Fallout may have been the story of Lucy, Maximus, and Cooper Howard, aka The Ghoul, but some of the most thrilling stories didn’t feature them at all. Outside of their Wasteland adventures, two characters were figuring out their own journeys — New California Republic leader Lee Moldaver, played by Sarita Choudhury, and Lucy’s younger brother Norman, played by Moisés Arias.
By the end of the series, it looked like both of their stories were over — Moldaver dead, and Norman trapped in Vault 31. But these two actors are only getting started, and there are plenty of questions left to answer in the upcoming Season 2 of the hit show. We may not know what’s ahead, but even the actors themselves have their own theories. Inverse spoke to Sarita Choudhury and Moisés Arias about their wildest Season 2 theories, and what the show has in store for them in the future.
How Will Norman Get Out of Vault 31?
Norman MacLean had an entire Hitchcockian mystery story in Fallout without ever reaching the surface.
Norman MacLean may have hidden during the raider attack in the first episode, but he went on to become a classic noir detective, slowly uncovering a vast conspiracy that led him directly to Vault 31, where he discovered a store of “management” from before the bombs went off, held in suspended animation. It finally answered the question of what the vault contained, but soon after, Norman discovered he too was trapped in the vault.
“It's a predicament,” Moisés Arias tells Inverse. “He's going to have to use every ounce of intellect he has to get himself out of that one.”
Arias admits he was in the same situation as the fans while filming his scenes investigating the Vault 31 conspiracy. “I was also deciphering it as the audience was, it wasn't all laid out 10 months in advance,” he said. “It was every two, three weeks I was understanding, ‘Okay, what is it that I'm venturing into this week?’ So it was special.”
Arias tells Inverse he has been slowly learning more about Fallout lore. “In New York, we would go to Ella [Purnell]'s house, and she would have Fallout 4 on her TV,” he says. “Just like everyone else is getting excited to play it again, I might be as well.”
While he is careful not to speculate too much, there’s one prospect that seems especially exciting: Norman possibly waking up more of the Vault-Tec employees who were frozen. “He has the ability to have a gang with him, a squad with him,” he says. “Will they be on his side? Who knows?”
Could We Learn More About Lee Moldaver?
Did Hank recognize Lee from their past live before the bombs?
On the other hand, Lee Moldaver’s story isn’t about what she’ll do next, but how she got to where she is when we met her. She may have died at the Griffith Observatory in the Season 1 finale, but that’s hardly the end of her journey. While we know Hank MacLean survived the apocalypse through Vault 31 and Cooper Howard survived by keeping his ghoulishness in check with Rad-Away, there’s still no clue as to how she survived the 220ish years the show spanned.
Sarita Choudhury can’t say much about how Moldaver survived, but she does believe that when Hank first saw her as the overseer of Vault 32, he recognized her from before the war, even if its just subconsciously. “There is a moment when I was watching the show where I say something and he looks [odd,]” she tells Inverse. “I think there is something in your cells when you recognize something, but you're like, ‘There's no way because time-wise it doesn't make sense. Just no way.’ I think yes, in his cellular body, he does.”
Moldaver may have been killed, but Choudhury is quick to say she’d come back to the show to answer these last lingering mysteries through flashbacks like the ones in Episodes 6 and 7. “I'm now in love with the show,” she says. “Do you know what's weird? As an actor, you usually can describe the show you're in. It’s so hard to pinpoint what it is that makes it work in that way. I loved it.”
Moldaver and Norman may seem like they’re at dead-ends, but the Wasteland is all about finding ways to adapt — there’s no way these mysteries will be left unanswered in the future.
Fallout is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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