-Tec scientist creating “monsters,” Clockwork Orange-style. It further enriches Fallout’s shadowy corners, demonstrates that aforementioned understanding of the games’ tone, and hopefully points towards even more messed up experiments in the future. Anyone up for a trip to the “Gary” vault?
Meanwhile, in the metal bowels of yet another underground bunker, we’re treated to a precious few minutes with Kyle MacLachlan to round the episode out on a high. Hank MacLean initially appears to be a dedicated Vault-Tec company man, getting ready to complete his employer’s plans in a fantastically upbeat sequence set to Roy Orbison’s “Working for the Man,” which is only made better by the involvement of a hot cup of coffee and a damn good smile. But that final radio call really threw me for a loop. Hank may be working for the man, but that man certainly ain’t Vault-Tec. Fallout veterans will recognise that all signs point to Robert House, but how are these men connected? What does Hank’s promotion entail? And is House even still alive? There well may be nobody listening to Hank’s report, after all. Whatever the answers, there’s now a clearly defined web of intrigue that links Hank, Lucy, The Ghoul, Cooper Howard, and Robert House all together. And there’s our central throughline established. While this premiere certainly has its struggles, it gets to exactly where it needs to be before everything fades to black.
© Chris Radburn/PA
Connexion
