Halo the series is owned by Paramount Plus
Directed by Otto Bathurst
We are well over halfway through the season, and from the very start we knew that the destination was to have our characters arrive at the Halo ring before the end of it. The path to getting there, however, is still rather fraught as the show has made some bold moves in its breaks from canon, but we only have so long to replace it with a new status quo which isn’t getting any easier with the Spartan III program cramming itself in there as well. Still, the last episode got us back on track as far as I’m concerned, and I’m optimistic that they can get us over the finish line without falling flat on its face. Does this continue the upward trend of the season since the Fall of Reach, or are we falling back on bad habits now that we’re in-between set piece episodes? Lets’ find out!!
On the remote planet of Onyx, Kai (Kate Kennedy) is in charge of a new program spearheaded by Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) to create the next generation of warriors; the Spartan III program. Kai, being a Spartan II, is more than qualified for the role and is making great progress with the new recruits, including Perez (Cristina Rodlo), but the mission they’re training for seems hopeless, and the troops are far from ready for such a task. Things don’t get any easier for her when John (Pablo Schreiber) shows up and starts wrecking the place as he looks for answers and justice for what happened back on Reach. Meanwhile, the rest of John’s ragtag crew of misfits and outcasts are off doing their own thing with Soren and Laera (Bokeem Woodbine and Fiona O’Shaughnessy) searching for their son Kessler while Kwan Ha and Halsey (Yerin Ha and Natascha McElhone) are looking underneath the Onyx facility for something that will get them closer to the Halo ring. If that wasn’t enough drama, Makee (Charlie Murphy) and the Arbiter (Viktor Åkerblom) are having a tough time convincing the rest of the Sangheili crew that they know where they’re going; especially with the ship’s priest demanding that they turn around and ask the Prophet’s for directions. Will John get the answer he seeks from ONI and the UNSC, even if he has to go through Kai to get it? How much longer can Makee keep the Sangheili placated with promises of the Halo ring, and is Cortana going to help her out despite them being ostensible enemies? Maybe it’s a good tradeoff if it means she can actually get some screen time!
I get what they’re trying to do here and the tough situation they found themselves in, but this episode feels like franchise management more than anything else. We’re frantically tying up loose ends and bringing disparate parts together so that we can get everything ready for season 3 and the gears are starting to grind under the strain of it. There’s certainly fun to be had here, and I’d say that almost every scene in the episode works as its own self-contained moment, but none of it fits together the way that it should. Pablo Schreiber is putting forth a strong case for him to be the next B-Action star as his single-minded fury is fun to watch, but taken as part of the narrative it’s lacking a little nuance and doesn’t have much of a conclusion to head towards; hence why the episode drops one in his lap at the last second. Similarly, Kate Kennedy continues to shine as Kai and is fantastic as the head trainer of the Spartan III program. I like what they’re doing with that subplot and her role in it, but it still clashes with what we know about Kai, and I remain unclear on how it fits into what we’re supposed to be doing right now. Kai’s arc in the first season was all about finding her humanity and realizing the ways that Halsey and the UNSC had wronged her, and the show makes some judicious changes to how the Spartan III program works that manages to fit with that characterization. She’s not simply repeating the mistakes of Halsey by training orphans to fight wars as this version of the Spartan III program is entirely made of adult volunteers which is also a wise choice as it gives Perez a reason to stay in the show, and I’m really enjoying what they did with her here. Even so, the show continues to have trouble selling the fact that Kai would be so easily manipulated by Ackerson given her own rocky history with secret military projects. There is some justification here as Chief’s attitude in the first half of the season was more than sufficient to drive her away, but it still doesn’t sit well with me; especially given what she has to do by the end of the episode. The rest of the human subplots are similar, but not as interesting. Kwan and Halsey have some decent dialogue between them, but their subplot ends with an awkward coincidence that brings Miranda back into the fold with absolutely no fanfare as we’ll have to wait for the next episode to see what’s going on. Even worse is Soren and Laera who only have about two scenes of them walking, and they don’t seem to have actually gone anywhere by the end of the episode which is a shame as they were the highlights of the last one, and it’s disappointing to see them so heavily sidelined here.
Fortunately, things pick up significantly with Makee and the Sangheili who have a lot more to do in this episode than they’ve had all season. He may not be Thel ‘Vadam, but this Arbiter manages to convey much of what we like about the character’s role in the Halo universe. A good Arbiter is hurt, ambitious, and a badass warrior which frankly puts him about two character traits higher than John from the games, and the one in this game whose name is apparently Var ‘Gatanai gives you everything you’d want from this character without being an exact copy of Thel. I also love the dynamic between him and the priest; mostly because I’m glad that we get to see a Sangheili in a role other than warrior which has rarely been explored in the lore. The Covenant scenes do stumble a bit as I remain unenthused with this version of Cortana, who at least gets to do things now, but lacks a sense of identity. Despite Cortana being an AI, she always had personality, humor, and charisma, whereas this one just feels cold and inscrutable. There’s a scene with her and John finally reuniting, and it just falls flat because you don’t get any sense of relief from either of them that they finally get to see each other again; something you always got in the games whenever they got separated in those.
The whole episode is a mess, but it’s at least a mess made up of parts that I like. There are no shortage of interesting ideas and fun scenes in here, but there just doesn’t seem to have been a way to fit them all together, with some subplots feeling cut short and others outright clashing with each other. Still, I am happy with a lot of what I saw and it would have been nice if this was the starting point for the season instead of the setup for the finale as there’s endless potential for a proper Spartan III storyline, for a Chief story about fighting against the UNSC, and especially for the uneasy politics of a Covenant ship. It’s going to be a challenge for season 3 if it simply drops all these storylines to retell the first Halo game, but that’s what the fans have been begging for, so I doubt they’re gonna put it off yet again to give these storylines proper room to breathe. For now, I’m satisfied with what we’re getting in the back half of this season as the long list of DON’Ts we got at the beginning has shortened considerably, and it’s feeling like a proper show again; albeit one that’s feeling a little rushed.
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