I’m very thankful to Fallout for breaking a modern TV trend; the series’ second season is set to land very soon on 17 December.
It’s here that I’ll remind you that season one premiered on 10 April 2024.
In this day and age where it’s not unusual to wait well over three years for a new season, that’s something to be commended.
The newest season will somewhat act as a sequel to Fallout: New Vegas as The Ghoul and Lucy venture off to the infamous location in search of Hank MacLean.
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If we’re heading off to New Vegas, that can only mean one thing. Yes, Robert House is coming.
House did cameo in Season 1, but he’s now been fully realised in Season 2 with Justin Theroux taking on the role.
While we know that Fallout Season 2 will take the “fog of war” approach with regards to New Vegas’ various endings, as executive producer Jonathan Nolan outlined to us, the show is keeping House’s present day fate under wraps.
What I can tell you is that in Season 2’s pre-war flashbacks, House is set to clash in quite a major way with Cooper Howard with Theroux teasing that House “just gets to bat him around sort of like a cat with a ball”.
GAMINGbible sat down with Theroux and Cooper Howard/The Ghoul star Walton Goggins who both opened up about the power dynamic between the duo.
A Showdown Between Cooper Howard and Robert House Awaits
“It was a great experience,” Justin told me. “The execution of the scenes was really fun because it was one of those great situations where we had a big meaty scene to shoot and we sort of cleared the set and we just sat there, [...] and we just chatted it out like we were about to do a one act, you know, and it really was a one act.”
“I mean it was about 10 or 12 pages,” Walton added.
“It is a long, long scene,” Justin continued. “And then we got to just sort of play it. The character's so fun because he's inviting Cooper Howard, you know, to his lair and he just gets to bat him around sort of like a cat with a ball or something, but he does need something from him. He needs some information that's sort of a kink in his algorithm. And, you know, being a friend of Walton and wanting to work with him so badly, it was just so much fun and a lot of giggles.”
Walton added, “What was so interesting about this dynamic, and I don't know that I've been in a situation like this in an imaginary sense for a while, where someone like Robert House not only sees around the curves, but is responsible for building the map, you know? And Cooper has no idea that the room is even dark.
“Once he finds out that it is dark and there is no searching for a light to turn on, it's just an unmooring that I haven't experienced in a long time.”
Revelatory Truths Change Everything For Cooper
“We pick up Season 2 really the moment that we leave off in Season 1. For Cooper Howard, he just had the rug pulled out from underneath him,” Walton told me.
“Everything that he thought he knew isn't true. He finds out that his wife may indeed be the architect of the ending of the world. That sounds, you know, as a concept like a big plot point but for me, it’s not. For me, it’s the truth, right?
“And the thing that I was so looking forward to about working with Justin, other than the fact that he's a dear friend of mine and we've never worked together, I knew he was gonna bring something so unique to this experience, and what I found over the course of this, of being Cooper, in some ways, he's an avatar for how we all feel in this changing chaotic world that we live in.
“It's like waking up in the morning and reading the newspaper and thinking, ‘What reality am I living in?’ And I really felt that deep dive through Cooper Howard with this conversation that the two of us [Cooper and House] have in the relationship that we have. Everything that I thought I knew about the world isn't true, or there are two or three or four or five sides to it, and we had the time of our life.”
Walton continued, “I mean we talked for a couple of hours,” speaking of his onset experience with Justin. “We didn't ask permission. We just sat there with the director, Liz Friedlander, and we just talked through it.”
And Yes, Justin Has Played New Vegas
“I played the game a long time ago, but I had to really reach back and be like, ‘Oh yeah, I did play that game,’ but I wasn't such an avid player,” he explained.
“I got the call literally from Walton and he was like, ‘Hey man, I think we're gonna do this thing and I think we'd love you to come play with us.’ And then I talked to Jonah [executive producer Jonathan Nolan] and sort of got the download on the character and then did my own little deep dive.
“The character itself is so iconic in the New Vegas game that there was a little intimidation, you know? The actor that played him, the voice in the original game was so specific, so I had to almost in a weird way sort of shut that out of my head and go like, ‘Okay, I'm not gonna try and do an impersonation of the person that did it so well,’ and then I just tried to develop it.
“Obviously, the look is the look, but I had to sort of develop the pathos behind it and find a voice for that character that sort of seemed to make sense. He's this bizarre guy who I think is more in his head than most. He’s obviously very intelligent and smart, and all the rest of it.”
Fallout Season 2 returns on Prime Video on 17 December.
Topics: Fallout, Bethesda, Interview, TV And Film, Amazon