This article contains SPOILERS for Fallout season 2 Episode 8, "The Strip."
The season 2 finale of Fallout contains more than a few twists and turns, from the last-minute arrival of the NCR to New Vegas, to the extent of Hank MacLean's devious plan to enslave the minds of the Wastelanders, to the reveal of just how deep the Enclave's roots run. We'll be mulling all the developments from this episode for a while, but one of the biggest is that The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) has finally uncovered a clue about the fate of his family — and it's given him a new destination for season 3.
Late in the finale, The Ghoul reaches the depths of the Vault-Tec management Vault where his wife and daughter are frozen in their cryo-pods. But when Robert House opens the pods, Barb and Janey are nowhere to be found. Instead, The Ghoul finds a post card from Colorado left for him by Barb, which has the handwritten note that reads, "Colorado was a good idea," referencing a suggestion Cooper made in the past for the family to go to ground there.
This fills The Ghoul with hope, because it confirms that Barb and Janey survived the apocalypse. It's the first clue he's gotten about their fate in more than 200 years, and it renews his purpose to find them.
When we last see The Ghoul, he's staring out at the Wasteland before he begins his next journey along with his dog companion. But what awaits him in Colorado? Do any of the Fallout video games hold an answer?
What happened to Colorado in the Fallout universe?
To date, the only Fallout game to feature the state of Colorado directly is Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, a somewhat obscure game that follows the titular Brotherhood on a campaign against a robot army that leads them deep into the state in search of Vault 0, where a supercomputer known as Calculator is issuing orders to the robots. It was also slated to be a major setting in an early version of Fallout 3 (codenamed "Van Buren"), before that game was ultimately scrapped and the version that was ultimately released was created.
However, most of the lore for Colorado that we know of comes from Fallout: New Vegas, where it's revealed that the Legion has conquered most of it. After the Great War, various tribes sprung up around Denver, and began forming into communities that relied on one another. One of the most prominent was the Hangdogs, who got their name from the borderline spiritual bond they had with hounds.
Under the direction of a Legion member named Lanius, the Hangdogs and all the rest of the tribes were eventually brought to heel, and either killed or conscripted. The Hangdogs held out the longest, until the Legion used an underhanded tactic and began harming their dogs in an effort to get them to surrender. When they did succumb to the Legion and join their armies, many Hangdog members became experts in training the Roman-inspired armies own hounds.
Based on how heavily the Fallout TV show has leaned into the lore of New Vegas, I am fully expecting that we'll see the Legion play a part in The Ghoul's Colorado plotline. We may even see the Hangdogs, because don't forget, this is all the same canon as the video games. As such, the Legion's devastating campaign in the state also happened in the show, albeit several decades earlier.
Fortunately, if anyone's equipped to go toe-to-toe with the Legion, it's The Ghoul. As for his wife Barb and daughter Janey, it's going to be interesting to see how they've managed to weather the Legion's advance in the area.
Fallout season 3 is scheduled to start filming on May 1, 2026, and will likely premiere sometime in 2027 or early 2028. All eight episodes of Fallout season 2 are available to stream now on Prime Video.