Fallout Season 2 Episode 7 reveals the franchise’s biggest villain, and no, we’re not talking about the Deathclaws… But it was cool to see them too.
Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic franchise has always been about exploring the nuclear wasteland and fending off raiders and monsters, as well as bigger threats like the Institute in Fallout 4. But the overarching big bad is a group called the Enclave, a secretive faction who create bleeding edge technology, experiment with radiation, and create monstrous hybrid creatures.
The group already briefly appeared in Season 1, when Professor Wilzig (Michael Emerson) escaped from the facility with CX404, AKA Dogmeat. Then, in Season 2, the Super Mutant played by Ron Perlman said that the so-called “abominations” of the wasteland are planning a war against the Enclave for their crimes.
But Episode 7 just revealed a major figure in the Enclave’s hierarchy, potentially making them the biggest villain in the entire Fallout franchise. Spoilers ahead!
Clancy Brown plays Fallout’s biggest villain in Season 2
Yes, genre legend Clancy Brown plays the President of the United States in Fallout Season 2. He shows up toward the end of Episode 7 in a flashback when Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) agrees to hand over the Cold Fusion diode to the President with the help of Congresswoman Diane Welch (Martha Kelly). The actor (and future ghoul gunslinger) only does this because he believes the President will do good with the technology… Unfortunately, we have some bad news for Coop.
Brown’s unnamed character is the last President before the nuclear war, and he’s the one who drops the bombs when the Chinese ICBMs are launched. He’s also a high-ranking member of the Enclave, and giving them Cold Fusion technology is possibly the worst decision Cooper could’ve made. In his defence, he didn’t know about the Enclave’s existence at the time.
In the Fallout timeline, the President disappears from the public eye six months before the nuclear war, and he heads to the Enclave’s Control Station, a powerful military base on a massive oil rig off the Californian coast. The base is key part of Fallout 2, when the player takes the fight to the Enclave to save their village (yes village, not a Vault!)
Fans on Reddit were surprised by the President’s appearance in the series, with many pointing out just how important he is to the franchise as a whole.
One person explained it perfectly, writing: “Considering the Enclave is the remanents of the US Gov, giving it to anyone in the government is going to be a bad thing. The actual president ends up on the oil rig off of California, and that’s control station enclave from Fallout 2.
“So giving it to POTUS here creates a direct line from prewar events in Vegas to the enclave having cold fusion at the start of the series. Even more, it places blame on Cooper Howard for events that further lead to the end of the world.”
Another person added: “Coop calls himself a very bad guy. Maybe he feels responsible since he knows he enabled the enclave.”
It’s unclear whether Brown will have an ongoing role in the series going forward, since the President presumably dies at some point in the future. In Fallout 3, an AI system calling itself President John Henry Eden has already taken over as the leader of the Enclave.
Although since the show has frequently brought people back from the past via those Vault-Tec cryo-chambers, it’s not impossible that Brown could show up in the wasteland in Fallout Season 3.
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