7 Theories About The Secret Identity Of Fallout Season 2’s Surprise Character

The latest episode of Fallout season 2 unveiled a very neat surprise for longtime fans of the franchise. If you’ve yet to see it for yourself and want to preserve the mystery, this is your first and final warning to avoid reading this article and half of the internet.

People are already spoiling episode six’s big reveal across social media, but, in truth, it’s more of a half-reveal. There’s a lot to unpack here, so for everyone who’s already caught up, let’s get started.

So, Ron Perlman is finally in Fallout. He was spotted at the Los Angeles premiere back in December, he “no comment”-ed his way out of confirming his appearance in the show during FAN EXPO Canada in August last year, and his very distinctive voice could clearly be heard in the first official trailer for season two, so we all knew this was coming.

The real surprise is who Ron Perlman is playing: a Super Mutant. While his stature and gravelly voice lend themselves to the role, the part that’s befuddling fans is the vague nature of his character’s actual identity. The fact that there’s no name listed anywhere for Perlman’s character (be that in the episode itself, its credits, Amazon Prime’s x-ray feature, or even on IMDb) implies that there might be some sort of big reveal in store for his identity later in the show.

That could mean one of two things: said character has already shown up in a previous episode (in a human form), or it’s an existing character from the Fallout games.

If it’s the former, I think there are only two possibilities: Ron Perlman’s character is either Cooper Howard’s wife, Bard Howard, or his daughter, Janey. We saw a glimpse of their cryo pods in a previous episode, but we didn’t see their contents, so there’s certainly a chance (especially considering Barb seems to be involved with the Enclave). However, since Ron Perlmutant didn’t acknowledge any relation to Cooper in their meeting, this doesn’t seem too likely to me. Also, and more importantly, it would be far less entertaining to theorize about, so let’s put a pin in that for now.

Instead, let’s break down the likelihood of Perlman’s character being from a previous Fallout game and the evidence to support each of the potential characters he might be. I’m basing these hypothetical characters off of the ones listed in this thread over on the r/Fotv subreddit, but I’ve also thrown in one of my own at the end (that I haven’t seen anyone else mention yet).

Marcus

Wizards of the Coast

Let’s start with the most popular choice: Marcus, the 200-ish-year-old Super Mutant who first appeared in Fallout 2. Marcus is an easy pick for several reasons.

Firstly, we know he’s kicking about in the Mojave Wasteland, as he popped up in Fallout: New Vegas as the mayor of Jacobstown. He also helped found Broken Hills, the New California refuge for Super Mutants, ghouls, and everything in between. Perlman’s character referenced a similar outlook on ghoul/Super Mutant cooperation (Cooper-ation?) in his conversation with Cooper.

There are two big issues with this theory, however. Marcus has a very visually distinct design from other Super Mutants, which Perlman’s character lacks: huge boil-like bumps that cover the entire left side of his face. He’s also voiced by Michael Dorn, of Star Trek fame, in both Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. I think the chances of the showrunners not bringing Dorn in to play Marcus in the live-action adaptation are extremely low, given how beloved his performance is.

Mean Sonofabitch

Bethesda

We can apply a lot of the same logic from the Marcus theory to Mean Sonofabitch, the fan-favorite Super Mutant from Fallout: New Vegas. He’s extremely friendly, he’s been around long enough that he’s aware of the Enclave’s history, and he was last spotted in Jacobstown.

Unfortunately, even though it would be really, really funny if Ron Perlman were playing a guy called Mean Sonofabitch, the character’s speech impediment gets in the way of things here. Mean Sonofabitch’s tongue was cut out by a band of Super Mutant xenophobes over a decade before you meet him in New Vegas, and, in spite of his FEV-accelerated health regeneration, never properly healed. His speech impediment is permanent, and Perlman’s character doesn’t have one. Besides, what would be the point of changing the most distinct thing about such a fan-favorite character?

Neil

Bethesda

Again, Fallout: New Vegas’ Neil qualifies for all the same reasons that Marcus and Mean Sonofabitch do. Friendly, clever, formerly hail from Unity, and now reside in Jacobstown. However, unlike Marcus and Mean Sonofabitch, I don’t really have any evidence against him being Perlman’s character.

In fact, Perlman’s character and Neil share something in common; they’re both seemingly a little more violent than your standard first-generation Super Mutant. Well, it actually might be more accurate to say that they’re a bit more violent than the other first-generation Super Mutants that don’t immediately kill non-Super Mutants on sight. The only true evidence I can give against Neil being Perlman’s character is Perlmutant’s lack of mouth straps. The canon is somewhat vague on the necessity of mouth straps, but (according to the Fallout Bible) some Super Mutants sport them because their upper lips are too heavy. This small detail aside, the Neil theory’s odds look half-decent to me.

Frank Horrigan

Wizards of the Coast

When you finally dispatch Frank Horrigan at the end of Fallout 2, his chest bursts open. Then he’s bisected at the waist. Then the pneumatic pressure caused by his suit malfunctioning separates his head from his torso. Then his corpse is consumed by a nuclear explosion.

If Perlman is Frank Horrigan, I will livestream myself consuming a bloatfly slider.

Fawkes

Bethesda

Fawkes is definitely a dark horse pick here, because there’s no real evidence to support his potential link to Perlman’s character. They’re both Super Mutants, and that’s where the theory starts and ends.

However, there is one small, possible link here. Fawkes outright tells you in Fallout 3 that his mind has begun to degrade over the years, and that he cannot remember who he used to be prior to his FEV exposure. It’s a stretch, sure, but perhaps this lack of an exact history makes him the perfect candidate for Perlman’s character, as it would give the writers something to work with (and not upset the canon enthusiasts in the process).

Rust King

Bethesda

Here’s an interesting one: Fallout 76’s Rust King, a Super Mutant warlord and the main antagonist of the Burning Springs expansion.

If you’re not familiar with the Rust King, then don’t worry– neither am I. That being said, after seeing this suggestion in the r/Fotc subreddit, I’m partially convinced by it. For starters, Cooper Howard is introduced in the same Fallout 76 update that the Rust King is, and even tasks you with taking him down. The Rust King also has a nasty history with the Enclave, as he was once their prisoner. Plus, when you meet him, the Rust King states that he doesn’t have a problem with ghouls or humans, as long as they can help him to further his goals.

Now, you might be thinking, if the Rust King and Cooper are enemies, surely Perlman’s character would have recognized him in the TV series. Funny explanation for that one: they never meet in Fallout 76, or at least haven’t so far.

The Vault Dweller

Interplay

Hear me out, because this one is an original theory from yours truly. I know it sounds far-fetched, but I think there’s a genuine possibility that the Vault Dweller, the first protagonist in Fallout history, and Perlman’s character may be one and the same.

There are a million and one canon reasons as to why this one might not be true. For starters, the Vault Dweller is dead. That’s according to the intro of Fallout 2, which states that “he lived out the rest of his years” after founding the settlement Arroyo. That’s fifty-ish years before the events of the Fallout TV adaptation.

Thanks to the Vault Dweller’s memoirs, a diary written by the Vault Dweller that’s included in Fallout 2’s instruction manual, we also know the exact canon choices he made during the events of the first game. This includes the ending where the Vault Dweller destroys the Master’s base and the FEV vats that it housed. Unfortunately (for my theory, at least), this means that the “Dipping” ending, in which the Vault Dweller willingly turns themselves into a Super Mutant, is non-canon.

So why do I think there’s a chance that the Vault Dweller and Perlman might be the same person? It’s mostly circumstantial, but there’s enough here that I think it’s worth entertaining.

To begin with, the bit about him living “out the rest of his years” is vague enough that I think we can ignore it. At the very least, I could easily justify it as him living out the rest of his human years. He also, oddly, refuses to detail his encounter with the Master, merely stating that he couldn’t bring himself “to write of this discovery.” Even stranger still, he finishes his memoirs by implying that certain details within it could be false. “That is my story, and I am sticking to it,” he writes at the memoir’s conclusion.

Perlman’s character drags Cooper to a literal church. The followers of Unity, the Master’s mutant cult, go by the name the Children of the Cathedral and operate out of a church called the Cathedral.

The followers also don bright purple robes. “Walking among the misshapen ones, I killed one of their servants and took his clothing,” states the Vault Dweller in his memoir. Perlman’s character wears a robe that looks suspiciously similar to these, except they’re black. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that they could have darkened over the decades he’s worn them.

Now, I’m not saying that the ending in which the Vault Dweller dips himself in FEV is canon. The events of Fallout 2 and every Fallout game beyond it confirm that it’s not. But what if he sought out the FEV in his later years? What if, in that conversation that he refuses to elaborate on, the Vault Dweller came around to the Master’s way of thinking? After all, there are dialogue paths during the Vault Dweller’s conversation with the Master that allow you to entertain (and even partially agree with) his philosophy on forced human evolution, yet ultimately still decide to oppose him.

The Vault Dweller even states in his own memoirs that he’d changed after this point: “I screamed. I cried. Slowly I came to realize that the Overseer may have been correct. I had changed. Life outside the Vault was different, and now I, too, was different.”

Ron Perlman has been with Fallout since its inception. He’s narrated almost every intro and every ending slideshow in every canon Fallout game. What if he’s not just some faceless, unknown narrator, but instead…the very first protagonist of the entire series, recounting the history of the Wasteland through the eyes of a near-immortal Super Mutant body? Just a fun thought. It’s probably that Rust King guy, though.