A 'Fallout' hero is born the moment Ella Purnell's Lucy tackles her insane wedding night with a chipper "Okie Dokie!" (2024)

From the moment we meet Lucy MacLean, Ella Purnell‘s chipper and precocious Vault Dweller in Prime Video‘s new apocalyptic adventure series Fallout, she’s selling us on her CV as an action heroine. She’s got toned arms, gymnastics skills, fencing credentials, hand-to-hand combat experience, firearm training, and an eager desire to please. However, it’s not until we cut ahead to her pre-arranged wedding night that she really proves she’s got the pluck and courage to lead us through hell and back. When confronted with her new husband Monty (Cameron Cowperthwaite) in all his glory, she doesn’t cower or blush. She smiles and says, “Okie dokie!” before pouncing on him. It’s a moment that tells us that despite her hunky dory upbringing, Lucy is no shrinking violet. She is a young woman who will tackle challenges with as much enthusiasm as possible, meaning Lucy might just be able to take on wandering the post-nuclear hellscape on the surface without becoming a damsel in distress.

**Spoilers for the first two episodes of Fallout, now streaming on Prime Video**

Fallout is Prime Video’s glossy television adaptation of Bethesda Game Studios’s popular Fallout video game series, produced by Westworld alums Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and showrun by co-EPs Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner. The series follows three main characters from wildly different worlds. First, there is 21st century Western serial star Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), who survives the nuclear apocalypse of 2077 only to linger on the earth centuries later as the chemically-reanimated zombie bounty hunter known as “The Ghoul.” Then there is Maximus (Aaron Moten), a young squire of the Brotherhood of Steel whose chivalric ambitions bely some deeply buried darker impulses. However, the squeaky clean protagonist Fallout‘s earliest episodes put the most focus upon is none other than Lucy MacLean.

We learn that Lucy is one of the lucky descendants of 21st century-era folks wealthy enough to purchase a home in one of Vault-Tec’s coveted underground bunkers to wait out the literal fallout of a nuclear apocalypse. Lucy’s good fortune doesn’t come without its own complications. Sure, she’s been raised in the utopia of Vault 33 — especially with her doting father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan) as overseer of the idyllic community — but her only marriage options are cousins. (One cousin, Dave Register’s Chet, hilariously holds a torch for her despite her admonishments that cousin-on-cousin procreation isn’t healthy in the long-term.) So she submits herself for an arranged marriage with a “Breeder” from neighboring Vault 32, wholly prepared to embrace whomever her groom is.

When Vault 32 and 33 are finally introduced, it soon becomes clear that Lucy’s groom, Monty, is coming from a harsher environment than she does. Vault 32’s new overseer (Sarita Choudhury) attributes this to “blight” taking out their crops. Indeed, the visiting wedding guests do seem eager to scrape their plates and take food off of their neighbor’s hands. However, nothing seems amiss until after Lucy and Monty’s union is sealed with far more than a kiss.

Lucy escorts Monty to the couple’s brand new home, an adorably retro-coded apartment complete with Atomic Queen oven and faux patio to enjoy. Rather than bother with small talk, Monty immediately gets down to business, stripping down for his bride. As we already said, Lucy doesn’t seem terrified or even nervous. She’s rather delighted for this new chapter in her life, summed up with a blithe, “Okie dokie!”

The reason why I loved this moment so much is it really encapsulates Lucy’s character. Indeed, at the end of Fallout Episode 2, she’ll once again give a trying situation the good ole “Okie dokie!” (Though in that instance, she’s got to behead a recently dead-by-suicide scientist to haul his skull across a wasteland in exchange for her kidnapped father…we’ll get to that.) While other Vault Dwellers not only fear the surface, but any discomfort, Lucy is open to new experiences. And if she’s not wholly enthusiastic, she will summon whatever courage she possesses with that “can do” attitude.

And so, when Lucy awakens from the rush of her wedding night and begins to notice several things are amiss — her new husband’s scars and insatiable thirst, the sound of screams from other bunkers — she wastes no time checking Monty’s radiation levels. When she realizes that he’s a raider from the surface, she draws upon all of her training to fight for her survival. Although Monty manages to stab her in the side, Lucy is still able to wack him with a broken blender, rendering him briefly unconscious.

From there, we watch as Lucy bravely joins the battle unfolding in Vault 33’s cornfield. Using nothing but the tranquilizer darts left in the armory by the raiders, she’s able to protect a few of her neighbors. Ultimately it is her father, however, who comes to her rescue. When Monty returns for a final attempt on Lucy’s life, Hank bludgeons his traitorous son-in-law with a shovel, hinting at a very different backstory for the mild-mannered scientist than we, or Lucy, had been led to believe.

This culminates with Hank and Lucy walking into vile surface raider Moldaver’s (Sarita Choudhury’s character’s true identity) trap. Hank saves Lucy, sacrifices himself, and leaves the surviving Vault 33 residents to fend for themselves. Moldaver takes Hank to the surface, sparking Lucy’s intrepid journey above ground to reclaim her father and explore the madness that unfolded outside the vaults.

And the reason why I’m so happy to follow Lucy on this journey? That “Okie dokie!” It proves Lucy has the personality of an adventurer, willing to take on whatever life throws at her, far more than a montage of her flipping around on gymnastics mats. Those skills will only take her so far; that attitude will take her all the way.