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The lore of Fallout makes for some interesting reading, even if you haven’t played all the games. The way that the Prime Video Fallout series has played with that lore has been one of the most interesting parts of the show. However, it appears that everything is coming for Fallout Season 3 as the finale of Season 2 clearly sets up the overarching villain of the TV show’s storyline.

Spoilers for Fallout Season 2 will follow, along with plenty of speculation about Fallout Season 3.

Looking back on the Fallout series, it is pretty clear that it has all been to set up The Enclave as the big bad of the show. The mysterious organization is supposedly the last remnants of the US government, but, in reality, it is just another vicious group of people trying to grasp at power after society fell. Their shadowy nature means that we don’t see much of them throughout the show, but the Fallout Season 2 finale helps paint a broader picture of what has happened throughout the show.

In one of the final scenes in Fallout Season 2, Steph opens up the keepsake box she got from Betty earlier in the season. Its contents were a secret until this moment, when it is revealed that it was a special Enclave Pip-Boy, which she uses to communicate with the organization and inform them to begin “Phase 2.” We don’t know what that is yet, but knowing that The Enclave is involved – and that Hank MacLean has been working for them all along – brings the rest of the season into focus.

We see a Pre-War Cooper Howard handing the cold fusion diode to the President of the United States, whose government would set the stage for the rise of The Enclave. While it isn’t clear what they did with the cold fusion diode afterward, they were apparently trying to recreate it before the events of Season 1, when the diode was eventually stolen from one of their research facilities. Everything that has happened in Prime Video’s Fallout was set up when Cooper Howard handed over the cold fusion diode to the group that would become The Enclave.

The Wasteland is full of groups vying for power in the wreckage of humanity, so The Enclave isn’t alone in trying to seize control of humanity. They are the main antagonists of both Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, so it seems appropriate that they will be the big bad of Fallout Season 3.

Get ready to get out of your Vault and into the Fallout world - with our help, of course. Here is a guide to the Fallout timeline, how to play and watch all of Fallout, details on the Fallout cast, how the Fallout cast & crew really get the harsh humor we're looking for, as well as a Q&A with Fallout showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner.