The second season of Fallout is a wrap on Amazon Prime Video, but who are the Enclave and what are they responsible for? Find out below.
The post-apocalyptic series is based on the role-playing video game franchise of the same name and is produced by Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. It follows Vault 33 dweller Lucy MacLean, who ventures out into a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles on a quest to find her kidnapped father.
Alongside Ella Purnell in the lead role, the show’s cast includes Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, Moisés Arias, Walton Goggins, Xelia Mendes-Jones and Frances Turner.
Fallout debuted on the streaming service in 2024, and it returned for a second run in December 2025, with the eight episodes airing weekly until the season finale on February 3.
In a four-star review of season two, NME wrote: “Less frenetic than, say, Twisted Metal – the other post-apoc game-to-show currently doing the rounds – Fallout season two is as ghoulish as you’d hope. By the time episode five comes around, it really hits its stride, with Lucy proving all this time above-ground has rubbed off on her. “I am nothing like you,” she tells The Ghoul. Don’t bet on it. Survival at all costs has a funny habit of morphing the brain chemistry of even the sweetest of souls.”
Before season two even premiered, Amazon announced they had renewed it for a third season, with filming set to begin in May this year. It is likely to debut sometime in 2027.
The final episode of Fallout season two leaves a lot of questions unanswered, most glaringly the mysterious presence of the Enclave and what they represent.
They have been referenced throughout the show’s existence, with the prospect of them being responsible for the nuclear apocalypse that has brought about the state of the world as depicted in the show.
It now appears to have been confirmed that the Enclave were indeed the architects of the apocalypse. It implies that the Great War was the result of long-term manipulation by the Enclave, who are a secretive remnant of the pre-war US government.
Crucially, the finale avoids showing a single moment or individual responsible for launching the bombs. Instead, through revelations tied to Hank MacLean and Stephanie Harper, the Enclave are positioned as the faction that shaped the political, technological and ideological conditions that made nuclear annihilation inevitable.
Hank’s work, previously framed as isolated or misguided, is recontextualised as part of a broader Enclave agenda, while Stephanie’s actions suggest their influence is not confined to the past.
This reframing shifts the apocalypse from having plausibly been an accident to appearing deliberate, elevating the Enclave into the show’s central moral antagonists going forward.
The post The ending of ‘Fallout’ season two explained: what is the Enclave? appeared first on NME.