In a series like Prime Video‘s Fallout where the setting is a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, it’s hard to really say any episode upped the ante over the other, because really its being upped just about every minute the show is rolling the moment the Raiders unleash themselves on Vault 33. Midway through the series’ first season there is a scene that undoubtedly marks a significant shift in Lucy MacLean, where we see her survival instincts kick in to a new degree as she bites off The Ghoul’s finger.
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He was unsurprisingly unbothered – perhaps even a little amused – and simply removed her right index finger to sew to his own hand as a replacement. While at the surface level this is a display of the brutality the Wasteland is capable of bringing out in people, in a series like this full of details, references, and allusions of what’s to come, you can’t help but look beneath the surface a bit here as to what this scene could symbolize. In doing exactly this, it’s hard to ignore the inherent basis of a scene like this:
The Ghoul and Lucy are changing one another – and while in this case it’s a physical change, in media when is something this major ever so simple? Lucy may have had scars beneath her Vault Suit from her wedding night, but presented to others she looked pure and clean, mostly untainted by the horrors of the Wasteland due to the privilege of her upbringing. Now, however, there is an undoubted change, one that cannot be hidden in a finger that she gets from Snip Snip out of necessity, while Cooper attaches Lucy’s finger to his own hand, affixing himself with something pure and clean, the result of a world that was once his own that he’s grown so far beyond.
Plus, Lucy spit out Cooper’s finger. He could’ve cut off her finger to get even and reattach his own (though it wouldn’t be a clean cut like the finger he takes), so the choice to have him take her finger feels like the perfect place for some deeper symbolism to slip into the script.
And to take it a step further, the finger that is altered in this exchange is the right index finger – the trigger finger for both The Ghoul and Lucy. This means that in a way, Lucy will be with The Ghoul every time he pulls the trigger from then on, a physical representation for how we could potentially see her return some of the kindness to his actions in her efforts to re-instill the “golden rule” into him, a reminder of his own humanity. At the same time, Lucy’s trigger finger will now serve as a reminder of the reality of the world, a cruel demonstration of the things she’ll have to do to survive – and only a taste, at that.
“I’m you, sweetie. You just give it a little time.”
From the season 1 finale we know that The Ghoul and Lucy are setting off together to find the answers they both seek in regards to their families, with the best chance of finding them being Lucy’s father who has fled to New Vegas. While Lucy no doubt has a lot to learn about living above ground from The Ghoul it seems like it’s not a straightforward mentor/mentee scenario, as they could both stand to learn a thing or two from one another.
