‘Fallout’ Reveals the Surprising Origin Story of Vault Boy

Its compelling visuals have always been part of Fallout‘s charm. Even though it’s been around for decades, the franchise still attracts new gamers, not only because of how famous it is, but also because of how it looks. The bright-colored uniforms of the Vault Dwellers and their retrofuturistic technology are usually enough to strike the curiosity of anyone who likes pretty things, and, now, the Prime Video series goes a step forward, even explaining the reason for some of it. The franchise’s symbol, the iconic Vault Boy, for example, finally has its own story told, and it’s as unlikely as it is tragic.

Fallout

In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.

Release Date

April 11, 2024

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Graham Wagner , Geneva Robertson-Dworet

Producer

Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan

Streaming Service(s)

Prime Video

Vault Boy Was Based on Cooper Howard’s Work With Vault-Tec

Season 1 of Fallout tells its story along two different timelines. The main one is set in 2296 and follows three main characters: Vault Dweller Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), Brotherhood of Steel soldier Maximus (Aaron Moten), and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins). The other timeline is set in 2077, following Hollywood star Cooper Howard (also Goggins) as he unravels a conspiracy related to the origins of the nuclear war itself. As the two timelines develop, the viewers quickly realize that Howard and the Ghoul are actually the same person, and are left to wonder how someone could end up like that.

The certainty that Howard and the Ghoul are one and the same comes in Episode 3, “The Head.” Howard’s wife, Barb (Frances Turner), manages to convince him to do a series of commercials for Vault-Tec, where she is an executive. He dresses in the iconic blue and yellow jumpsuit and heads to the photoshoot, where, after a few uncomfortable pictures, he gets more relaxed. Eventually, he suggests taking a picture with a smile and a thumbs-up, to which the executives agree. Little did he know, the gesture would not only become the basis for the Vault-Tec mascot, Vault Boy, but would also haunt him for centuries afterward.

Back in the main timeline, the Ghoul is taking Lucy to a facility where her organs will be harvested and comes across a billboard with Vault-Boy doing the thumbs-up gesture. The Ghoul has a fit of rage and shoots the billboard multiple times, and that’s when it clicks that he and Howard are the same people. The story of Vault Boy isn’t something that fans of Fallout have been wanting or even curious about, to be honest. However, the story is so good, no one complained about learning where something so specific comes from. In fact, this story is proof that anything may have a backstory, as long as it’s a good one.

The Thumbs-Up Sign Also Has an Ominous, Darker Meaning

In the series premiere, “The End,” Cooper has apparently fallen from grace, having to work children’s parties with his young daughter, Janey (Teagan Meredith). When the parents ask him to take a picture doing his signature thumbs-up pose, Cooper declines, saying it wouldn’t be a good thing given the circumstances. People are puzzled by this — after all, it’s just a thumbs-up, right? — but Cooper still politely declines to do it. Like everything in Fallout, even as happy a gesture as a thumbs-up can be twisted into something tragic or evil.

The series premiere takes place a little after the other events in the 2077 timeline, since that’s when we see the exact moment the nuclear bombs drop in Los Angeles. It’s not specified how Cooper ended up losing his job, but, apparently, his job as Vault-Tec poster boy gave him a little more knowledge about the thumbs-up sign. When Janey asks him why he wouldn’t do it, he explains that it’s because the gesture is also used to measure the danger behind a nuclear blast. If you put your thumbs up in front of yourself and the nuclear cloud is smaller, you still have time to run. If you do it and the cloud is bigger, then don’t even bother.

Cooper and Janey are the first people at the party to see the nuclear blasts, but even they don’t do the thumbs-up to know if there is time, they just run (as one should). The series still hasn’t shown how Cooper came to know about the correlation between the thumbs-up sign and the size of a nuclear blast, but it’s probably why one of the executives hesitated to allow him to do the gesture in the first place in Episode 3. Those are nuclear explosions, after all. How far can one run to escape it, even if the blast looks smaller than their thumb? It sounds like the sort of thing that could be helpful only if the person actually has somewhere to run — somewhere like a Vault.

Related

‘Fallout’s Power Armor Explained

I love the smell of fusion cores in the morning.

Vault Boy Embodies Cooper Howard’s Tragedy by Making Him the Poster Boy for the Apocalypse

Cooper Howard is arguably the most tragic character in Fallout. He was a movie star who embodied American exceptionalism to the extreme, calling his enemies “commies” on TV, uttering catchphrases like his “Feo, fuerte y formal,” and riding around in his blue-and-gold cowboy suit. Whenever there is a scene showing him behind the scenes, it’s always interesting how he isn’t like his on-screen persona at all. He’s actually worried about the war and suspects anyone who comes along with magical answers to survive, including Barb, his wife.

Just like in his movie career, Cooper seems to have drifted to the uncomfortable position of embodying values he doesn’t necessarily stand for. When Barb tells him the family dog, Roosevelt, won’t be able to come with them to one of the Vaults, Cooper is distraught (and rightfully so). Between him eavesdropping on the Vault-Tec executive meeting and the children’s party in Episode 1, he lost his job and the wealthy life he had, which was befitting of a Hollywood star. He surely lost Barb, too, who is probably in a cryo-pod in Vault 31, leaving him only with Janey — who, hopefully, found her way into a Vault. And, later, Cooper is left for dead to become a Ghoul, destined to roam the Wasteland in the centuries after the war and finding his own image as the Vault Boy, telling him of the wonders of the life that took everything from him. Not a very “thumbs-up” kind of story.

Fallout is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

Watch on Prime Video