A key moment in the Fallout finale was reshot as it was originally going in a "different direction"

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Ella Purnell says the scene wasn't working

Fallout TV show
(Image credit: Prime Video)

The Fallout TV show season 1 finale features some brutal revelations for Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell). Not only does she find out the truth about her father's role in seemingly nefarious Vault-Tec, but she sees the destruction he's caused her mother too. 

Faced with a choice about whether to stay with Maximus or go with The Ghoul to find the people responsible, she does the latter. Lucy shoots what's left of her mother dead and heads out into the Wasteland with Goggins' bounty hunter. In a new interview, Purnell broke down that moment, and how it was changed it from the original plan.

"She has to go through the five stages of grief in such a short amount of time," explained to GQ. "We reshot [the scene], because originally we all had a different idea of how that ending was going to go. We originally shot me killing my mum as a really emotional moment; there were a lot of tears and wailing. And it just didn't feel right. We felt like, if she's gonna get up and go into the Wasteland, she needs to be a changed woman, and maybe her grief needs to give way to something harder."

For Purnell, it was important for her character to switch this up, as it aligns her more clearly with the Ghoul, which seems like it's an essential theme heading into the now-confirmed Fallout season 2. "By killing her mum in a mercy kill, she's doing exactly what the Ghoul did to Roger [in episode four]," she added. 

"She's learned from him. She has turned into him. When she said, 'I'll never be you,' maybe that's not true. And in that moment, when she shoots her mum, it means so many things. It means, 'I'm coming with you.' It means, 'I'm gonna meet my makers.' It means, 'I fucking hate you, but I have turned into you, you were right.' It means she's letting go of her golden center."

As Purnell puts it: "I want the audience at the end of the show to wonder if their hero is still a good person. I don't know who she's gonna be in season two, [but] this is what happens when you break the unbreakable. I don't know who she's about to become."

Fay Watson
Fay Watson
Deputy Entertainment Editor

I’m the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering TV and film for the Total Film and SFX sections online. I previously worked as a Senior Showbiz Reporter and SEO TV reporter at Express Online for three years. I've also written for The Resident magazines and Amateur Photographer, before specializing in entertainment.