Fallout‘s season two premiere on Prime Video featured one of the franchise’s most notorious and important figures, Mr. Robert House. Sin City’s ruler was the only character from the Fallout video games to appear in season one. Sort of. Turns out Amazon didn’t just recast the role of Mr. House with Justin Theroux. The mustachioed man we saw in Fallout‘s first season was a decoy Mr. House. And this fake Mr. House could reshape everything we know about the real House’s fate in Fallout: New Vegas. It means Mr. House could still be actually be alive, somewhere in the Wasteland of Fallout season 2, even if every New Vegas ending is true.
Who Is Fallout‘s Mr. House?
You can read all about Mr. House and his outsized role in the world of Fallout here. The season two premiere of Prime Video’s series was also a great introduction to Mr. House all on its own. It captured the cold, calculated, terrifying genius of the richest man in the world. Fallout season two tells us right away that the CEO of RobCo Industries is a brilliant menace who can never be overestimated.
The Ghoul was right when he told Lucy, “No one near Robert House is safe.” But that was somehow even more true than anyone realized, though. As the men at the bar learned in Fallout season two, episode one’s opening scene, most people never even knew they were near Mr. House. And those who did find themselves in his presence ran the risk of becoming Mr. House’s biological robot servants.
What’s Mr. House’s Brain Computer Interface Chip Device on Fallout Season 2?
The Brain-Computer Interface chip introduced in Fallout season two’s premiere is entirely new. While Fallout: New Vegas revolved around the seatch for the Platinum Chip, an updated OS House was hoping to upload into his New Vegas defense systems before the bombs dropped, the game(s) never mentioned a mind control chip. The first time we saw or learned about it was in that bar. In Fallout season two’s premiere, Mr. House put a large, early version of the chip on the back of the angry bald man’s neck.
On Fallout season two, episode one, the device instantly made the man docile and compliant. He beat his friend to death at Mr. House’s quiet request. He then knocked his other friend unconscious, but that’s when House lost control. The man turned on the RobCo CEO. House quickly dialed up the juice on the handheld remote as high as it could go to take over the man’s mind once again. It didn’t work. Then it made his head explode.
The explosion didn’t bother Fallout‘s Mr. House at all. He simply picked up his blood-covered device and said, “The world may end, but progress marches on.” As did his double. And maybe for a very long time.
Why Did Mr. House Use a Fake Double?
Rafi Silver played the man we believed was the real Robert House in Fallout‘s first season. He appeared at the big secret meeting where Vault-Tec told world powers they would drop the bombs themselves. Only Silver unexpectedly returned in the season two premiere as a “Mr. House.” Silver played the version of Mr. House who appeared on TV talking about the ongoing RobCo workers’ strike. Meanwhile, the real Mr. House played by Justin Theroux, who thinks money equals de facto votes in favor of his work, watched how real people responded to his double.
In Fallout season two’s first episode, we again saw the fake House played by Silver at the same pre-war Vault-Tec meeting from season one. Only this time, we also saw a shadowy figure watching the proceedings from high above. That shadowy figure seemed to move his lips at the same time Rafi Silver’s Mr. House double spoke. That shadow figure appeared to be the real Mr. House played by Theroux. Barb Howard looked briefly his way, but it wasn’t clear if she knew who was watching her.
There are obvious reasons why the richest man in the world—someone who might also be the smartest, most dangerous, most despised man—-would hide his identity. Not only did it allow the real Mr. House freedom to move about the world, studying its people and society from up close, it also kept him safe in the world of Fallout season two. If an angry mob were to go after Mr. House and his technology couldn’t save him, he’d be fine. The mob would simply be killing his double. All while he remained hidden to all but the other most powerful people in the world.
And this Mr. House double act that could explain how, no matter what happened in Fallout: New Vegas, Mr. House is still alive on Prime Video’s Fallout series and could show up in the present timeline of season two.
Is Mr. House Still Alive on Prime Video’s Fallout Season 2?
In Fallout: New Vegas, Mr. House’s brain is wired into a supercomputer. Eventually, players learn his decrepit, centuries-old body is being kept alive in a life support machine. The game then features multiple possible endings, many of which result in Mr. House’s death. Only, Prime Video’s Fallout is not treating any of those endings as canon.
The show’s creators have talked about how they’re using a “fog of war” approach on series’ second season. Fallout season two is set 15 years later than the game, and all of the game’s factions and residents of New Vegas remember things differently. But if all of the endings from New Vegas both happened and didn’t, there’s no way Mr. House could still be alive on Fallout season two. If every ending is simultaneously real, he must be dead. Or rather, he needed to be until we learned about his decoy.
During his message to Mr. House at the end of the episode, Hank MacLean said the ruler of New Vegas “spent so much time calculating how top survive all possible contingencies.” Considering he’s a ruthless super genius, Mr. House certainly could have used his decoy for a couple hundred more years. The real House could have hooked his brain up to the supercomputer. He might have run New Vegas all the same (from anywhere). All while he has the fake House inside the life support machine.
That would mean every New Vegas ending can still be canon. More importantly, it means Theroux’s House could still be alive in the show’s present timeline. Hank MacLean certainly thinks the man he was secretly working for is. (Hank also doesn’t think House is in Vegas, indicating he might not have been been there when the bombs dropped or during the events of Fallout: New Vegas).
Where might a secretly alive Mr. House be in Fallout season two? Could The Ghoul’s wife and daughter be with him and alive, too? We don’t know. But we know Hank is alive and in Vegas. And he’s going to continue working on Mr. House’s Brain Computer Interface chip. RobCo never got it all the way right. It still needs some integrating.
Hank and Mr. House both wanted a “better” future for mankind, one they controlled. Now, both might be on the verge of making that happen centuries later. All because Prime Video’s Fallout didn’t actually recast Mr. Robert House. They just revealed we never really knew who he was in the first place.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He’s also a Justin Theroux superfan now rooting for Mr. House. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.