Fallout Season 2 Episode 3: What is Macaulay Culkin’s role in the Legion? Details revealed

Fallout Season 2 Episode 3 is titled The Profligate. It premiered on December 31, 2025, on Prime Video.

This episode dropped the reveal everyone has been waiting for: Macaulay Culkin showing up as a mysterious figure in Caesar’s Legion.

The story zeroes in on Lucy MacLean. She is captured by Caesar’s Legion. They put her through the middle of the Legion’s camp. There, people are getting whipped and subjected to all kinds of harsh treatment.

A lot is going on with the other main characters, too. Fallout Season 2 Episode 3 splits mostly between two threads: Lucy’s ordeal inside the Legion, and then The Ghoul and Maximus, each stuck at their own crossroads out in the Mojave. The Ghoul’s desperate mission to save Lucy explores new sides of his personality we haven’t seen before. Meanwhile, Maximus faces his own struggles inside the Brotherhood of Steel.

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Fallout Season 2 Episode 3: What is Macaulay Culkin’s role in the Legion?

The character of Culkin was finally unveiled in Fallout Season 2 Episode 3 after several months of anticipation and strict secrecy. His role was announced as that of Lacerta Legate, a loyalist of the Legion of Caesar and probably the second-in-command of the faction. The role marks a major departure from the most iconic roles Culkin has played in his career. The former child star is portrayed as a menacing and authoritarian figure in one of the most infamous groups in the Fallout franchise.

In Fallout: New Vegas and other installments of the series, the rank of Legate is higher than the rank of Centurion, essentially a general. Caesar appointed all legates, and this position could not be achieved by regular military promotion. This places Lacerta Legate just below Caesar in rank, and of great power and influence in the brutal hierarchy of the Legion.

In Fallout Season 2 Episode 3, Lucy MacLean meets the Legion after trying to rescue one of their members. She soon finds herself in the face of Culkin’s character, who is the main spokesperson and enforcer of the twisted view of Roman culture and philosophy by the faction. Culkin’s character portrays the image of the Legion of Caesar to anyone who may not know them in Fallout: New Vegas, providing both exposition and showing just how brutal the group can be at the same time.

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The civil war of the Legion: A broken empire.

As it is revealed in Fallout Season 2 Episode 3, the Legion of Caesar has changed radically since the events of Fallout: New Vegas that occurred in 2281. The TV show is set in the year 2296, which is 15 years after the events of the game, and a lot has changed in the meantime. The most notable difference is that the original Caesar is dead, and his death has divided the Legion into two warring groups.

Edward Sallow, the original Caesar, passed away, and two factions have developed, and each one wants to be the legitimate one. The key element in this battle is the fact that, just before his death, Caesar had written down the name of the heir he was nominating, and he had put it in his pocket. Nevertheless, the two opposing groups have failed to obtain this document, as any effort to access the body of Caesar is met with violence by the other group.

In her captivity, Lucy learns the Legion has been divided into two, each of them vying to be the replacement of the Legion as a whole since the death of their former leader. This civil war has virtually frozen both groups and pitted them in a stalemate, on both sides of a hill on which the body of Caesar rests.

According to Lacerta Legate, they are engaged in conflict with many different groups, such as the New California Republic, the Great Khans, and the Brotherhood of Steel, but their main target has been to defeat the other side of the Legion of Caesar.

In Fallout Season 2 Episode 3, Macaulay Culkin adds an unusual intensity to the character of Lacerta Legate, which is both thought-provoking and disturbing. Culkin is the detached Legion higher-up, who is soft-spoken and ruthless. He serves as a wonderful foil to the character of Purnell, who is growing more offended and exasperated.

The most memorable scene in Fallout Season 2 Episode 3 is when Lucy tries to correct the pronunciation and knowledge of historical facts by the Legion. When Lucy tells them she is setting up her prima noctis, she criticizes them by reminding them that prima noctis is not even a Roman practice but a medieval one. In these discussions, Culkin’s Lacerta Legate is unusually composed and dismissive in a manner that clearly demonstrates the basic disdain of the Legion towards historical accuracy and the dignity of man.

Lacerta Legate explains the whole nature of himself and the whole nature of the Legion of Caesar in a single brief sentence to Lucy: “Good is not a meaningful vector in history, only strength.” This philosophical stance sums up the world outlook that the Legion has, and as a chilling delegitimizing argument to the vault-dweller perfectism of Lucy.

Macaulay Culkin became a regular cast member in Fallout Season 2 in a recurring role and initially was said to portray a mad genius type of character. The casting was announced in November 2024, and fans immediately speculated about which character in the Fallout universe he would be.

Walton Goggins, a co-star of Culkin in The Righteous Gemstones on HBO, told PEOPLE that he was excited because he described how he fits into this world as a specific and well-suited. Goggins also confessed that he was never aware of the casting of Culkin, and that the production was hush-hush about the news, though he was excited upon discovering his former co-star was involved in the project.

Although Lacerta Legate’s screen appearance during Fallout Season 2 Episode 3 is rather short, Culkin or the showrunners themselves have affirmed that this is not the last time the audience will see the character. In an interview with Inverse, Culkin said:

“There’s still plenty more of Legion coming forward. There’s going to be some dynamics that happen. It’s really tricky because I can’t really talk too much about it, but just know that there is plenty more of this guy to be seen.”

Additionally, the season trailer has a shot of Culkin, who was not in Fallout Season 2 Episode 3, implying that other scenes will be seen later on. Judging by the fact that the given season comprises eight episodes, with new installments being released every week until February 4, 2026, there are five more chances when Lacerta Legate can have an impact on the story.

The civil war in the Legion of Caesar is one of the many key battles that are being established during Fallout Season 2. The introduction of Culkin is only an inkling of what is yet to come as Season 2 is pre-establishing a civil war between the Legion of Caesar, the New California Republic, and the Brotherhood of Steel. These three groups, the representatives of different ideological approaches to the reconstruction of the civilization, are heading for a head-on collision that is likely to determine the climactic moments of the season.