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I Can't Believe I Didn't Realize This Huge Fallout Season 1 Detail's Real Meaning Until After Finishing All 8 Episodes

Published

3 days ago

6th July 2025

While the world of Fallout is vastly different from the locations we see today in the real world, getting a hand on the scope of the show’s new map and names for certain towns caused more confusion than expected. In one of the TV show’s most significant changes from Fallout’s games, an important setting for the characters’ journeys in season 1 is Filly, a location absent from the original video games.

The majority of Fallout season 1 occurs either in the Vault-Tec vaults or around the devastated ruins of Los Angeles, with the “surface” often receiving new location names after being devastated in the Great War of 2077. For instance, there’s the more general New California Republic, Shady Sands, Mojave Wasteland, New Vegas, and Filly. While the new names are generally inspired by former cities or geographic landscape, Filly’s origins confused me until after watching Fallout season 1’s ending.

I Didn’t Realize Until After Finishing Fallout Season 1 That “Filly” Had Nothing To Do With Philadelphia

“Philly” Exists Separately In The Fallout World

Whenever I heard Fallout’s main characters mention Filly, I imagined the location was somehow linked to “Philly,” referring to the nickname for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I knew that Fallout season 1 was set in the Los Angeles area, whereas Philadelphia is in the Northeast, but I still believed the wasteland settlement’s name was inspired by the original city, using an incorrect spelling.

(Walton-Goggins-as-The-Ghoul)-from-Fallout-2

Where Was The Fallout Show Filmed? The Video Game Adaptation’s Filming Locations Explained

The Fallout TV show brought many of the beloved locations from the games to life, and here are all of the known filming locations that were used.

However, as I learned after Fallout season 1’s twist-filled finale, Filly’s name is actually derived from “landfill.” That detail is confirmed by Amazon Prime Video’s X-Ray trivia, and makes sense given the center of Filly in Fallout’s TV show map is a “giant pile of trash that is slowly sinking into the earth.”

While Filly is an original town for Prime Video’s TV adaptation, the franchise now has two prominent locations pronounced the exact same way. After watching season 1, I learned that Philadelphia does still exist in Fallout’s video game universe – or, at least its wasteland remnants do – and, of course, is referred to almost exclusively as “Philly.”

Without subtitles, it’s going to get difficult to discern which “Filly” or “Philly” characters are talking about unless they give additional context. However, it seems unlikely that Walton Goggins’ Cooper/The Ghoul and Ella Purnell’s Lucy MacLean will make it that far east in Fallout season 2 with their current destination being New Vegas, so the Filly/Philly confusion shouldn’t become a problem for some time.

I’m So Excited For Fallout Season 2 To Expand On The Show’s Wasteland Map

Fallout Season 2 Will Have A Larger Scope

The map of Fallout‘s post-apocalyptic American wasteland is one of the show’s most interesting elements, and being able to expand on that is a great advantage for Fallout season 2 to have after a stellar inaugural season. In season 2, Cooper and Lucy will be heading to the iconic Fallout video game location New Vegas, built upon the ruins of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Fallout season 2 is confirmed to premiere on Prime Video in December 2025.

To get from post-war Los Angeles to post-war Las Vegas, however, will take Cooper and Lucy across plenty of different locations and environments from what they faced in season 1’s arduous journey. They’ll spend a large portion of time in the Mojave Wasteland, exploring much of former Southern California and Nevada as they search for Lucy’s father Hank MacLean in New Vegas.

While Fallout season 1 did a fantastic job of exploring a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, Fallout season 2’s worldbuilding will occur on a much larger scale as they leave the city. Not only will more locations from the video games inevitably appear on their journey, but, like with Filly, Fallout season 2 also has the opportunity to introduce brand-new locations original to the show.