'Fallout' Viewers Are Left With More Questions Than Answers About Moldaver (SPOILERS)

Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers for all of Season 1 of Fallout.

The Prime Video series based on the popular Bethesda game series of the same name is finally here. Fallout dropped its entire first season at once, following a completely original tale set int he same universe as the video games.

Within the first episode, we meet the season's suspected villain, Lee Moldaver — but who exactly is she? Let's unpack this iconic character.

By the end of Episode 1, Moldaver is presented as the villain of the series, carting Lucy's dad away with little explanation. She becomes the person Lucy leaves the vault to hunt down, insistent on finding her father and freeing him from his captor. But as anyone starting the series could've guessed, there's a lot more lore behind Moldaver's character than meets the eye.

About halfway through the first season, well into many of our protagonists' separate journies to Moldaver's doorstep across the Wastes, we see her pre-nuclear fallout — leading a meeting for the Communist party. It's here that she approaches Cooper, suggesting to him that his wife's work at Vault-Tec is not as innocent as she may make it seem. She gives him a listening device, allowing him to essentially spy on his wife at work.

Moldaver later comes up in Vault 4. This collection of refugees from the destroyed Shady Sands participate in a cult-like ritual worshipping the "Flame Mother" — who is none other than Moldaver. Though we don't see her physically in the vault, the former Shady Sands residents pull out a banner of her, worshipping her like a deity.

Somehow, despite the constant war happening on the surface, Moldaver has managed to survive through multiple catastrophes post-nuclear bomb.

It's not entirely clear how Moldaver has managed to live more than 200 years, but it doesn't seem as though the woman has turned into a ghoul. Cooper, who became the necrotic post-human referred to only as Ghoul in Season 1, is one of the few of his kind to not only have lived that long, but maintain much of his sanity in the interim.

But despite his sanity remaining in tact, Ghoul still exhibits plenty of physical evidence of his prolonged exposure to radiation, like his missing nose and peeling skin.

Moldaver, on the other hand, does not have any of those symptoms. Despite allegedly being more than 200 years old, her appearance doesn't indicate she's any older than the day she handed Cooper the bug for his wife's Pip Boy.

If she were a ghoul, she would likely exhibit some physical symptoms of the change in her physicality. In addition to the lack of physical features suggesting she's a ghoul, Moldaver was also shot during the big battle in the season finale that ultimately led to her death (or, at least, what we assume is her death). If she had been a ghoul, her body would've immediately healed the various wounds from the fight. As it didn't, it's safe to assume she's probably not a ghoul.

What, exactly, has allowed Moldaver to stay alive for so long, though, isn't quite clear at the end of the first season — which is why viewers will have all the more reason to tune back into the show if it's picked up for a Season 2.

All of Season 1 of Fallout is now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.