Dogmeat is Fallout’s very very good boy. Since the very beginning of the franchise (though notably absent in Fallout 76), he has been the best. In Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, he helps you in battle, and at least in the fourth one can come back if he dies. An iconic character in his own right (and one I own a bobblehead of), Dogmeat has found new life in the Fallout live-action TV series. While Amazon’s Fallout TV series’ dog is named CX404 officially, she is also very very very good. She follows her owner anywhere he may go and under any circumstances. First teased in the Fallout trailer, the dog moves from CX404 to Dogmeat, and it’s great. Of course, spoilers are everywhere below this line.
Based on one of the most iconic video game series of all time, Fallout takes place two hundred years after the apocalypse. The gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters called Vaults are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind—and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird, and highly violent universe waiting for them. We follow Lucy (Ella Purnell), a Vault Dweller from 33, Maximus (Aaron Moten), a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), well, a ghoul.
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But if you googled this, then you want to know the answer to the media’s enduring question in regards to Prime Video’s Fallout: Does the dog die? And because you probably don’t want other spoilers, I’ll give you the answer quickly. It’s yes. But it’s also no.
When we spoke with Todd Howard and Jonathan Nolan before the series was released, they made it clear that authenticity to the Fallout world was paramount to bringing it to life as a TV series. They weren’t wrong. Across every episode of Fallout, the showrunners have brought to life crucial and beloved in-game mechanics without ever disrupting the story.
Whether it’s showing the VAT system without showing it, having characters use rad-away after drinking irradiated water, the PIP Boy’s importance, or hacking computers, we see it all. The best mechanic, though, is, without a doubt, the use of Stims. They help wounded characters fight immediately after taking a knife to the gut and even bring CX404 back to life.
Fallout has a long Episode 1, and in it, the audience gets to understand the series’ tone. It has the retrofuturism of the games, the humor, the blood, and the action. We’re introduced to each of the characters and their factions. The game comes to life in Episode 2 when Lucy makes it to Filly, and a fight breaks out between her, the Ghoul, and Dr. Siggi Wilzig. Dr. Wilzig (Michael Emerson) is the dog’s owner and is responsible for making her who she is in the lab. A Belgian Malinois, CX404 is adorable and fiercely protective of Dr. Wilzig. When the Ghoul severely injures her owner, she leaps into action.
The Ghoul pulls a knife with our very best girl on top of him, and we hear a yelp as the camera shifts away from them. So yes, she dies in Fallout. But she isn’t dead for long. Goggin’s Ghoul is an anti-hero of sorts. He plays by his own rules, but he doesn’t lack in his personal moral code. As the episode ends, the Ghoul has CX404 on a table. He pets her and then injects her with a Stim. She pops right back up.
Beyond her brush with death, CX404 gets the chance to wander the Wasteland with pretty much every character in the series that we follow. Sometimes, she helps, and other times, she just bites at whatever she wants. But when the Ghoul has the chance to save her or leave her, he always takes her with him.
Asking if the dog dies in the Fallout TV series is like asking if Dogmeat does in Fallout 4. The answer is technically yes, but as you explore the Wasteland, you can always bring her back. The more important element is that Dogmeat gets her name when the Ghoul starts to get attached to her. The best fanservice that the series offers, Fallout’s best girl is adorable, helpful, and, thankfully, never really dies.
Fallout Season 1 is streaming now exclusively on Prime Video.
