The Season 2 finale of Fallout gave us one of the most disturbing moments in the series. After his daughter Lucy destroys the mainframe for his mind control project, Hank MacLean tries to implant a mind control chip on neck, saying she’ll “be my little girl again.”
It’s easy to read that scene as Hank going too far, but it runs much deeper than that. Hank is merely doing what he’s always done when it comes to Lucy.
The Perfect Personality
When Hank describes Congresswoman Diane Welch earlier in the season, he calls her personality the “gold standard”. Sweet, well-meaning, non-threatening. Sounds a lot like Lucy doesn’t it?
Her optimism, her unwavering trust in others, her inability to question the people closest to her. These aren’t the natural traits one gets from growing up inside a Vault. They’re the result of years of psychological engineering by her own father.
The Black Box technology Hank has been working on is an escalation of what he’d already achieved with Lucy through manipulation. She was the prototype.
Lucy’s Best Friend Is Actually Her Stepmother
One of the shocking bombshells from season 2 is that Vault 32 Overseer Stephanie Harper, Lucy’s best friend, is secretly Hank’s wife.
Lucy has no idea.
Think about what that means. Hank allowed, maybe even encouraged, his daughter to develop a friendship with a woman who was actually his pre-war spouse. Lucy believed she had an independent relationship outside her family. She didn’t.
We don’t know a whole lot about Lucy’s life living in Vault 33, but it’s implied that the only people she’s closest to are her brother and dad, Steph and her cousin Chet. Hank ensured that even Lucy’s closest friendships were with someone who had loyalty and history with him first. Her entire social circle was manufactured. Every relationship she thought was her own choice was actually another thread in Hank’s web of control.
It doesn’t help that the show has established Stephanie to be extremely manipulative and strategic. She married Hank specifically to get into Vault-Tec. She later pushes Chet into a relationship. Lucy’s affection for her best friend was being exploited by someone she thought she could trust.
Her Brother Norm is the Exception
Interestingly, Norm doesn’t seem to experience the same level of micromanagement as his sister despite being Hank’s son. Yet he’s very different from Lucy.
Norm questions everything. He’s suspicious, cynical, uninterested in Vault-Tec’s propaganda. His arc revolves around defying the Bud’s Buds experiment to uncover the truth. If Lucy’s naivety was only the result of living in a Vault, Norm should be just like her.
But he’s not, and a lot of it is due to how Hank treated them.
The 1950s Daughter vs. The Disappointing Son
Vault-Tec modeled itself on an idealized version of 1950s American suburbia, and that includes 1950s gender ideology.
Women were supposed to be supportive and compliant homemakers. Men were the breadwinners and protectors. It isn’t a stretch to think that someone like Hank, who’s from the pre-war era would embrace these values.
Lucy embodies every 1950s stereotype of the perfect daughter. She’s cheerful, idealistic, eager to marry and start a family, trusting of authority figures, and willing to sacrifice herself for her community. She’s being groomed as the exemplary Vault dweller, the center of Hank’s world.
Norm represents the man who fails to live up to certain expectations. He’s a self-proclaimed “coward.” He’s intelligent yet he’s also unmotivated and aimless. His skepticism makes him a disappointing son by 1950s metrics.
Norm’s failure to conform to a more “masculine” archetype meant Hank paid less attention to influencing him. That neglect gave Norm the freedom to think independently. Meanwhile, Lucy acting like the “ideal daughter” made her the perfect target for Hank to control her.
Hank treated his children through a gendered lens. And Lucy suffered more from his attention than Norm did from his indifference.
Manufacturing Naivety
Lucy’s faith in her father goes beyond normal filial affection. She clings desperately to the ideals he taught her, even when it nearly gets her killed in the Wasteland. Her naivety was the intended result of psychological grooming disguised as fatherly love.
The way Hank treats Lucy is revealing. She’s an adult woman (she’s speculated to be in her early 20s), but Hank still sees her as (and wants her to remain) his child. A daughter frozen in time, never allowed to grow into someone who might challenge him.
Lucy’s Journey Is Deprogramming
When Lucy leaves the Vault and ventures into the Wasteland, she gets several harsh lessons about the harsh realities of the surface world. But her journey is more than learning to survive.
Everything the Wasteland throws at Lucy forces her to be a little more cynical. Every moment of doubt about her father is her breaking through years of manipulation. Eventually, Lucy confronts the reality that the person who claimed to protect her was not the man she thought he was.
Her growing autonomy is her escaping the abuse that was disguised as love. She’s unlearning everything Hank designed her to be.
Vault 33 wasn’t Lucy’s protection from the Wasteland. It was Hank’s laboratory, and Lucy was his experiment.
