I have been thinking a lot about the entire Coop-Barb-Janey subplot, not only from a viewer's perspective but also a writer's perspective and here's some thoughts of what we might expect in S2 and/or S3:
☢️ Similarly to S1, S2 could open with a scene set in 2077 showing Coop separating from Janey. It'd be safe to assume that at one point Barb swooped in and took Janey with her to one of the good vaults.
- Henry/Hank, being Barb's assistant, might have been directly involved. It would explain why Coop later thinks he might know where both of them are
- Coop probably doesn't know that for a simple reason: contrarily to the experiment vaults, the location of the high management vaults must be top secret and the entrance must be well disguised and well protected
- Side note: Barb and Janey are definitely not in vault 31. They are not listed on the terminal that Norm checks in one of the scenes
☢️ I think that throughout the season/s we'll get some flashbacks of Coop and Barb from the moment he found out about the bombs all the way to their divorce
- I theorize Barb was the one to file for divorce, and one of the reasons was she feared his association with "commies" would lose her (and by extension her daughter) the spot in a good vault
- I saw an affair angle being mentioned. I'd say it's not out of the realm of possibility. Still, if there was a third man, it would not be Hank but some high ranking executive, someone who could grant Barb that spot in a good vault.
- If there was an affair and it was mostly calculated, I think there could still have been an element of genuine attraction there. The way in which Barb accuses Coop of being an ingenue, makes me think she'd be inclined to develop an attachment to someone who is the opposite of that, someone who'd make her feel safe and supported
- Side note 1: the affair angle would tie nicely with the fact that Coop appears to think of his family as having been taken from him
- Side note 2: ghoulcy shippers might find it interesting that the side of Coop's character that Barb seemed to resent, is the one Lucy would probably appreciate the most
☢️ All that said, Coop will most certainly find Barb and Janey at the end of S2 or at least will find out where they are and will only literally find them at the end of S3. @earthgenre made an interesting post exploring what might have happened to them. I personally am convinced they were cryo-frozen and one of the following will turn out to be true:
- They were awakened, lived and died a long time ago (or were just never frozen in the first place) and Coop will have to deal with the fact that they are just... gone.
- They were awakened some time earlier but by now Barb is dead and Janey is all grown up, perhaps with a husband and child/ren, or alternatively she's already old. It could make for a heartfelt reunion but in the end, the two would have to go their separate ways.
- They are both still in their cryopods. Coop gets to see his wife and daughter again and is faced with a choice to either awaken them or let them sleep. It would be a test of character for him. If this one came true, I think he'd either let them sleep or awaken them just for a moment of closure and then let them go back to sleep again in wait for a better tomorrow.
You may have noticed I didn't include any scenario in which they reconcile and walk together into the sunset. This is simply because I don't think it's really an option. I mean, could you imagine Barb, the clean-cut corporate exec, traveling across the wasteland with her ex who now is also a radioactive flesh-eating ghoul? And dragging their little daughter along with them?
On the other hand, Coop wouldn't subject them to that. Yes, he's been looking for them all this time but it would be very silly of him to expect them to reunite and just go live happily ever after. And he's a lot of things but silly is not one of them. I don't think he wants to get them back. He just wants to know what the hell happened to them. Closure is what he wants and what he'll probably eventually get.
As much as I'd love to see Coop get back what he'd lost, I recognize that it wouldn't make much sense, narratively speaking. Cooper's journey appears to be about two things: regaining his lost humanity and letting go of the past. He cannot turn back into a human but he can become a better man (ghoul?) with strong(er) morals. Similarly, he cannot get his family back, not really, not even if he finds them alive, but he can always get himself a companion - someone whom he could cherish and protect, someone whom he could literally live for - and the narrative so far seems to imply that companion is meant to be Lucy. I won't elaborate further on that because there's already a gazillion posts quoting various parallels and foreshadowing elements than seem to be pointing somewhere in that direction.
At the end of it, I just wanna say, there is no way back, but there is always a way forward and that, I think, is the lesson Cooper is supposed to learn.