One scene in Fallout Season 1 that puzzled many viewers was Cooper Howard running off with Janey into the hills while the bombs fell in Episode 1. Could he be heading into an in-game location from the first Fallout game?
The scene where the bombs started falling in the United States is one of the most chilling in the Fallout live-action adaptation TV show on Prime Video. Amidst the pyrotechnic display, you could see Cooper and Janey Howard running off to the hills on their horse while Los Angeles is being bombed with nukes.
The first season of Fallout never had a flashback that explained what happened to the two, which the showrunners may understandably want to flesh out some more in the now-confirmed second season. However, ComicBook.com has an interesting theory suggesting Cooper and Janey may have fled to Bakersfield.
To support that theory, Hannah Adkins writes that Cooper may have been aware of Bakersfield as a Vault location, as evidenced by a scene in Episode 6. Cooper suggests that he hang his gloves as an actor and retire to farming in Bakersfield, but Barbara shoots him down and tells him that the Vault in the area is not good.
Now, long-time fans of the Bethesda franchise are all aware that Bakersfield is an in-game location in Fallout 1 that became known as the Necropolis. The Vault there, Vault 12, was intentionally equipped with a Vault door that did not close, exposing its residents to the nuclear radiation and turning them all into ghouls of varying degrees of “ghoulification.”
Some residents retained sentience and were able to reclaim the city, which eventually became known as “Necropolis” due to its ghoul population. Vault 12 became home to glowing ghouls who bore the brunt of the radiation and became hostile to everyone.
Adkins goes on to suggest that Cooper got that dose of radiation in Bakersfield that turned him into The Ghoul. While this theory presents a plausible origin for The Ghoul, it is at odds with everything the series has established thus far.
Since Cooper is Barbara's spouse, it is more than likely that his family was assigned to a different Vault that also happened to be in Hollywood Hills, and that is where he might have been heading instead of Bakersfield.
Moreover, The Ghoul specifically asked Hank about the whereabouts of his family, suggesting that Janey was not turned into a ghoul but was taken from him by Vault-Tec at Barbara’s orders. Let’s not forget that Cooper already had doubts about the Vaults, doubts that were worsened by the results of his eavesdropping and could have caused the estrangement.
Who knows? Maybe he was just acting on his instincts as a soldier during the Sino-American War. After all, he did tell Janey that if the mushroom cloud was bigger than her thumb, she should run for the hills.
While the showrunners and Bethesda are still formulating the writing for Fallout’s second season, why not try The Ghoul build in Fallout 76 instead? If you’re into sims, you could also give Fallout Shelter on mobile a try!
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