Fallout stars Kyle MacLachlan and Annabel O'Hagan talk "peeling back the layers" of their characters in season 2's epic finale: "What are we growing here? We don't know yet"

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Fallout season 2 stars Kyle MacLachlan and Annabel O'Hagan were just as surprised as we were when it came to Hank and Steph's surprise, uh, union.

Warning: Major spoilers for Fallout season 2 episode 8 below!

"Well, that's kind of what we do with the characters for both seasons, really," MacLachlan explains to GamesRadar+, when asked about playing around with what the viewers thought they knew about Steph and Hank. "There are always surprises, and they keep peeling back these layers. And the writers keep giving us really interesting things that actually make sense for the character. This was one of those situations that we didn't learn about until we read the script that day. I think, actually, [until] we were shooting the scene in the airport where we're suddenly eloping, and then we run into Coop, and off we go. And we sort of spill the story. "

In Fallout season 2 episode 7, Cooper Howard calls for a hotel maid to bring a passed-out Hank MacLean back to his room. The maid is none other than Steph, who we know as the eyepatch-wearing, morally ambiguous overseer of Vault 32. The season 2 finale takes it a step further, as we watch Steph and Hank head to the airport to elope. Episode 7 establishes that Steph is 200 years old (although the Vault dwellers are much more upset at the fact that she's actually Canadian), and that she's a ruthless survivor who doesn't mind a little violence (which makes her a lot like the Ghoul if anything).

"It makes me wanna go back and rewatch season one, and especially that first episode, where we have a few very small interactions," O'Hagan tells GR+. Like, I'm watching you give the wedding speech, and what would Steph be thinking in that moment? I think it's really fun to discover things about your character after the fact because it just adds so much color to the character, but also it makes our jobs way more fun when we know we have a secret, right?"

Towards the end of season 2 episode 8, Steph calls into Vault-Tec and introduces herself as Hank MacLean's wife (which means they never legally divorced before the bombs dropped), and calls in to activate phase 2. Phase 2, as per the video game, is what turns the Vault dwellers into super mutants. This act alone makes Steph one of the show's biggest villains, and we can only infer that she learned from the best.