The Ghoul: Cooper Howard, the Actor Who Became a Bounty Hunter

The Ghoul is the name the wasteland knows Cooper Howard by: a pre-war Hollywood cowboy star who became the smiling face of Vault-Tec, survived the Great War as a ghoul, and spent more than 200 years as a bounty hunter. In the Fallout TV series he is played by Walton Goggins, and both seasons split his story between the man he was in the 2070s and the killer he became. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Head")

Who was Cooper Howard?#

Cooper served as a US Marine in Alaska during the war with China, wearing early T-45 power armour. On one mission his suit failed, Chinese troops closed in, and a huge creature tore them apart, looked at him and left. He never knew what it was and called it the demon in the snow. It was a deathclaw. (Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow")

Back home he became a Western star, with films such as A Man and His Dog. His wife Barb rose high in Vault-Tec, and at her urging he posed for its adverts in a Vault suit, giving the thumbs-up that became his trademark. (Fallout, "The Trap"; Fallout, "The Head")

How did Cooper Howard find out about Vault-Tec?#

His doubts grew. At a meeting of so-called radicals he met their leader, the woman later known in the wasteland as Lee Moldaver, who told him his wife was hiding things. He bugged Barb's Pip-Boy and listened in on a secret meeting where Barb told other companies' bosses that Vault-Tec could use its Vaults as experiments and start the war itself to make sure the investment paid off. That day he also met Barb's assistant, Hank MacLean. (Fallout, "The Trap"; Fallout, "The Radio"; Fallout, "The Beginning")

Moldaver wanted him to go with Barb to Las Vegas, take the cold fusion diode Barb was delivering to Robert House and kill House. Before the trip, House met him unrecognised at a veterans' awards event. In Vegas, House called him up to the Lucky 38 and told him he had watched the demon in the snow through Cooper's armour, and that "another player", not Vault-Tec, was steering the world to war. Cooper called him a lunatic. (Fallout, "The Innovator"; Fallout, "The Profligate"; Fallout, "The Wrangler")

Barb then admitted that she had been threatened, and that the idea of dropping the bombs was forced on her. She got the diode away from Hank for him. On Congresswoman Diane Welch's advice he gave it to the president, believing it would end the Resource Wars. The next day he was arrested as a suspected communist and took the blame alone to protect Barb and Janey. (Fallout, "The Other Player"; Fallout, "The Handoff"; Fallout, "The Strip")

The Great War and after#

Blacklisted and, by most accounts, divorced, Cooper was working children's parties in a cowboy costume on 23 October 2077, with Janey helping him. When the bombs hit Los Angeles he put her on his horse and rode for safety. The show has not shown how they were separated or how he became a ghoul. (Fallout, "The End")

He spent the following centuries as a bounty hunter. In Fallout 76's Burning Springs update he is already working bounties in Ohio by about 2105, and he says he followed someone there. Like many old ghouls he needs a drug taken from small inhaler vials to keep from turning feral. (Fallout 76; Fallout, "The Ghouls")

The Ghoul in season 1#

The series finds him in 2296, buried in a coffin by an enemy. Bounty hunters dig him up to help them catch the Enclave defector Siggi Wilzig, and he kills two of them, kicks the third into his grave and takes the job for himself. In Filly he shoots Wilzig's foot off, fights off the town and Maximus in power armour, and keeps Wilzig's dog, whom he later calls Dogmeat. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Target")

He chases Lucy MacLean for Wilzig's head, uses her as gulper bait, cuts off her finger and trades her to organ harvesters for vials. She survives and leaves him a vial rather than let him turn. He tracks Lee Moldaver, whom he knew before the war, to Griffith Observatory, kills a squad of Brotherhood knights and shoots Hank MacLean, whom he recognises. He lets Hank fly away, believing Hank will lead him to his family, and takes Lucy with him to follow. (Fallout, "The Head"; Fallout, "The Ghouls"; Fallout, "The Beginning")

The Ghoul in season 2#

On the road to New Vegas the two run a bounty scam on the Great Khans, argue about killing, and save each other. He frees Lucy from the Legion by selling out the last NCR unit in the area, then blows up Caesar's preserved body so the two rival Legion camps fight each other. On the Strip they find deathclaws, and the Ghoul is plainly terrified. (Fallout, "The Innovator"; Fallout, "The Profligate"; Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow")

Hank sends word that Barb and Janey are frozen in a Vault under the Strip and will die unless the Ghoul brings Lucy home. He tranquillises her, feeling guilty for it, and she punches him out of a window onto a pole. A super mutant pulls him off, treats his wound and asks him to join a war against the Enclave, "the people who set all this in motion". He refuses. (Fallout, "The Wrangler"; Fallout, "The Other Player")

With Maximus and Thaddeus he trades the weapons and armour in a hidden cache for Maximus's cold fusion diode, gets into the Lucky 38 and uses the diode to bring House back on screen. House guides him under the Strip. He saves Lucy from Hank and leaves her to decide Hank's fate. Then he reaches the cryo bay. Barb's and Janey's pods are empty, but Barb's holds a postcard of Colorado. For the first time in 200 years he knows his family is alive, and he walks away from House to find them. (Fallout, "The Handoff"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Test yourself: take the Fallout TV show quiz, twelve questions on Cooper Howard, Lucy, Maximus and both seasons of the show. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Head")