Recap pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all spoilers were removed. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned
Roland: Handsome Jack is gonna kill us all unless you can stop him.
Lilith: He means hi. That's his way of saying hi.
Roland: Right, sorry. Hi. I'll be honest, soldier: we're losing this war. We've been trying to stop Jack for years — taking out his men, raiding his Eridium mines — but it hasn't been enough. But you... you met Jack and lived. You fought off the Rippers AND the Bloodshots, saved my ass and Lilith's...
Lilith: Thanks, by the way.
Roland: If we're going to survive this, we need your help, Vault Hunter. Now, we thought Jack wanted to open a Vault and use its power to wipe us off Pandora, but, thanks to some intel I stole from a Hyperion convoy, I found out... we were wrong.
— Beginning of the mission in Sanctuary
After freeing Roland from the Bloodshots and Hyperion, Roland and Lilith are finally reunited in Sanctuary, and you with them. Roland briefs you on the situation at hand: Jack's mining operations are done to uncover one of the biggest and most kept secrets in Pandora: the Warrior, an Eridian monster of yore with the power to wipe and destroy entire populations at once. And Jack wants to control it so he can cleanse Pandora out of anything that opposes Hyperion, whether it be bandits or citizens from non-Hyperion-aligned populations.
Therefore the mission is to travel to the Tundra Express, north of Three Horns - Divide, and meet the informant of the Crimson Raiders: none other than Mordecai, the third former Vault Hunter, who's sniping with Bloodwing at his helm. Roland mentions that he's as good as gathering intel as he is at drinking, so you need to wake him up.
Afterwards you'll also meet another of the Raiders' allies: a child named Tiny Tina, "Pandora's deadliest 13-year-old" and a demolitions expert.
This chapter gets you to the Tundra Express and End of the Line levels, which are home to the missions "Mighty Morphin'", "You Are Cordially Invited" chain, "No Hard Feelings", "Mine, All Mine" and "The Pretty Good Train Robbery". In addition, the levels are home to the following challenges:
- Tundra Express: "Cult of the Vault", "Positive Reinforcements", "What's Yours Is Mine", "Bug Off" and "King of the Buzzard World".
- End of the Line: "Master of All He Surveys" and "Cult of the Vault"
The mission, the related sidequests and challenges, and the "Tundra Express" and "End of the Line" levels show examples of:
- Always Check Behind the Chair: Tundra Express has a chest that's hidden underneath the edge of a cliff, on the edge of the explorable area.
- Amusing Injuries: Tiny Tina is introduced singing a modified Ironic Nursery Rhyme while a bandit is stuck to a stactus plant and then blow up.
- Call-Back: When you meet up with Mordecai in the Tundra Express, his line when he wakes up is the same one he uses after killing a badass enemy in the first game.Mordecai: So loud, so angry, so dead.
- Car Fu: The Hyperion train in Tundra Express makes no distinction between you and your enemies. Whoever gets trapped in the rails when the train is passing will be killed.
- Developer's Foresight: If Wilhelm drops his mission item in the cliff, making impossible to reach and catch it, the item will automatically be added to your inventory, saving you from the headache of having to re-fight him.
- Foreshadowing:
- When you get back to Sanctuary after killing Wilhelm, Scooter is working on one of the fuel cell receptacles, right before Sanctuary has to take off.
- After you defeat Wilhelm, at the tail end of "End of the Line", Roland congratulates you and says that Jack has no more protection from your onslaught. Surely enough, while the 1 Vault Hunters fall one by one (even though three of them manage to survive by the end of the main game), at the end, the Vault Hunters from 2 make good on that promise.
- Look at the cards on the table at the very beginning of the "You Are Cordially Invited" sidequest chain. They're the names of each of the invitees to her tea party, who you will be asked to fetch for a side mission. One of them says "Evil bastard that killed my parents".
- Hold the Line: The climax of the "You Are Cordially Invited" mission chain involves the Vault Hunters holding off waves of bandits from destroying an electric generator while Tiny Tina hosts a "tea party" for Flesh-Stick.
- I Lied: During the "No Hard Feelings" quest, the Tundra patrol will outright say this if you open the chest which he says was not booby-trapped.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Tiny Tina, one of the few NPCs to live outside of Sanctuary, is not part of the local bandit clan, and lives within spitting distance of no less than 3 bandit camps. Then again it's implied that she can and has killed anyone who tried to enter her workshop unannounced.
- Just Think of the Potential!: It's suggested that, when the Vault Hunters get their hands on the Vault Key, they should just destroy it. Roland suggests the idea of turning the Vault's contents on Handsome Jack and driving Hyperion off Pandora for good.
- Kaizo Trap: Wilhelm flips a TRAIN on you once you defeat him.
- Magic Floppy Disk: Tiny Tina's bomb circuits are actually standard PC motherboards.
- Mood Whiplash: The "You Are Cordially Invited" sidequest chain in Tundra Express. Tiny Tina's tea party is a funny bit of Comedic Sociopathy... until it becomes clear she's torturing, with your help, the bandit who got her parents killed right in front of her.
- Noodle Incident: Tina mentions during her introduction in the main story "that buttcrap with General Rancid" (whoever he is and whatever he did...).
- Oh, Crap!: Lilith and Roland's reaction to Jack sending Wilhelm after the new Vault Hunters near the end of the "End of the Line" level.
- Protection Mission: "You Are Cordially Invited: Tea Party" requires you to defend a generator while Tina is torturing the bandit that murdered his parents.
- Train Job:
- The main story mission is about derailing a train that (supposedly) contained the Vault Key. It contained Wilhelm, something worse, and with heavier consequences down the line.
- "The Pretty Good Train Robbery" is about intercepting an Hyperion train and looting all the money it's carrying.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The entire reason Tiny Tina [The World's Deadliest 13-Year-Old] works as a character. It gets worse when you learn why she's the way she is in the Wildlife Explitation Preserve logs.Tina: *Dancing around a tied-up Psycho* All around the sta-actus patch, the stalker chased the bandit. The stalker thought 'twas all in fun POP! *Jumps onto a detonation plunger, blowing up the Psycho* Goes the Ban-dit!
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: The Wilhelm Boss Fight takes place in an area enclosed on three sides by ice cliffs and a sheer drop on the remaining side. While Wilhelm himself cannot fall off, killing him too close to the edge can result in the power core taking a dive, forcing you to exit the game and then reenter it to fight Wilhelm again. Ironically, the power core turns out to be a trap laid by Handsome Jack. Failure Is the Only Option indeed.
- Worthy Opponent: At Ripoff Station in Tundra Express, you will find Will the Bandit. Kill him, and he drops an ECHO recording stating that anybody who can kill him must be a total badass, and is therefore entitled to his gun stash. Of course, it's a trap.
- Xanatos Gambit: Jack pulls off an excellent one when he sends Wilhelm to kill you. If you kill Wilhelm, then you'll most likely install Wilhelm's power core into the city shield, causing it to fail when Jack springs his trap. If Wilhelm kills you, then, well, that works too.
