'Fallout' Image – Ella Purnell's Vault-Dwelling Adventure Begins (original) (raw)

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Published Jan 15, 2024, 1:01 PM EST

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

Summary

In just three months, Ella Purnell will depart Vault 33 and begin her journey across the wasteland in Prime Video's Fallout adaptation. A new image from Empire Magazine teases what her future holds, showing her looking back inside the underground facility as she prepares to face the violent, whimsical, and irradiated outside world. Purnell's relentlessly optimistic character, Lucy, is only one of three main figures the series will follow, but she'll be a window inside the corrupt Vault-Tec corporation and perhaps, the most relatable for players as a newcomer to the wasteland who has just emerged with little experience and equipment to engage it all.

Hailing from Westworld co-creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy as well as co-showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, Fallout takes place in the same world as Interplay Entertainment and Bethesda's beloved video games with a new story set in an annihilated Los Angeles 200 years after atomic bombs dropped. The survivors emerge from their protective and experimental shelters to find a world filled with mutants and the remnants of civilization as they begin to build anew despite the complexities. Lucy's story is all about learning to survive in this new world and making a decision about whether her future lies in Vault 33 or beyond its walls. Purnell previously told Collider's Steve Weintraub at CCXP that her character's mentality evolves as the first season goes on, slowly molding her into a hardened survivor familiar with the world's intricacies.

Speaking to Empire, Nolan describes the series as a cautionary tale about "what happens when you outsource the survival of the human race." The series will likely delve into the horrors of the Vault-Tec vaults, which are known in the games for the horrific experiments and environments they often force their inhabitants into. Vault 33 may even have some dark secrets of its own to uncover. He also believes Fallout will be a strong commentary on fears of nuclear annihilation, albeit with the hyper-violence and dark humor of the source material. "Just as M*A*S*H gets to talk about Vietnam through the lens of the Korean War, we get to talk about the mess we’re in now through the lens of… ‘What if everybody just gets on with it and destroys the f---ing world?"

'Fallout' Has Three Distinct Storylines in Season 1

Purnell may be the most like a player character from the Fallout games, but she'll share the spotlight with Walton Goggins and Aaron Moten in the series. Goggins plays the Ghoul, a man mutated by the blasts who was left to roam the wasteland for 200 years and has shed his former self to become a ruthless and cynical, yet comedic "rascal" bounty hunter based on old west icons. Moten, meanwhile, embodies Maximus, a member of the dogmatic, power armor-donning Brotherhood of Steel who thrives in their militaristic setting. Between the three leads and the general craziness of Fallout they take part in, the team has plenty of ideas for where the series could expand in future seasons.

Despite their differences, Wagner teased how Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul's paths will intertwine in Season 1 due to their similar goals. "We talked a lot about The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly," he told Empire. “That’s three characters in search of a box of gold, so we asked ourselves, ‘What’s the gold in this world?’” They'll also encounter other survivors throughout their journey with a massive ensemble including Moisés Arias, Kyle MacLachlan, Sarita Choudhury, Michael Emerson, Leslie Uggams, Frances Turner, Dave Register, Zach Cherry, Johnny Pemberton, Rodrigo Luzzi, Annabel O'Hagan, and Xelia Mendes-Jones.

Fallout premieres on April 12. Read our full guide here for everything to know ahead of the series' arrival and check out the new still from Empire below:

Ella Purnell as Lucy looking out from Vault 33 in 'Fallout'

Ella Purnell as Lucy looking out from Vault 33 in 'Fallout'

Image via Empire Magazine

fallout-poster.jpg

Release Date

April 10, 2024

Network

Amazon Prime Video

Showrunner

Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan

Directors

Frederick E. O. Toye, Wayne Che Yip, Stephen Williams, Liz Friedlander, Jonathan Nolan, Daniel Gray Longino, Clare Kilner

Writers

Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan

Franchise(s)

Fallout

Based on one of the greatest video game series of all time, Fallout is the story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there’s almost nothing left to have. 200 years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind — and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird and highly violent universe waiting for them.

Main Genre

Sci-Fi

Seasons

2

Streaming Service(s)

Prime Video