Setting up the season finale, “The Trap” and “The Radio” look both to the past and to the future. Flashbacks show us more of Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) steering even stronger into his promotions for Vault-Tec, despite his discomfort at being their spokesman, in order to please his wife (Frances Turner). A conversation with a friend, his wife letting comments slip about the “good” vaults and why no dogs will be allowed, and a conversation with the woman who would become Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) force Cooper to begin questioning whether or not Vault-Tec is a good thing and even spying on his wife where he will eventually discover, to his horror, the lengths the company will go to in order to make their product a success.
Meanwhile, Lucy (Ella Purnell) and Maximus (Aaron Moten) find themselves guests of Vault 4, where they are both a little freaked out to discover the number of mutants in the Vault and some of the strong cult-ish behavior. While Maximus is won over the amenities, Lucy can’t help but poke her nose into secrets the Vault doesn’t want to discuss leading her to discover the original experiments performed in the vault and the pair being asked politely to leave. The uncovering of the truth involves a comedy of errors with both Maximus and Lucy thinking the worst of their hosts, even thinking they will kill Lucy, only to discover their mistake.
Other threads involve the Ghoul hunting for the Squire and the head and running into a photo of a familiar face. Poor Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton) runs into some problems with his plans of returning home a hero when who ends up mutated after the fix he received from the snake oil salesman (Jon Daly). Realizing he will be killed by the Brotherhood, he turns over the head to Maximus who gives it to Lucy and takes another head back with him hoping to buy her time to complete her journey. And inside Vault 33 reassignments begin opening a short window for Norm (Moises Arias) to investigate the truth of Vault 31 (one of many secrets further explained in the finale).
