"Okey dokey!"

Okay, I don't know what to think about this.

Follow up, do you think Steph's baby is actually Hank's child, not Bert's?

OH WAIT THAT'S A REALLY GOOD QUESTION I actually never thought of that. I think ever since s2 made me realize how similiar Lucy and Cooper are in the sense that they both blindly follow the agendas they were raised with / strongly believe in, even to a point where it genuinely fucks them up, I realized how much they resemble each other- and not just in the foils sense the show very strongly presents. So I do think Lucy would understand him and relate to him, and I do think she'd kind of like him. However I don't think she'd like... fangirl , over him just because he's Cooper Howard because Hank was the "fanboy" out of the two of them.

Case in point: in Filly, the way she talks to the Ghoul is very much "the town sheriff tries to talk down the bandits who are terrorizing the town". She might've become a fangirl if Cooper movies comprised most of her movie knowledge.

Because truthfully, I don't think I'm alone in saying that eight episodes just isn't enough with the number of storylines they have going on. I feel like there need to be more episodes so that these storylines can breathe. How are they going to balance out:

Lucy (with Maximus for at least the first few episodes, but probably linking back up with the Ghoul's story by the end of the season)

Maximus

The Ghoul traveling east towards Colorado

Cooper's pre-War flashbacks

Whatever Barb is doing with the Enclave

Norm

What's going on with Steph and Chet

The Legion

Possibly whatever's going on with the Brotherhood of Steel

...?

Ensemble casts are great, but they best work when everyone more or less is in the same general area. Season 1 worked in this regard with both the surface and the vault storylines. Lucy, the Ghoul and Maximus weren't always necessarily together (Lucy had two episodes traveling with the Ghoul, then three with Maximus), but their story threads all came together in the final scene of the season. While in Vault 33, all the dwellers were still under one roof until half the populace got sent over to repopulate Vault 32.

But in season 2, you've instead got:

Lucy traveling with the Ghoul for the first half of the season

Lucy spending the last half of the season in her dad's captivity

Maximus doing his stuff with the Brotherhood up until he deserts, which eventually links up with the Ghoul's story thread

The pre-War story with Cooper

Barb becoming a series regular and thus getting more focus

Reg's incest group in 33

Steph managing Vault 32

Laying foundation for future stories in season 3 (with the Legion, Brotherhood, and NCR)

Norm freeing and taking the Vault 31 dwellers to Vault-Tec HQ

And Lucy, the Ghoul and Maximus are all in Nevada, while the Vault 32 and 33 dwellers, plus Norm's people from Vault 31, are all still in Southern California. They're several hundred miles apart.

Based on stuff Frances Turner and the showrunners have said in interviews, there are probably more twists coming up with Barb. I have a hard time Cooper becomes the bitter and cynical Ghoul without something bad happening in his relationship with Barb. And I think it kinda strips Barb of her agency to go with the approach of "she was coerced by the Enclave" and leave it at that. I just think Barb has more potential as a villain, because even without the Enclave's coercion, she was the one who signed off on many of the Vault experiments and likely worked alongside people like Stanislaus Braun. And you don't get to that position in a company like Vault-Tec unless you're willing to be morally flexible.

True, however this is one of their weaker parallels, seeing how Coop found out about Barb well before losing her, while Lucy never even doubted her father until she found him again.

House even told Cooper that he was still living in a fantasy.

Keep in mind that right after this, Coop goes on to call Barb a monster. The fantasy of Barb had already been shattered.

[...] there are probably more twists coming up with Barb. I have a hard time Cooper becomes the bitter and cynical Ghoul without something bad happening in his relationship with Barb.

Three things:

"The twist" might have already happened in the sense that Barb is not as bad as s1e8 made us think she would be.

I will concede that she might have had an idea about the President's connection to the "other player" and knew that giving the diode to anyone else would be a death sentence. It could be that she lied to Coop by omission, knowing the fate of the world would not be changed, but thinking that at least his urge to play the hero would be pacified and he'd eventually be safe with her and Janey in a vault.

I think the big upset will be Barb divorcing Coop to keep her and Janey's spot in the vault. There's more than enough bitterness between this and 200 years of pain and murder to make Coop end up the way he does. Him smiling at Barb's handwriting - the fact that she left him a message at all! - and immediately refuting House's pessimism with hope does not indicate a lack of faith in her.

[...] it kinda strips Barb of her agency to go with the approach of "she was coerced by the Enclave" [...]

It is her own agency that got her into this mess. It is her own agency that had the Mr. House, wealthiest man in America, on the edge of his seat ever since Janey's birth. It is her choice to lie to Coop until he confronts her about it. She exercises agency constantly and arguing that a limit on said agency is "stripping" her of it is a misuse and/or misunderstanding of the term. It's like me saying that the laws of physics take away my agency to fly.

[...] Barb has more potential as a villain, because even without the Enclave's coercion, she was the one who signed off on many of the Vault experiments [...]

"Villain", as per Oxford Language: "A character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot."

Barb was a villain until s2e6. Same as the Ghoul was a villain until the s1 finale. While Barb's evil (which she selfishly commits for the survival of her family) was vital to Coop's plot, the Ghoul's evil (which he selfishly commits for the survival of his family) was vital to Lucy's - and so, the plot moves on, with him taking on a different role in the story as soon as his sympathetic motivation comes to light. I see a pattern here.

On the other hand, it WOULD be very interesting to have a villain who is a parent, who is secretly Enclave, who fucks over their spouse, and whole-heartedly believes that the surface needs to be wiped in order for their daughter to thrive... oh shit wait

On the bright side: the truly evil villain with nearly unlimited agency that you're looking for in Barb might be brilliantly portrayed by the one and only Clancy Brown next season! :D I certainly hope he'll be a recurring character.

Cooper's likely to find Barb and Janey, only to find out that they're not good people at all.

It's my pet theory that the Howards have a monster theme and that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Barb signed off on endless suffering, Coop's on a 200 year killstreak of god knows how many people, and if Janey's an Enclave adult by now, she could be a pretty bad mix of the two. Considering how old the members of Arcade's Enclave remnant are by the 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam, I wouldn't be surprised if the Colorado Enclave yoinked Janey out of cryo some years ago while leaving Barb asleep because they needed fresh blood. Free child right there!

What I'm saying is that Barb would be better as a character if she's still a villain when Cooper finds her. And I think there's something more compelling about that, seeing her do bad things and using "protecting her daughter" to justify them. Because as Cooper said it himself, a good "bad guy" doesn't see themselves as the bad guy.

If anything, the way Barb uses "protecting Janey" to justify doing bad things, even to her own husband, could be paralleled to Hank doing the same with Lucy. I wouldn't be surprised if perhaps Barb was in on the Enclave having Cooper framed as a Communist.

As one user nicely put it on Twitter, "From a narrative perspective, Barb betraying Coop makes more sense [...] with how they paralleled the Lucy + Hank and Coop + Barb devastating revelations in the S1 finale. Hank and Barb both being loyal to their employers but wanting to protect family makes more sense than Barb being totally defanged and just a poor victim of the Enclave threatening her and her going along with Coop’s silly hope of the president saving the world. Unless they totally changed their minds after S1, it feels like Barb should have another twist in her story or else from a narrative perspective, her arc just doesn’t make sense [...]. It takes away so much of what made her interesting in S1 if she was truly good and on Coop’s side with no ulterior motives. Let Barb be morally gray again in S3!"

Frances Turner: "There's a lot of ground to cover between that moment in the airport and the birthday party... there's still a lot to learn there."

But Barb has already done bad things to protect Janey and Cooper, unless being a Vault-Tec exec suddenly isn't bad anymore?

She also stops paralleling Hank in season 2. The text does nothing to show him in a positive light from the moment Lucy finds out about his secrets, meanwhile Barb is portrayed as sympathetic. He gets worse, she gets better. S2 Hank kidnaps and manipulates Lucy and keeps defending his ideology while it turns out that Barb was being pressured. She tried to be as open as possible with her husband, Hank killed his wife as soon as she caught on to a sliver of the truth. Idk why we're trying so hard to bend Barb into Hank's role. They are different characters.

Also... man. That Twitter take has me wondering if that person even watched the show.

From a narrative perspective, Barb betraying Coop makes more sense [...] with how they paralleled the Lucy + Hank and Coop + Barb devastating revelations in the S1 finale.

This Hank-Barb parallel has been rendered moot by the last season. Season 2 gives us context for Barb's s1 reveal. We never get emotional context for Hank, in contrast.

So, no - at this point it does not make more sense for her to betray Coop because she straight up tells us that she's only doing this for Coop and Janey to begin with. We have known this since s1. She practically shouts it at Coop. She tells us what she's all about the same way Hank tells his employer in s2e1 that he still wants his promotion, after everything. I think their respective priorities are clear, here.

Hank and Barb both being loyal to their employers but wanting to protect family [...]

... This is just describing Hank again 🫩 Hank is loyal to his employer but wants to protect his family... well, part of it, anyway, and only as long as it's useful. Barb is loyal to her family but must obey her employer. They're literally opposites.

For Hank, family serves the company - the company being the Enclave's America, in this case. For Barb, the company serves family. And we see her learn in real-time that that is not how things work in reality.

Hank and Barb both being loyal to their employers but wanting to protect family makes more sense than Barb being totally defanged and just a poor victim of the Enclave threatening her and her going along with Coop’s silly hope of the president saving the world.

Every time people make this argument it sounds like their takeaway from the show is that Barb's sympathetic circumstances excuse her actions. I find this worrying. For the love of all that's holy, she's not been "defanged", she still made decisions that hurt untold numbers of people! She's not "just a poor victim", she is still part of the system that brought the world to an end. She just happens not to be at the top of the food chain because she is not filling the role of "Evil CEO of Everything" in this show.

She's a lot like Coop, actually. US Marine. Propagandist. He "just" did what his superiors and his wife told him to do. "Our boys in Canada keep the peace." That one wasn't him, but it might as well have been. Maybe he knew those soldiers. Maybe his ads played back-to-back with that public execution of the Canadian rebel. He means well, but he's part of the death machine. Just like Barb.

But you know what they say about fandom - people always want nuanced female characters until they are presented with one.

It takes away so much of what made her interesting in S1 if she was truly good and on Coop’s side with no ulterior motives. Let Barb be morally gray again in S3!

What ulterior motive? Where has an ulterior motive been set up? Is that just what this person wants to see? Because I'm starting to think so. Truthfully, I only ever see this Barb-villain-argument coming from fans of a particular ship. And it makes sense! After all, that ship works a lot better if Coop is for some reason inclined to love his wife a little less. And for him to feel that way, she'd have to be a villain, or at least not as redeemable as s2 shows her to be.

But enough of that. The s2 "twist" of Barb not being what she seems was teased in s1 with the shady figure above the meeting room. People were already launching Enclave theories back then, it really wasn't hard to see that something would be up with her. Her "ulterior motive", if there must be one, has turned out to be love. She is similar to Hank, but selfless love is where they, in retrospect, differ. (Also, I'd like to know what OP's definition of "morally gray" is because if they think Barb is a goodie in s2, it's gotta be a doozy.)

Finally, I'm glad you brought up that interview! For my part, I found this thing Frances said at the end rather more substantial:

"I would never say that she was super gung-ho. She was always there for a purpose, right? And that line [between her family and Vault-Tec] starts to move when she realizes, oh, there are things happening above what I'm even aware of, this doesn't feel right. So she does try to take a step to do something, you know, even if the first step is just to gain more Information, right, and then get stopped at that. So just to show her point of view, her humanity, that she is trying to do the right thing, but it's not a straight line. So I hope where she goes - I mean, we know there have been so many twists and turns with Barb so far, so I'm excited for more of that, and I trust that. I trust wherever it's going to go."

Uh, "just following orders" didn't fly at the Nuremberg trials. And Cooper following the orders of his CO isn't the same thing as Barb going along with nuking America because her boss told her to.

What ulterior motive? Where has an ulterior motive been set up? Is that just what this person wants to see? Because I'm starting to think so. Truthfully, I only ever see this Barb-villain-argument coming from fans of a particular ship. And it makes sense! After all, that ship works a lot better if Coop is for some reason inclined to love his wife a little less. And for him to feel that way, she'd have to be a villain, or at least not as redeemable as s2 shows her to be.

Ghoulcy fans aren't arguing for Barb to be a villain so as to prop up their ship. They're arguing for Barb to be a villain because she's more compelling as a narrative foil to Cooper that way.

And for all we know, Cooper has probably fallen out of love with Barb, and she only matters to him now as "the mother of his child". And there's plenty of evidence to support this:

Right in the very first episode, some of the guests at the party where Cooper is performing speculate that he's paying Barb alimony and child support.

While Cooper is trying to stave off turning feral while skewered on that pole, he only mentions Janey's name. "My name is Cooper Howard. I have a daughter. Her name is Janey Howard." If he still loved Barb in any capacity beyond "as the mother of my child," I think he'd have mentioned her. He'd have said, "I have a wife. Her name is Barbara" somewhere in here.

When Norm and Claudia are in Barb's office, they find just a photo of Janey, and not the family photo that we see Barb looking at in the 2x06 flashbacks.

From behind the scenes photos, we know that Cooper was originally going to experience hallucinations of Lucy and Janey while he was at the super mutant's lair. He would've hallucinated his daughter and the woman he'd been traveling with for the past month...but not his ex-wife.

But enough of that. The s2 "twist" of Barb not being what she seems was teased in s1 with the shady figure above the meeting room. People were already launching Enclave theories back then, it really wasn't hard to see that something would be up with her. Her "ulterior motive", if there must be one, has turned out to be love. She is similar to Hank, but selfless love is where they, in retrospect, differ. (Also, I'd like to know what OP's definition of "morally gray" is because if they think Barb is a goodie in s2, it's gotta be a doozy.)

Eh, I feel like while Barb may love her daughter, she sees Janey as an extension of herself and not as her own person. Not unlike the way Hank sees Lucy. And it's worth noting that the flashback of Barb being threatened by Wilzig can't be taken at face value, because arguably it's not being framed from Barb's POV, but from Cooper's POV as Barb tells him about it. What she told him was likely not the true story, but a half-truth she told to appeal to Cooper. And given the parallels between Cooper's pre-War story and Lucy's story in the present, one needs to recall what the Ghoul said to Lucy when he realized she was related to Hank: "Well, there's what people say they did, and what they really did. I'll bet your daddy was first in line at the cookout. I bet he had a bib with a drawing of his neighbor's ass on there."

So, no - at this point it does not make more sense for her to betray Coop because she straight up tells us that she's only doing this for Coop and Janey to begin with. We have known this since s1. She practically shouts it at Coop. She tells us what she's all about the same way Hank tells his employer in s2e1 that he still wants his promotion, after everything. I think their respective priorities are clear, here.

I think Barb would be willing to betray Cooper if what he was doing put her work for the Enclave in jeopardy.

Based on how smart Barb has been presented, it feels out of character for her to go along with Cooper's plan of stealing the diode and delivering it to the President unless she's playing him all along.

When Barb is reintroduced in 2x01, she's shown standing in front of a poster for one of Cooper's old movies. In this case, a sword and sandals movie called Revenge of Brutus. In history, Brutus was Caesar's friend who betrayed him and participated in his assassination. Given the parallels we've seen between Lucy and Cooper, Barb acting like she's on Cooper's side with the diode exchange while secretly planning to betray him would parallel Cooper doing the same regarding using Lucy as a bargaining chip with her father.

On the subject of parallels, Barb betraying Cooper also would parallel Hank betraying Lucy.

There is clearly a reason why Cooper loathes who he was before the War, why he calls his past self "stupid". Barb betraying him after pretending to be on his side seems like the most logical explanation for Cooper's cynicism, the brutality he displays as the Ghoul, and why he treats Lucy the way he does. He expects Lucy to be just like Barb, and he's trying to get that side of her to come out.

That ties in with how Cooper isn't a great judge of character. We see how his opinions of Lucy are proven wrong. The same is the case where Barb is concerned.

Funny you bring up Nürnberg because I used "just" as a direct reference to that flimsy excuse at the Trials. This is to highlight that Coop's hardly better than Barb.

And Cooper following the orders of his CO isn't the same thing as Barb going along with nuking America because her boss told her to.

No. It is the same thing. If we stick with the Nazi Germany imagery you invoke, that sort of retrospective leniency is exactly how you get the Clean Wehrmacht myth. We don't do that here. Coop, simply put, is lucky he didn't get (or that the audience didn't see him getting) overtly monstrous orders like his fellow Marines did, the ones we see carried out in Canada in the game and the show. The fact that they have red-white-and-blue yeehaw Einsatzgruppen ops going on and Coop still takes no issue with the President says everything u need to know here. And that's not even touching his willing and ignorant participation in the propaganda machine even before Barb got him for the VT ads.

Also, "going along with nuking America bc her boss told her to" is interesting framing. I personally think she is going along with it because if she doesn't, her child and husband will die.

[...] some of the guests at the party where Cooper is performing speculate that he's paying Barb alimony and child support.

Because Barb and Coop had a very public divorce. He tells her to pretend she didn't know anything as he's being arrested in 2x8. The logical consequence to "finding out" that ur husband is a traitor is a divorce in the public eye, bc what good American would stay married to a Red? Barb needs to save her reputation for Janey's sake.

He'd have said, "I have a wife. Her name is Barbara" somewhere in here.

He mentions his wife and his family plenty when he's not actively losing his mind. A child takes precedence over a spouse in a life-or-death situation.

When Norm and Claudia are in Barb's office, they find just a photo of Janey [...]

My husband took the fall so I could keep myself and my daughter in the good graces of the company who ensures our survival, let me squander his sacrifice by keeping a picture of him in my office while I'm under heavy surveillance! Surely no-one will think twice about me longingly staring at my convicted commie husband!

[...] we know that Cooper was originally going to experience hallucinations of Lucy and Janey [...]

In the final cut of the scene that we actually end up seeing, Coop says "family" again, not just "daughter".

Not unlike the way Hank sees Lucy.

Hank and Barb are inverses of each other, and besides, there is nothing in the show that would suggest Barb views Janey as a corporate extension.

And it's worth noting that the flashback of Barb being threatened by Wilzig can't be taken at face value, because arguably it's not being framed from Barb's POV, but from Cooper's POV as Barb tells him about it.

That's in 2x6, a.k.a. the episode that gives Barbara a massive "BARB" title card that Lucy, Max, and the Ghoul also got when their POVs were introduced. The point of this episode is quite literally to show the POV of a misunderstood character, no?

[...] what the Ghoul said to Lucy when he realized she was related to Hank: [...]

Coop said that to Lucy because she insisted upon her father's goodness while Coop already knew something had be iffy about Hank MacLean being alive in the year 2296. This line is meant to sow doubt about Hank and intrigue abt Cooper's past. Tying this to a feeling of bitterness towards Barb seems a little threadbare as far as arguments go.

[...] Barb acting like she's on Cooper's side with the diode exchange while secretly planning to betray him [...]

After the diode is in the President's hands, genuinely, what would she betray Coop for? His involvement ends there. And why would she leave him a note with a very personal reference to a shared, fond memory ("Colorado was nice") in her cryopod when all is said and done? Why would he smile at it like that? It doesn't add up.

There is clearly a reason why Cooper loathes who he was before the War, why he calls his past self "stupid".

Here's a parallel between Lucy and Coop: they were both oblivious to the evil of the system they were raised in, which made them blind towards the faults of America and Vault Tec respectively, and hence they were "stupid". Fallout players are meant to groan and throw up their hands when Coop hands the diode to the President without question. He's fucking stupid in that regard bc he was brought up as an American Patriot, God Bless Our Troops and all, and most of Lucy's stupid actions are caused by her upbringing as well. The show won't shut up about this type of thing.

Barb betraying him after pretending to be on his side seems like the most logical explanation for Cooper's cynicism, the brutality he displays as the Ghoul, and why he treats Lucy the way he does. He expects Lucy to be just like Barb, and he's trying to get that side of her to come out.

This contradicts what you said about the Lucy-Coop and Barb-Hank parallels. I don't even agree with the latter one especially, but I find this argument bewildering after everything. Does "I'm you, sweetie, just give it a little time" mean nothing in this economy?

Lucy and Coop have all these parallels because they are the same person. He treats her like a donkey because she's a representation how he views his old self; a stupid, naive, and thereby dangerous person who deserves to be sneered at and squashed, at least in his mind. Externalized self-loathing. He expects Lucy to be just like him if he just puts her through the same shit the world put him through. Y'know? I think 200 years of painful survival and desperate, fruitless searching without human connection would also explain his ruthlessness pretty well.

Also his face while reading a note from his wife... why would he be so optimistic, close to tears and smiling about a note from someone who betrayed him? Why trust it at all? It makes no sense. Look at him.

We see how his opinions of Lucy are proven wrong. The same is the case where Barb is concerned.

He ends up being wrong about Lucy because his arc is also about disproving his general cynicism. By misjudging her, he might realize that he's also misjudged himself.

And I imagine it's also bc he only knew Lucy for a couple months, tops, and she's not his wife of many years.

Barb and Janey were frozen in an Enclave-owned vault. Meaning that her ties to the Enclave and Vault-Tec were still going strong up until the Great War.

He's relieved to have a lead on where Janey is. He probably only cares about finding Janey, and Barb happens to be key to finding her.

Yeah. He did take the fall so Barb and Janey could keep a clean enough reputation for their places in the vaults, that's the whole point. Public divorce, he and Barb separate and no longer interact to keep up her and Janey's appearance as ppl who would never get involved with unamerican activities, etc. We see this idea take shape in Coop the moment he gets arrested.

He took the fall because he thought he was protecting Barb by doing so, not realizing he was being played.

Hank and Barb are inverses of each other, and besides, there is nothing in the show that would suggest Barb views Janey as a corporate extension.

Everything we see about Hank could just as easily be applied to Barb. And Barb is very much the type who's willing to take away the agency of her loved ones in her mind to “protect” them. Hank's line to Lucy in 1x08 ("I loved your mother. But she stopped being your mother when she left home. When she took you into danger.") sounds like something Barb would say to Janey about Cooper when trying to turn her against him.

Hank wants his daughter to be obedient to his will. That's why he plays dress-up with her in the management vault and tries to chip her when she doesn't fall in line. We could see something similar happen with Barb, where much like with her husband, she makes decisions for Janey without caring whether or not they're what Janey wants.

I think there's a lot of potential to have a story where Cooper (whether or not accompanied by Lucy) makes it to Barb, only to find she's worse than he thought as she's now calling a lot of the Enclave's shots. While Janey is a very reluctant Enclave collaborator along the lines of Wilzig, and Lucy is able to convince her to take a stand (if Cooper can't do so).

Sidenote 1: With the recent release of the season 2 episode 1 script during the Emmy campaigning, we know that the Vault-Tec meeting, the Howards' visit to Las Vegas, Cooper meeting Mr. House, handing the diode to the President, and getting arrested, all happened in 2074 (as that's the date printed on the header for the first pre-War Cooper flashback). So there's still plenty of pre-War story to explore to see the end of the Howards' marriage, including their divorce, Barb's rise in the Enclave, and the end of Cooper's career.

The Ghoul: “Tunics. [to the woman] You awful far west, ain’t you?” Lucy: “Ignore him. I got one stimpak left, okay?” The Ghoul: “That would be a profound misallocation of resources. Folks in them outfits don’t deserve savin’.” Lucy: “What are you talking about? These people are hurt. Everyone deserves savin'.” The Ghoul: “Not these people, vaultie. These are members of Caesar's Legion. Helping them would be the stupidest thing you can do." Lucy: "And why's that?" The Ghoul: "They’re the brainchild of a man with delusions of grandeur trying to bring Ancient Rome to the Wasteland. If you’re not with them, and especially if you wear the colors of the New California Republic, you’re someone they want to conquer and enslave. And don't get me started on what they do to women, especially ones of your age.”

...type way?

That's such an interesting question! If Cooper had bothered to explain to Lucy about the nature of the Legion, I truly believe:

1.) She would of course trust his word and accept it as the truth. The Lucy we know in 2.02 has a grudging trust in the Ghoul—he's never lied to her and is brutally honest, even to the point of being cruel. She has no reason to doubt what he tells her, even if she disagrees with his cynicism and methods.

2.) Lucy is an example of lawful good. While she has begun questioning her beliefs, what is right and wrong, and her conception of the world (understanding that she had been manipulated all her life), she still retains her core morality and righteous altruism. I believe that, despite learning that the Legion are slavers and abusers, Lucy couldn't let someone suffer and die if she had the means to help them. She believes in seeking justice and holding people accountable. She would help them and then attempt to bring them to fair justice afterward.

Or maybe Lucy can get caught, but she can lie and claim she's a bounty hunter. Trading on the fact that Cooper hates these guys, she can claim she caught someone that she thinks the Legion has a bounty on, and asks if they can pay her in medical supplies or ammunition. She's made to wait with the Lacerta Legate until his men return from the hospital with Cooper, and she essentially improvises a Trojan Horse gambit so she and Cooper can get out.

And regardless of how it all goes, let Lucy have a crashout about the whole thing and get a chance to vent her anger about what the Legion are doing. 2x04 would've been an appropriate place to do this if I'm being honest, and I'd have maybe had Lucy insist on detouring to the Legion camp to kill whatever Legionaries are still alive after the explosion Cooper caused before going north to Vegas.

He initiated conversation with her so much this season. Cooper "I only talk to people I'm about to kill" Howard initiated conversation with the Vaultie he supposedly can't stand.

The Vaultie he keeps giving opportunity after opportunity to get the fudge outta Dodge Goodsprings.

The Vaultie he walks ahead of and never looks back to make sure is still following him like a lost pup with them big ol' eyes beggin' for scraps of attention that he is plumb loathe to give.

And when somebody else talks about her with fondness and admiration- oh, he gets real chatty then...

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