What Is A Deathclaw? Fallout Season 2's New Monsters Explained

Contains spoilers for "Fallout" Season 2

Season 2 of Prime Video's "Fallout" is continuing to up the stakes set in the first season as Lucy and the Ghoul head to New Vegas. There are problems in the vaults, flashbacks giving the audience new information about Robert House, and what could be a civil war brewing on the surface. There's even the debut of one of the most interesting and deadly reptilians survivors could run into: the Deathclaw, a bipedal reptilian that is at the top of the food chain.

In the opening sequence of the fourth episode, a flashback takes us back to Cooper Howard's (Walton Goggins) time in the military. He's in a power armor suit in a war zone, experiencing a technical issue that could kill him, but his command tells him to continue on, effectively dooming him to death. All seems lost as his opponents find him, taking their time with a long antagonist monologue. Just long enough for a strange, bipedal reptile to appear and kill them, effectively helping the United States win the battle. Howard doesn't know what he just witnessed, but it's his introduction to a monster he will run into for decades to come.

The introduction of the Deathclaws being from before the war adds new lore to the "Fallout" franchise. It is known that the United States government was working to develop a type of super-soldier before the bombs were dropped, conducting various experiments to that end. The main goal was to make something that could replace humans in combat, and they did just that. They made a creature that was not only strong and powerful, but that could survive literally anything thanks to the various animal genetics thrown into the mix. And the radiation exposure only made them more terrifying.

As Howard sees them during his time in the military, it implies that the government was either testing them or they had escaped. While the games suggest that the Deathclaws escaped because of the bombs, the flashback in "Fallout" Season 2 could mean they escaped long before that. However, the more sinister side of the coin is that the monsters were intentionally released, determining how effective they were as part of their development. Either way, the scene forces fans of the games to have a few more questions about the Deathclaw's origins.