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‘Fallout’ Season 2’s Biggest Twist Was Quietly Planned From the Very Beginning
Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the Fallout Season 2 finale.
There are many twists in the Season 2 finale of Fallout, “The Strip,” but none is more surprising than Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) and Steph Harper (Annabel O’Hagan) being married. This particular bomb is initially dropped in a flashback to before the actual bombs are dropped, as the characters meet and get married in Las Vegas after Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) inadvertently sets them up during his investigation into Vault-Tec and cold fusion. Once the cat is out of the bag, however, all the pieces of the Hank/Steph puzzle suddenly come together, which, according to Fallout showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet, was the intention all along.
‘Fallout’ Showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet Explains That Hank/Steph Reveal
Halfway through Season 1, some details are revealed about Hank, Steph, and other older residents of Vault 33, like the fact that they secretly come from Vault 31. By the end of that season, we learn that these people were actually Bud’s Buds before the war, and as of Season 2, Hank and Steph’s ties are revealed to go even further back. Robertson-Dworet tells Collider they “were always excited to play with that” idea upon realizing that “Hank and Steph would have actually gone into cryo when the bombs dropped as young people, roughly the same age, in their 20s or early 30s.”
From then on, Hank and Steph’s arc begins to unfold, although not quite as star-crossed lovers, with Robertson-Dworet raising the question: “Wouldn’t that maybe be interesting if they’d had some sort of past together?” That’s what we’d expect, since everyone at Vault 31 was part of Bud Askins‘ (Michael Esper) management development program, and, naturally, relationships form in such contexts.
MacLachlan and O’Hagan themselves may not have been in on it from the beginning, but they enjoyed the twist, as they revealed in a separate Collider interview. “It’s such a treat and so delightful to be surprised as the actor when you get a script,” O’Hagan said. “I think we both were like, ‘Oh, this was another spin on these characters,’” added MacLachlan, highlighting also the “backstory, where they came from, and how much influence they had on each other.”
‘Fallout’ Has Been Teasing the Truth About Hank and Steph’s Relationship Since Season 1
The notion of Hank and Steph being married may feel weird at first, given their apparent age gap, but that’s due to how long they were kept in cryosleep. As Robertson-Dworet mentions, they were around the same age in the past, but there’s more than 20 years between their reawakening in the Vaults, as revealed in Season 1, making Hank biologically older in the series’ present timeline. The current status of their marriage is unclear, but everything that happened in their 200-year slumber and afterward concerning them actually makes sense when put into perspective.
A source of confusion may be the fact that Hank was married to Rose MacLean (Elle Vertes) and has two children, Lucy (Ella Purnell) and Norm (Moisés Arias). Rose and Steph never meet, however, as Hank leaves Rose for dead in Shady Sands, nuking the city shortly after. By the time Steph is reawakened, she and Lucy are the same biological age, and Hank is a widower. Shortly after, Steph marries Bert (Diego Borborema), who dies in the series premiere and is supposedly the father of her child. Steph mentions Bert’s “lack of stamina” in bed, though, which now leads us to wonder if her child might actually be Hank’s.
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The MacLean family ties also become entangled with the reveal. Steph and Lucy are best friends at the beginning of Fallout Season 1, but it turns out that she is actually Lucy’s stepmother. Steph also hurries to marry Chet (Dave Register) in Season 2, who is Lucy’s cousin (probably on her mother’s side), and Steph’s child could very well be Lucy’s half-brother. Suddenly, the whole in-breeding plot of Season 2 just got a whole new layer.
Hank and Steph Are Destined for a Reunion in ‘Fallout’ Season 3
Another great twist in the Season 2 finale is the reveal that both Hank and Steph are also working for the Enclave, the secretive faction that is being set up as the great villains in the series. Although it isn’t clear when exactly they started working for the Enclave, their present-day actions are still tied to the faction, between Hank developing the mind-control chip in New Vegas and Steph triggering a mysterious “Phase 2,” which is likely tied to what Norm discovers about F.E.V., a biological weapon tied to the Enclave in the games.
With all that going on, Hank and Steph are bound to reunite eventually. The Enclave is now aware that both of them are operational, even if Steph is more focused on her own survival for the moment. Still, when saying his goodbyes to Lucy, Hank lets it slip that Steph may know too much about their mission, which makes her a target, too. The big question now is when and where this reunion could happen, with Hank’s memory seemingly erased and Steph trapped in Vault 32. Hopefully, Fallout Season 3 brings more answers.