All this theorizing on what ending they'll choose when you damn well know that there's just gonna be a status-quo clearing event that happened offscreen that sweeps away any ending relevant elements under the rug.
I was so confused by what his apparent trajectory appears to be. He's fallen upward into a position of prominence by somehow becoming the leader's "top guy" or something. I think out of all the characters he's probably the worst hit by shit writing.
I feel like the writers intially wanted Maximus to be kind of a psycho.
Having your character have rage outbursts at people getting promotions over him after showcasing his clear lack of qualifications, having everybody instantly assume he'd cut up his only friend's leg just to get ahead implying that this sort of behaviour is expected from him, having him coldly let a paladin die because they don't deserve their position as much as he does, ect.
On paper, it paints a picture of a ruthless, but inexperienced scrub who'll fuck over whoever he needs to to claw his way to the top because he feels that he deserves the respect he's constantly failed to earn, who then becomes softened and strengthened by his interactions with Lucy.
But then partway through writing, they got scared and back peddled by changing the framing to have all his shit moments have more of a justification like everyone accusing him just to fuck him over, Titus spending his dying gasp giving Maximus every reason to let him die, revealing that his friend cut themselves trying to get out of being a squire and having Lucy summarise any bad shit he did as 'Welp, it's the wasteland and I've already killed or harmed people in self defence, so it's all the same thing'.
Man, that entire time in the vault was so awful that the show would be improved were it removed entirely. It added nothing, actively made Lucy and Maximus worse thanks to the dialogue they spewed, and may end up spawning a plot thread I feel won't get resolved at all in season 2 (the cult and worship of Moldaver).
I love when we waste an entire episode on filler that adds nothing to the story or characters because everyone is too retarded to just talk to each other like normal people.
"Why are some people here mutated?"
"Oh, this vault ran experiments on the original inhabitants."
"Why is this area restricted?"
"That's the area where our mutant babies are taken care of, we don't want an outsider endangering them."
"Huh, good thing I just asked basic questions that anyone in my situation would ask."
"Yeah, I was gonna act really suspicious and shady about the whole affaire, but then I realized that I have no reason to."
You can't even argue that it developed the relationship between Maximus and Lucy, they spend almost the entire episode apart, but this is when they go from 'People who just met yesterday' to 'Ride or die romance'.
Personally I didn't mind Lucy being a naive retard for the most part, but the fact that after the supermarket episode she just went back to being a naive retard really annoyed me. She never seemed to learn from her experiences, she could get fucked over constantly and just shrug it off with a "ah shucks!" and then go back to how she was before, It was really annoying.
She's selectively naïve. Like, she'll end an episode telling the Ghoul that she won't become him and she still believes in people and that's why she won't just kill the guy who kidnapped and tortured her. But then the next episode starts with her getting ready to leave Maximus to slowly starve to death in an steel coffin despite him having only been a helpful and kind ally to her until he reveals that he has something she needs.