Season two of Prime Video’s Fallout featured enough revelations to fill an entire vault. That included the unexpected twist that Enclave scientist Siggi Wilzig—who escaped the group in season one before giving his life to get cold fusion to Moldaver—was one of the many characters born before the bombs dropped. We also learned in the season finale that Vault-Tec executive Hank MacLean was secretly a member of the Enclave. His work on mind-control device miniaturization was on behalf of the sinister organization in Fallout. And now that we know what Hank was doing and for whom, we can finally appreciate something important Siggi saw at the Enclave HQ before he fled, way back in Fallout season one: the Enclave was testing its mind control devices on dogs.
Everything about the opening sequence of episode two in Fallout season one makes a lot more sense after the show’s season two finale and its mind control reveals. It’s clear, now that we know Siggi Wilzig was alive before the bombs, why he looked so uncomfortable at the Enclave headquarters. He was new there. He was also new to the wasteland. He’d just been woken up from his cryo-pod. His reaction to the super mutant on the hospital gurney was that of a man who’d never seen one before. As was his reluctance to throw puppies into an incinerator, an unthinkable act before The Great War. But of all the terrible/weird/confusing things he saw while working in the “Behavioral Engineering” department, the one that is now obviously more important than we realized at the time is how Enclave scientists “trained” dogs on Fallout.
When Dr. Wilzig went outside his lab in Fallout season one, episode two, he saw a line of scientists standing before fully grown dogs. Each dog was lying down on its belly. All of those animals then simultaneously stood up to perfect attention. That’s not necessarily a big deal on its own, let alone an evil one. That is, until you realize the dogs all stood at the same time despite no scientist giving a vocal or physical command. Not one of those lab technicians said, “Stand.” Not one of them raised their hand or nodded their hand. The humans remained perfectly still and perfectly quiet. This was so strange Fallout even made a point mere moments later of showing Wilzig struggling to train his own dog. He had to say “sit” out loud four times at various volumes before his dog did.
How did the other scientists do it so easily? With the Enclave’s mind control device, something we didn’t fully recognize existed in Fallout until now. It’s clear as day on the one dog the show highlighted after all of them stood up.
This was the same technology the Enclave acquired (via Vault-Tec) from Mr. House two hundred years prior. But even in the present timeline, the device was still very big, very clunky, and not fully functional. That didn’t happen until Hank completed the work at the New Vegas Vault, which also secretly belonged to his actual employer, the Enclave.
The big burdensome version of those mind control devices from Fallout season one don’t matter anymore. Hank succeeded at both not blowing up heads and miniaturization in season two. Humans will now stand, sit, and fetch like perfectly trained dogs who don’t even need to be told what to do in Fallout‘s world. His/the Enclave’s minions are now out in the wasteland, implanted with Hank’s new R&D. Those minions/slaves are ominously carrying out orders written centuries before, fulfilling the command’s of the secret “player,” the shadowy figure who very well might have ended the world long ago. Those implanted people will also be very hard to identify. The best clue will be that they behave like very good, obedient dogs. Dogs who are also fiercely loyal to their owner.
But that’s a matter for season three. Until then, we’ll be left looking for something else. Fallout wasn’t hiding the Enclave’s secret program to create working mind control devices. The show put it out in the open. It was all there, on our screen, at the start of the show’s second episode. Now that we know that, we have a new question: what other major plot points are hiding in plain sight, too?
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He knows the Enclave tested mind control devices on dogs cause cats would never. You can follow Mikey on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.