‘Fallout’: Walton Goggins & Ella Purnell Break Down Lucy & Ghoul Betrayal (VIDEO)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Fallout Season 2 Episode 5 “The Wrangler.”]

“You always hurt the one you love.” All the needle drops in Fallout hit hard, but the song playing at the end of the fifth episode was a gut punch after an episode that laid on the emotional bruises. (Watch the video above for our cast interviews reflecting on the events.)

Towards the end of the hour, Lucy (Ella Purnell) socked the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), knocking him out of a hotel window where he was impaled on a pole. The attack was in reaction to his betrayal. Turns out he brought her to Vegas as a trade. He wasn’t supporting her mission to get justice for her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan). Instead, the Ghoul was handing her off to dear old criminal dad in exchange for information about his own wife and daughter.

“It’s Lucy acting on instinct alone,” Purnell tells TV Insider. “It’s showing you the ways that she’s changed. She’s no longer thinking before she acts and applying intellect and caution. She’s hurt and wants to hurt this person as much as they hurt them. He said to her in Season 1, ‘You are me, sweetie, just give it time.’ This is what he means. It’s that age-old prophecy: What you fear is what you create. She spent so long trying to not be like him and suppressing and it comes out.”

Purnell hints it’s just the beginning of her character not checking her rage. “There is another moment coming that I think is going to blow people’s minds when you see it. It’s very violent and not at all what you would expect from Lucy.”

While shooting the hotel room scene, Goggins was acutely aware of the Ghoul’s internal conflict. “I don’t know that the writers knew that I was going to do it this way, or this was my intention, but I care deeply for [Lucy], not as a daughter. But I care deeply. I tried to reason out: I am betraying you. I am this close to what I’ve been looking at for 200 years. But it pains him.”

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The actor shares one moment that he chose as a first for the Ghoul. When he touches Lucy’s back as she gets sick, “That was the first time I’ve ever touched anyone in this show that wasn’t to harm them. I just want to put my hand on her back.” Goggins promises there is more to come with the duo post-punch. “Afterwards, it’s a definite shift. Their entire journey, that is not the period on it, but it changes and evolves in ways that I didn’t even anticipate.”

Another reflective moment for Goggins came in shooting the episode’s flashback to old Las Vegas where Cooper Howard went to see Robert House (played by Goggins’ close friend, Justin Theroux). “I was so excited by Episode 5. I felt when we were filming it, I understand Cooper now,” he explains. “That was really when, for me, I knew that’s where we were headed.”

In the encounter with House, Goggins says, “Cooper Howard lost all control, and he knew it. I didn’t know that was going to happen, but that’s what happened over the course of making it. [Coop] walked into that room having a fair amount of control. His life was starting to spin out, but he felt like, I have an understanding of the world. He realized no, I don’t belong to this world anymore. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Another character going through shock and betrayal in the episode is Lucy’s brother, Norm (Moisés Arias). He is just about to find out more about the FEV virus unleashed on the vault before the computer is unplugged and he is attacked by one of his own and appears to be near death. Our red bottle caps are on Claudia (Rachel Marsh) coming to his rescue.

Arias tells us that there is more to come in Norm’s investigation of FEV: “It’s a clue that is very important to his vault and the connecting three vaults. There are pieces to the puzzle that he’s putting together. It’s horrifying. He couldn’t believe ever in his life that [his dad] Hank was someone that he’s not.”

You always hurt the ones you love, right, Hank? Watch the video above for more from Purnell, Goggins, and Arias about the episode. The next one promises to be a wild ride. Hold on tight like Cooper Howard did on that mechanical missile ride in Vegas. The Fallout world is shifting underneath us.

Fallout, Wednesdays, Prime Video