Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: 'another Player At The Table' (2026)

Please note: major spoilers for Fallout Season 2 Episode 5!

If the last episode of Fallout Season 2 left you hoping for a knockdown, dragout fight with a deathclaw, I've got some bad news for you. After not one, not two, but three deathclaws make a dramatic entrance on the New Vegas strip, Lucy and The Ghoul make a wise but fairly unexciting decision, and one we've all made when encountering a big monster in a game: they just sprint past them and load into a new map.

Despite the lack of a battle, it is nice to see typically too-cool-for-school Ghoul absolutely terrified, and we know why: he was maybe the first person to ever see a deathclaw in the wild in Alaska, and even after 200 years they still make his irradiated blood run cold.

It's not a great sign for New Vegas that deathclaws have moved into the Strip, though on the other side of the fence at least Freeside is looking busier and more bustling than it ever has. Those deathclaws are now between The Ghoul and Hank MacLean, who's holed up in the secret management Vault-Tec vault The Ghoul has never managed to find—the one he believes contains his missing wife and daughter.

So, now what? "You can't just waltz past a pack of deathclaws," says The Ghoul, despite having just waltzed past a pack of deathclaws. He goes to get drunk while Lucy heads to the store for some anti-drug drugs.

Cleverly paying tribute to the question of which Fallout: New Vegas ending is canon, the Ghoul's bartender mentions how the Strip has changed management over and over again. "It's like one of them merry-go-rounds. NCR, Legion, NCR, Legion, fucking robots..." Is this how NPCs feel, trapped in a world where history changes every time we play? Must be rough on the neurons.

Flashback to Old Vegas, where Cooper is in full secret agent mode, though House is already onto him. "Mr. House would like to see you," says Mr. House to Cooper, thus resolving the not-so-mysterious mystery: Justin Theroux's character is the Robert House, and Rafi Silver's character is Robert House's human avatar for public appearances. ("Robert House's Double" is Silver's character's name in the credits.)

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

The meeting doesn't go well. House claims he knows everything but then starts rattling off all the things he doesn't know, like who is behind the deathclaws or who will actually start the war. He doesn't think it'll be Vault-Tec who drop the bombs, th

Source: PC Gamer