Fallout Boss and Cast Break Down the Show's 'Cataclysmic' First Episode

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[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Fallout Episode 1, "The End." Read at your own risk!]

The first episode of Fallout featured a wedding, but there was nothing celebratory about the occasion. In the Prime Video series' premiere, Vault 33's Lucy (Ella Purnell) tied the knot with Vault 32's Monty (Cameron Cowperthwaite). Everything seemed innocuous enough at first, with the newly wedded couple rushing off to start their honeymoon. Only Monty and his so-called family and friends were not actually from Vault 32 — they were from the surface. As Lucy made this shocking realization, the party celebrations took a bloody turn. 

"We talked a lot about the Vault as the Shire in Lord of the Rings world," co-showrunner Graham Wagner told TV Guide. "There were definitely pages and pages we wrote of hanging out there, but until reality comes in to burst that bubble, you're kind of craving for them to deal with something cataclysmic." Starting the series with such a massacre was a bold decision, but Wagner said the writers wanted to waste no time in getting to the action and upsetting the "happy, shiny people" bubble.

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Jonathan Nolan, who directed Fallout's first three episodes, shared what it was like to film Lucy and Monty's wedding day. "Up until lunch, we were shooting a love scene, which is always complicated and difficult," Nolan said. "And then after lunch, it turns into something very, very different." Vault 33's dwellers attempted to fight back against their new enemies from the surface, but most were unsuccessful. 

It was also one of the first days of shooting for Purnell. "[Nolan] does this thing where he likes to throw you in the deep end, and we [filmed] it all in one day," Purnell said. "But how great to just eat the frog and get it out of the way?"

"We must have had 100 stunt people, and it was this massive fight sequence — but again in the Fallout tone, where you've got a trifle getting chopped in half, and someone's spraying champagne," Purnell said of the wipeout scene. "Everywhere you look, it's something bonkers and crazy, and it was hard not to smile and to look scared."

Kyle MacLachlan, who portrays Lucy's father Hank — and the overseer of Vault 33 — said, "I had a lot of fun with my little sequence because I got to wield a shovel in the most unusual way." Hank attacked Monty, whom Lucy had previously bested in a one-on-one death match but who miraculously returned to the wedding battlefield. "And there was also a barrel full of pickles that was part of the story that I got a good kick out of." This barrel was Hank's vessel for drowning the man who deceived not just his daughter, but all of Vault 33.

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"It was the first reveal of a darker person, or someone who's capable of more than we think," MacLachlan said. "And we see that through the eyes of his daughter — she is a little stunned at his capacity for violence." Up until now the audience has only seen the Vault Dwellers live in peace, largely thanks to the order and structure that Hank has enforced. "I think it brings up the question, where and how does he know how to do these things?" MacLachlan said. "Which I thought was interesting as a reveal."

The same goes for Lucy. For much of the episode, she's frolicking in her wedding dress with a smile plastered on her face. That's why it was a surprise when she retaliated against Monty and left him incapacitated. "You know right away that she's decent and kind, maybe a little naive, maybe a little privileged," Nolan said. "But we realize very quickly that she's also tough as hell. So I just love this sequence because by the end of it, you have a much better idea of who you're dealing with."

Fallout Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.