has consistently made clear who its heroes are: Cooper Howard, also known as The Ghoul, Lucy MacLean, and Maximus. Their intentions may not always be purely noble, but they are the characters audiences are meant to support. What is slightly harder to discern, however, is who exactly the villains are; over time, all the entities the characters held dear—such as Vault-Tec, the Brotherhood of Steel, and Hank MacLean—have been revealed to be secretly malevolent.
Beneath these secondary antagonists, though, lies a far larger force pulling the strings, and as revealed in Season 2 Episode 7, this influence reaches all the way to the top.
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Fallout Season 2’s “The Handoff.”
At the conclusion of Season 2 Episode 6, viewers were introduced to their first Super-Mutant, who offered pointed warnings to the Ghoul. “They call us abominations, but they created our kind,” he states. “They drove us to the brink of extinction and erased us from memory. But we did not forget them… the ones who set this all in motion: The Enclave.”
The Enclave is not a new element to the Fallout series. As early as Season 1, scientist Siggi Wilzig defected from the Enclave’s massive science lab, and his severed head became a critical plot device for the rest of the season. However, the true nature of the Enclave remained largely a mystery—unless fans were familiar with the games—until Season 2.
The flashbacks in Season 2’s “The Handoff” follow Cooper Howard as he attempts to deliver a diode, which enables infinite energy, to Congresswoman Diane Welch. Welch assures him he can present it directly to the President. This proves to be a mistake: the President is tied to the Enclave, and Congresswoman Welch is revealed to be the mysterious “mainframe” powering the Vault that was seized by Hank MacLean.
What Is The Enclave?
So, what exactly is the Enclave? The Enclave is a secretive faction that views itself as the continuation of the United States, conducting scientific experiments in both labs and Vaults. It is the Enclave that developed the nefarious Vault experiments, and it is the Enclave that both created and despises the Super-Mutants. Their operations predate the nuclear bombs, meaning this is not merely a post-apocalyptic development—it is a vast conspiracy.
Clancy Brown’s portrayal of the President of the United States marks a historic first for Fallout. While the Fallout games have included clues about the final POTUS, this is the first time he has been depicted on screen. Notably, he was referenced earlier in the series, as far back as the show’s opening moments. During the birthday party Cooper Howard attends with his daughter, a mother turns down a radio announcement stating, “negotiations were scheduled to continue today, though the White House had no comment on the President’s whereabouts.”
Though this is the first time viewers have seen this President, he will vanish as events unravel, leaving the Enclave to carry out its mission of strange experiments and “abominations.” But what is the Enclave’s current objective—and how will they address the looming presence of the Super-Mutants in the Season 2 finale? Only one week remains to find out.