Fallout Season 2 Introduces The Funniest Mechanic From The Games

This article contains spoilers for "Fallout" season 2, episode 5.

Prime Video's "Fallout" stands out from the myriad of recent video game adaptations. It doesn't pretend to be a faithful adaptation of any one particular game (even if it mostly takes from "New Vegas"), but rather adapts the world itself. The true star of the show is its production design, which captures the retrofuturistic aesthetic that makes the games special.

It's not like "Fallout" completely ignores the games. Season 2 in particular is incorporating a lot of elements from "Fallout: New Vegas," including locations, characters, and factions. But there are also moments in the show that quite clearly nod to gameplay mechanics from the games, like V.A.T.S., the slow-motion targeting system. There's also the subtle way each of the protagonists in the show represents a different kind of player: Lucy (Ella Purnell) is the dialogue-focused gamer who tries to avoid violence and cares about conflict resolution; Maximus (Aaron Moten) is the guy who messes up on one quest line and decides to just murder everyone; and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is the type of gamer who just wanders around the wasteland, roleplays a lot, and cares only about himself.

In season 2 of "Fallout," we get another important part of the games translated to the screen. This is a mechanic that many a gamer has encountered that adds to the world-building of the games — addiction. Lucy gets addicted to drugs in episode 4, and then has to find an anti-addiction drug in episode 5. It might seem like just a funny subplot, but it's a clever way of paying homage to the games and also showing the horrors of the nuclear wasteland.

After being tortured by Caesar's Legion, Lucy is hooked up to an IV with dubious contents to help her recovery. Turns out she was specifically hooked to a lot of Buffout, a steroid from the games that existed in the pre-war world. In the game, the benefits of Buffout vary, but they mostly boost endurance and strength, and they even add to the player's maximum health.

Unfortunately, Buffout is also highly addictive. It can cause the player to suffer a decrease in strength and stamina once the drug wears off, meaning you have to keep taking it in order to retain your normal stats.

In Lucy's case, not even encountering a group of Deathclaws is as dangerous as a drug addiction — even if the Ghoul finds it utterly hilarious. The moment he notices that she's going through withdrawal, the Ghoul's brilliant suggestion is to simply take more drugs. Sure, they do give her a lot of newfound confidence that comes in handy when she fights the Kings, and she even manages to enter V.A.T.S. when fighting them.

But when Lucy tries to be the same confident and invincible warrior against a group of Deathclaws, that's when the Ghoul has enough of her addiction. It also doesn't help that Lucy crashes out hard as soon as the drugs wear off, becomes irritable, and even gets dehydrated. This is a very accurate portrayal of how addiction works in the game, as we see Lucy's stats get buffed momentarily, only to decrease heavily.

The addiction mechanic is one of those gameplay elements in the "Fallout" universe that's simple but adds a lot to the world. It's a way to disincentivize the player from relying too much on chemicals and other drugs that increase your stats momentarily. Sure, you get a short-term gain that allows you to increase your odds in a big fight, but you pay the price afterward when the addiction drops your stats lower than they were originally.

But what makes the addiction mechanic work so well is that it's a darkly funny way to speak to the games' anti-capitalist themes. Every single chemical you find has a percentage of possibility for creating an addiction, and it's not like you can entirely avoid using them. Some, like Med-X, are pain killers that can save you from a grave injury; meanwhile, RadAway is essential to combat the rampant radiation in the wasteland. Still, it doesn't matter whether you're looking to use performance-enhancing drugs to momentarily boost your stats or just cure you and prevent an untimely death. Addiction can be just around the corner. Even RadAway used to be an addictive substance in the first two games in the series.

Thankfully, just like Lucy learns in episode 5, addiction can be cured. There's the old school way of going cold-turkey for a few days until the effects wear off. But the easier and less painful method is Addictol, a medicine that just cures addiction and makes you good as new. In the world of "Fallout," drugs might help you fight a mutant Elvis, but they come with a high price.