Fallout Season 2 has fans looking all over for connections after referencing a character named Darla in Novac. On their trek across the irradiated Wasteland of western Nevada in Episode 1, fans find Walton Goggins' Ghoul and Ella Purnell's Lucy locked down in a former highway motel known as Novac (a fort just south of New Vegas, as featured in Fallout: New Vegas).
The Novac scene opens with Ghoul tied up by some raiders, with Lucy watching from a sniper's post just out of frame. It turns out that Ghoul's capture was all part of his plan, with the idea being that he would stall long enough with these Raiders for Lucy to take them out, and they could steal whatever supplies happened to be hidden in the small Nevada fort. In doing this, Ghoul makes conversation with his captors, bringing up a woman named Darla.
Recalling a former experience in the area, Goggin's radioactive baddass asks the raiders, "Didn't that used to be a store," before answering his own question with "Darla! Yeah, woman behind the counter, her name was Darla:"
"Didn't that used to be a store? I think I bought a soda pop there about 25 years back...Darla! Yeah, woman behind the counter, her name was Darla. She was a reasonable woman, until you matching jacket motherf***ers had to move in."
This mention of Darla has Fallout fans scrambling to find any potential connections between the character and the Fallout: New Vegas video game, which shares a setting with Season 2 of the show. Thus far, no Darla character has appeared in the series, but that does not mean her name-drop is not a reference to something else within the franchise.
Fallout Season 2 continues on Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday through February 4, 2026. Set in the world of Bethesda's hit series of open-world RPGs, Fallout follows several survivors living in a ruthless alternate future where the United States was devastated by nuclear war. The series stars Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, and Kyle MacLachlan, among others (read more about the Fallout cast here).
Is Darla In Novac from Fallout: New Vegas?
The most significant question coming out of the Ghoul's Darla mention in the Fallout Season 2 premiere has been whether or not that name has any roots in the Fallout: New Vegas game.
The new season of Amazon Prime's hit streaming series has adapted several other significant elements from New Vegas (including the villainous Mr. House), so why couldn't Darla also be one of these video game Easter eggs?
There is a character within Fallout lore named Darla, but she does not have any known connection to Fallout: New Vegas. A Darla appears as an NPC in Fallout 4, being the lover and gun moll of Triggermen boss Skinny Malone. There is a chance this is the same Darla as the events of Fallout 4 take place roughly five years after New Vegas (which is 20 or so years before Season 2 of the TV show).
This means she very well could have been in New Vegas at the same time as Ghoul, operating the Novac market long before the raiders we see in the series took over.
Could Boone's Wife Actually Be Darla In Fallout Season 2?
Fallout: New Vegas fans have also drawn a potential connection between Ghoul's mystery Darla character and the late wife of game character Craig Boone. Boone is introduced in the 2010 Obsidian RPG as a former member of the New California Republic's First Recon and resident of Novac.
He, however, lost his wife, Carla, after she was taken during a raid of the desert outpost by the terrifying Caesar's Legion. She is now presumed to be dead, but that was never outright confirmed in the game.
Could Craig Boone's Carla and the Ghoul's Darla actually be the same person? Perhaps over the 25 years since his last visit to New Vegas, the Ghoul has misremembered who helped him with a soda pop at the Novac market, and she was actually named Carla, not Darla.
There has been no indication that the Darla character will return in future episodes of Fallout Season 2, but do not be surprised if the show's creative team ties the mystery character back into the story at some point down the line.
