The Big Bad of Fallout Season 2 Might Not Be Who You Think

Fallout fans still have a ways to go until the next mainline entry in the game series, but all things considered, Wastelanders are doing it for themselves. Amidst the rumors of a Fallout 3 remaster, the fan-made Fallout 4 conversion mod Fallout: London is making the professionals look like amateurs. Fallout 76 stands leaps and bounds over the corpse of its devastating launch, and has introduced the ability to play as a Ghoul, changing game strategy and tactics.  And the IP has successfully crossed over into television, with the first season of Amazon Prime’sFallout series winning both Game Awards and Emmys.

Recently, Ella Purnell revealed on her Instagram that shooting on the second season had wrapped, after which Amazon revealed that episodes would be released in December of this year, confirming that the series’ major players would be heading east to the Mojave Wasteland and ultimately, the New Vegas Strip. The sound heard shortly thereafter was the sound of the Fallout fandom collectively salivating.

 

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After we all picked up our jaws off the ground, Fallout fans started doing what we do best: wildly speculate. Would Bethesda allow an ending to be canonized? Who controls the New Vegas Strip? What’s Macaulay Culkin have to do with season two? Well, my fellow Vault Dwellers, I think I’ve solved one of the major questions surrounding the second season of Fallout on Prime: who will be the big bad? And I don’t think it’s who many people are thinking of.

So go get your tinfoil hat from No-Bark Noonan, strap on your Big Iron, and get ready to dive down the West Coast Fallout rabbit hole – and if you haven’t finished season one of the Prime series, here’s your kick in the head: beware spoilers.

Related: Modiphus Opens Fallout Factions, Dark Deeds For Preorder

PREVIOUSLY, ON FALLOUT

The Season 2 teaser trailer, while very cool for Fallout fans rabid for any information, didn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. The triad of Lucy MacLean, along with her companion character, Cooper Howard (better known as The Ghoul and played by Walton Goggins) and new canine companion CX404 (this universe’s Dogmeat), has made their way to New Vegas, hot on the heels of her father and Vault-Tec slimelord Hank MacLean. We also found out that the New Vegas Strip isn’t as glitzy as pictured in Fallout: New Vegas. This could be for several reasons, not the least of which is that season 2 is set to take place 15 years after the game’s events.

What we don’t know yet is the fate of Maximus, the new savior of the Brotherhood of Steel’s West Coast branch, nor the status of cold fusion, the macguffin everyone was chasing in Season 1 that Moldaver forced Hank to activate. And although we believe she’s dead, her actress, Sarita Choudhury, has fueled speculation that we haven’t seen the last of her just yet. And while we do know that Hank was headed to New Vegas, we don’t know his plans once he arrived.

All caught up? Good, cuz here’s where we speculate.

Once the season 2 setting was confirmed to take place in New Vegas, everyone posited what they thought would be the role of Mr. House. Would he be an antagonist? A support? Is he even still alive? It depends on if Bethesda allows anything to be canonized. But if he is alive, I believe he may not be a stalwart ally of our heroes, but he may not be the bad guy.

Because we still don’t know what happened to one Vault-Tec player: Barb Howard.

Again, big spoiler incoming.

The wool was pulled from over viewers’ eyes (as well as Cooper’s pre-war ones) when we collectively discovered that Barb Howard was the one at Vault-Tec who floated the theory that to get the best return on one’s investment into the company, Vault-Tec should push the big red button themselves. This in and of itself will fuel debate for years to come, as initially it was impossible to decide if the US or China launched first. With a third suspect in the mix, we may never get a firm decision.

Barb put Vault-Tec first, because she believed Vault-Tec would do the same for her. According to my Vault-Tec brand polygraph, that was naive at best.

However, it would behoove viewers to remember a tried-and-true rule in the world of comic books: if you don’t see the corpse, there’s a not-insignificant chance that person is not dead.

We have yet to learn the status of one Barb Howard.

 

I’LL HAVE A NUKA-COLA ON ICE

Let’s take the most obvious ones off the table, because I don’t think that’s the play here. It’s very possible that Barb Howard either did not make it into a Vault on the day of the Great War, or that she did and died naturally.

However, we know life-cycle elongation is a thing in the Fallout universe. We saw both Robert House on the West Coast as well as John-Caleb Bradburton on the East Coast use it in Fallout 4’s Nuka-World DLC, as well as all the subjects of Vault 111 use it in the base game. It is very possible – since we haven’t seen the corpse – that Barb Howard is still very much alive.

If this is a potential outcome, it could happen in a manner of ways. The most well-known is ghoulification, in which case she has undergone the same transformation that her husband Cooper has thanks to extreme radiation. However, New Vegas is involved, and eagle-eyed viewers of season one’s final episode will have noticed that in the finale’s end credits, it begins with a billboard for The Tops Hotel & Casino advertising “Cryo Suites.”

Though we don’t know for sure what it is or how the Chairmen at the Tops got a hold of the technology, it could be similar to the tech that kept House alive in New Vegas or the cryo chambers in Fallout 4’s Vault 111. So even if ghoulification is somehow not involved, Barb may have experienced better living through science to extend her life. And if she went with the Science! Perk, it now ties her to New Vegas directly.

 

THIS FALLOUT ARTICLE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTER “WHY”

So the logistics are possible, but is there a motive? This will certainly be expounded on in season 2, but given what we know of season 1, we can extrapolate three potential motives for Barb to lean into the villain identity.

THEORY 1: Barb is looking for Mr. House. (Photo Credit: Prime Video)

In the final episode of season one titled “The Beginning,” we, along with Cooper Howard pre-ghoulification, find out just how deep in cahoots his wife Barb is with Vault-Tec. Via the bug in Barb’s Pip-Boy, he discovers that it is Barb herself, on behalf of the company, floats the idea of pushing the big red button first, in a secret meeting between Vault-Tec and the heads of other major pre-war companies, including West-Tek, REPCONN, Big MT, and RobCo, led by the pre-war, healthy version of Robert House.

I propose in this first possibility that Barb has learned that House kept himself alive in a similar manner to herself, and is on the hunt for him in New Vegas in the year of our Atom 2296. Why? Two possibilities: either Barb had some back-door dealings with RobCo, or Barb went in the back door to cheat on Cooper with Robert House himself. The motive could reasonably be greed, lust, or both, as Barb has shown a proclivity to throw her lot in with the corrupt corporation before, by hook or by crook.

 

THEORY 2: Barb is looking for Mr. House’s technology and/or journal notes. (Photo Credit: Prime Video)

In addition to the player’s Pip-Boy, the hundreds of terminals found throughout the Wasteland, and the numerous varieties of automatron that make life harder for any respectable prospector, Robert House and the minds at RobCo also developed technology that kept him functionally alive (although physically a mere husk of a human) through the mainframe systems of the Lucky 38.

It may not be House specifically that Barb Howard may be looking for; it may be his stuff. If that’s the goal, the next question is for what purpose, or better yet, for whom? It’s unlikely to be Cooper, as she may not know he is the mysterious Ghoul, or that he’s even alive. So it could be for herself.

Or, if we go back to the comic book rule of “corpse, corpse, who’s got the corpse?” it may not be for Barb herself. We don’t know what happened to the Howards’ daughter, Janey.

Barb may be combing New Vegas for a way to either extend Janey’s life along with her, or possibly even resurrect her. Although resurrection has not directly occurred in the Fallout universe, neither had cold fusion up until the end of season one.

 

THEORY 3: Barb has completely given up. (Photo Credit: Prime Video)

Any fan of Fallout knows that war… war never changes. As such, a vein of existential nihilism runs throughout the series. From Cass’ idea that allowing the cruel faction known as the Legion to control the roads in New Vegas since they would realistically do it better and with fewer “stop tolls” in Fallout: New Vegas to Father’s decision that the Wasteland of the Commonwealth isn’t worth the time or effort to save in Fallout 4, the idea that nothing matters anymore after nuclear annihilation is just as much of a character as The Lone Wanderer or The Sole Survivor.

Barb Howard, at her core, was driven by ambition, but also to make sure her family had the best at their fingertips. But after the Great War, Barb was without Cooper (Walton Goggins), possibly without Janey, and possibly even without the coworkers she dug in with so fiercely. The Bombs cost her everything, and while she may cling to the idea of Vault-Tec like Hank MacLean does, she may just be one of the ones that just wants to watch the world burn… again.

If this is the case, she may have the mentality of “if I can’t be happy, no one can,” which may cause her to turn her attention to Robert House’s beloved New Vegas Strip. The Inkspots may constantly remind us that they don’t want to set the world on fire, but they didn’t ask Barb Howard’s opinion.

 

WELL, DON’T YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BARB? WELL EVERYBODY’S HEARD THAT THE BARB IS THE WORD!

In conclusion, yes, everyone’s excited to see how Fallout on Prime will adapt all the elements that make Fallout: New Vegas one of the most highly-praised video games of all time. And that of course includes Mr. House. But while the House may try to always win, as Space once sang, “The female of the species is more deadlier than the male.”

Now, on to my theory about Macaulay Culkin as Arcade Gannon and – HEY GET THAT STRAIGHT JACKET OFF OF ME!!

Catch up on Fallout before Season 2 releases on Prime Video. Discuss Fallout on our forums.