DISCLAIMER: This recap of Fallout Season 1 Episode 4, “The Ghouls,” contains spoilers. Proceed at your peril.
Fallout‘s “The Ghouls” boasts significant character growth for Lucy as she adapts to the surface world. Ella Purnell has a natural onscreen presence. She deftly portrays Lucy’s intricacies and nuances, from her innocence to learning to fight back. The unfolding Vault 32 mystery also proves to be quite intriguing. I’m curious to see where that goes.
Additionally, this outing’s dark humor, gleeful ultraviolence and immersive set pieces mesh well to create an entertaining chapter in the seasonal narrative. The art and music departments deserve major props for this show—the vintage soundtrack is perfect.
RELATED: Read our recap of the previous Fallout episode, “The Head”
Episode 4 — Ass Jerky
We open with Lucy (Purnell) and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) stumbling upon a medical facility. After hearing monstrous noises, they head inside to find another ghoul, Roger (Neal Huff). He’s on the precipice of going feral. Unfortunately, he, too, doesn’t have any more serums. Roger admits he was able to stave off the change for a few decades. However, The Ghoul has outlasted them all. The conversation changes to reminiscing about real food before The Ghoul shoots Roger in the head.
Lucy is bewildered and shocked. The Ghoul extracts Roger’s tooth and proceeds to cut his presumed friend open (he even samples some ghoul flesh). It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Luc. The Ghoul needs to trade Roger’s parts in for more serums. He asks about Lucy’s name and seems to recognize her surname. Lucy tells him that her parents survived The Great Plague of ’77 without resorting to cannibalism or malicious tactics.
He orders Lucy to get him some of that “ass jerky.” This made me chuckle.
Vault 33 and Rhubarb Pie
Later, at Vault 33, we see Woody (Zach Cherry) and Reg (Rodrigo Luzzi) vying for the coveted title of Overseer in Hank’s absence. They put up their respective campaign posters. Then, they reunite to discuss progress in interrogating one of the Raiders. Meanwhile, Betty (Leslie Uggams) gives Norm (Moisés Arias) a slice of rhubarb pie. She reveals his word holds weight as the last MacLean in Vault 33. Sure, folks might not agree with his desire to kill the Raiders, but his voice matters all the same.
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Next, The Ghoul and Lucy stop so the former can refill his canteen. A severely dehydrated Lucy gives in, sinking to her knees and gulping dirty water out of the bucket on the ground. The Ghoul remarks that she’s finally getting it — she’s learning how to live like a surface dweller. Then, he falls into a coughing fit. He’s clearly deteriorating, barreling down the path toward Feral City. Lucy capitalizes on this moment of distraction to escape.
Unfortunately, The Ghoul lassos her. During their brief struggle, Lucy bites off The Ghoul’s finger. So, as punishment, The Ghoul cuts off Lucy’s index finger. Ouch. This poor girl has one boot and is now down a finger. Meanwhile, Chet (Dave Register) sits down to eat in his home. Steph (Annabel O’Hagan) knocks on his door with some of her husband’s items. She believes Chet might want them. Steph makes Chet wear her late husband’s checkered white, blue and yellow cardigan and his blue and yellow scarf.
Until the Water Breaks
After that, she proceeds to call Chet by her husband’s name. She kisses him, and he quickly returns the kiss. Chet tries to remove the cardigan and scarf, but Steph orders him to keep them on. Discarding them will ruin the illusion. Suddenly, Steph’s water breaks before they reach the makeout stage. The baby’s coming! This scene is simultaneously melancholic and hilarious.
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Later, The Ghoul and Lucy arrive at a dilapidated Super Duper Mart. The Ghoul chats with Snip Snip (Matt Berry), revealing he has some ghoul jerky and one human in almost mint condition. She is missing a finger, after all. The Ghoul orders Lucy to head inside the building. After she does this, he collapses.
Inside, Snip Snip takes Lucy to the examination room to give her a new finger. Admittedly, I’m imagining it’s Steven Toast from Toast of London delivering Berry’s dialogue. It makes the “You must be a woman” line so much funnier. Snip Snip attaches Lucy’s new finger, for which she is grateful. However, that gratefulness runs dry when Snip Snip gleefully announces he’s about to harvest her organs. He administers a serum that knocks Lucy unconscious.
Vault 32
Meanwhile, Norm delivers dessert to the Raiders. Well, he was supposed to give the Raiders dessert. He hands it off to the woman standing guard before chatting with one of the Raiders. Said Raider reveals that Vault 32 was up to something bad before the Raiders arrived. Norm knocks on Chet’s door to find Steph within as she’s in labor. Norm asks Chet if he wants to visit Vault 32.
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Sure enough, in Vault 32, our fellas find the destroyed crops we saw in episode one. Then, they see corpses strewn about. It looks like they killed each other. Norm tinkers with one corpse’s Pip-Boy, revealing the last biosignal was from two years ago. Someone wrote, “We Know the Truth” in blood on the wall. Something is clearly afoot.
Later, Lucy wakes up after Snip Snip knocked her unconscious. The robot wheels her past a bunch of ghouls entrapped in freezers. Snip Snip brings Lucy to two men, Huey (Matty Cardarople) and Squirrel (Elvis Lopez), who are watching TV. Snip Snip reveals The Ghoul wants 60 serums in exchange for Lucy and Roger’s bits. Snip Snip prepares to cut Lucy open. It’s organ harvesting time!
Bye-Bye, Snip Snip
However, our Luc isn’t going down without a fight. She deftly avoids getting sliced open and causes him to malfunction. She takes Snip Snip to Huey and Squirrel while holding the robot at gunpoint. She orders them to let the ghouls go, or Snip Snip gets it. Lucy armed Snip Snip with a dart containing a chemical that’s toxic to humans. She demonstrates this by firing it between the two men. It burrows into the couch.
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Huey releases the ghouls, who flee the scene. However, he leaves a few behind. Lucy orders him to free those, too. When he does, though, she realizes they’re too far gone — they’re feral. The ghouls launch themselves onto Huey and Squirrel, killing them (but not before Huey murders the ghouls first). The last feral ghoul emerges, telling Lucy her name is Martha between snarls. Lucy feels hopeful she can remind Martha of her humanity. Unfortunately, it’s too late. Lucy shoots Martha after the latter lunges at her.
Meanwhile, Norm and Chet find a room full of corpses strung up by their necks. They also stumble upon the Overseer’s office. Said Overseer is strapped to their chair, complete with a ghostly grin. Chet sees the words “Death to Management” in blood on the wall.
Norm accesses the office computer and discovers that the Raiders opened the entrance from the outside … with his late mother’s Pip-Boy. Weird. How did they get it?
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The Golden Rule
Lucy dumps a handful of serums outside the Super Duper Mart on the ground beside The Ghoul. She says she might look like him one day, but she’ll never act like him. “Golden Rule, motherf*cker,” she says before parting ways with him. Boom. That’s a mic drop moment.
After she leaves, The Ghoul consumes those serums and heads inside the former grocery store. He raids the serum stores, downing as many as he can. The Ghoul notices the entrapped ghouls are now gone. Then, he sees a tape for The Man From Deadhorse, the movie he was shooting when he was Cooper Howard. He puts it in the VCR and presses play.
We see the scene from the beginning of episode three play out. The Ghoul watches himself, even mimicking Cooper’s gun firing at his scene partner.
My, how things have changed.
RELATED: Read all of our Fallout recaps here!
Will Lucy track down Maximus and Thaddeus for Wilzig’s precious head? Where will The Ghoul go next? Why did the Vault 32 residents kill each other? Only time (and more episodes) will tell.
Fallout Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.
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