Halo S1 Ep3 Emergence

Welcome back to the world of Halo and Master Chief! Let's see what the universe has in store for our hero, and how Cortana will factor into the storyline. Here is your running diary for season 1, episode 3, of Halo, titled Emergence.

We begin the episode on Planet Oban, in the Visper System. It reminds me of that cyberpunk junk planet from the Transformers cartoon movie that came out in the 1980s. Except for with less robots.

A group of people are beaten by some generic sanitation workers as they sort through the junk. Are they going to recycle that stuff? Junk planet doesn’t seem like a good place to live!

Two filthy kids are reading a children’s fairy tale about a different world. The boy is explaining to the girl how, on other worlds, there are bright skies and tall trees. Sounds like heaven. The boy wants the girl to kiss him, but before they can experiment in this awkward scene, they are interrupted by the evil trash lords, who demand they get back to work. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that those kids aren’t protected by child labor laws here on Trash Planet.

The kids run away, and we learn the girl is young Makee, the Blessed One that is now in charge over at the Covenant. I guess living on a planet of trash would turn anyone evil. Her friend is caught by the trash lords and is beaten to death. She takes the children’s story from his still warm hands.

Suddenly, two Covenant aliens appear in a space ship and start wreaking havoc. They’re in search of “the luminary”, which just so happens to be Makee. They save her from the electric shocks that she was receiving from her employer (been there myself) and, as the scene jumps to a present-day Makee, we can assume they took her with them back aboard the space ship.

Present-day Makee, with short blond hair and turtle neck sweater, is disguised as a human so that she can begin her search for the keystone. It was last seen on Madrigal, and this is where she will begin her search. She tells Mercy, the alien lord, that she’ll also bring “the demon’s” head. She’s talking about the one that shares her powers, Master Chief.

Our prologue ends with a shot of Master Chief where we last saw him, sitting in his cell, looking despondent.

On Planet Reach, Dr. Miranda Keyes is studying the keystone. Admiral Margaret Parangosky tells her that their research results tell them the object is over 100,000 years old. Miranda exclaims that this makes the object “pre-human” and possibly “pre-Covenant.” (I’ve got news for the writers of Halo: Humans have been around longer than 100,000 years. Let’s just move on.)

Admiral Parangosky wants Dr. Keyes to lead a team to analyze the artifact, to determine what it is and what it does. Master Chief, she says, thinks it might be some type of weapon. They need an edge against the Covenant. Admiral Parangosky wants this team to be separate than the research team Dr. Halsey is leading because she wants to rely less on the good doctor moving forward. Dr. Keyes seems interested.

Speaking of Dr. Halsey, she’s checking in with our favorite AI, Cortana. Cortana asks Dr. Halsey if she was cloned to obtain organs. Cortana, who looks identical to Dr. Halsey, has some questions for her. She asks Dr. Halsey what became of the children. Halsey states that 35 survived the original augmentation, and the rest became Spartans. Cortana is playing with some type of machine, called the Sorvad solids, that Halsey gave her. No idea what that is, and the show doesn’t bother explaining it. We’re not off to a great start with Halo, are we?

Cortana states that Dr. Halsey is after her brain. Or, rather, Dr. Halsey’s brain, because she’s a clone. Cortana correctly concludes that Halsey plans on integrating Cortana into a working Spartan. She supposes it’ll be Master Chief (John), because he’s “the special one.”

This rather convoluted plot is run through rather quickly, and the show then shifts focus back to John, who is sitting in his jail cell, staring at the floor. He looks rather bored. Couldn’t they have at least given him a book?

Dr. Halsey tells Cortana that the only way of getting Master Chief out of trouble is to integrate Cortana into his system. Cortana wonders if Dr. Keyes will agree with their plan, given that flash-cloning is a controversial experiment that Dr. Keyes believes is unethical. Cortana wants to know what changed for Dr. Halsey, as she wasn’t sure herself, when she was younger, if she could go through with the flash-cloning process. Dr. Halsey simply states that progress is what changed her mind. All of this exposition was rather clunky, and finally we move on.

Master Chief is now on an operating table as Dr. Halsey comes into the room. He asks her if all of this is necessary, and she tells him that it was the only way to return him to combat duty. He claims that, because he’s a Spartan, they can’t afford to keep him off the battlefield. Dr. Halsey agrees, which is why she argued so passionately to “upgrade” him. This will allow them to learn much more about the keystone, and will also get John back on the front lines where he belongs.

Master Chief looks skeptical, but he’s ready to go through with the procedure. Cortana and John are now both on operating tables as the scientists prep them for their integration. Cortana is assured that, yes, this is going to hurt, but that she’ll be a part of something bigger and better when it’s over. The scientist prepping Cortana leans in to kiss her, after immobilizing her, which gives off serious rapey vibes. Not sure why they had to throw that in there. Halo is a mess.

Dr. Halsey arrives to monitor Cortana before the Rape Doctor can do any real harm, and the procedure begins. The medical procedure begins with a needle right to the eye, which looks incredibly painful, and results in a nosebleed for Cortana. They take the neural data they extract from Cortana’s brain and, drilling into the back of the skull of Master Chief, insert it into his brain. Cortana is then dipped into an acid bath, which presumably kills her body. No worry, her brain is now inside Master Chief’s, where she will now live.

Dr. Halsey asks if Cortana can hear her, and a digital avatar appears. It’s Cortana, although the avatar looks different than the Cortana that was physically alive moments before. She tells Halsey that she’s impressed with Master Chief’s abilities, as she’s now been inside his mind for all of three seconds. We’re going to regret giving AI all of this power one day.

Dr. Halsey gets right to the point. She wants Cortana to find and process the data about the keystone that is stored in Master Chief’s brain. However, Cortana interrupts Halsey to state that there’s a problem: she can’t take full operational control of Master Chief. Her directive was to integrate fully with John, and she questions why Halsey had prevented this. Halsey states that she will, one day, integrate fully, but for now, the main goal is the examination of the keystone. Looks like there might be some trouble in paradise already.

Over in the asteroid field known as The Rubble, we catch up with Kwan, who is riding in an underground cable car toward a very cyberpunk city center. She sees a news video that shows the now-leader of her people, Vinsher, has aligned with the republic, effectively putting down their rebellion that her father died for.

Master Chief’s old friend, Soren, is supervising an illegal case of chickens from earth. Kwan walks up to him and states that she wants to go back to Madrigal so that she can join the resistance against Vinsher. Soren promised Master Chief to keep Kwan safe and refuses to help her go back home to fight in the resistance. Besides, he’s got a chicken dinner to prepare!

Back on Planet Reach, Master Chief wants to know if he can ever turn Cortana off. The answer is, no, not really. He’s not interested in being friends with Cortana, but there’s not much he can do about it now. She is, after all, integrated into his brain. Dr. Halsey assures John that Cortana will make him an even better soldier. Let’s just hope she isn’t a talker.

On the UNSC patrol ship Gladius, operating in the 23 Librae System, a rogue and mysterious space ship appears. It’s Makee, and she’s transmitting an emergency signal to Gladius. Don’t fall for it, Commander!

Makee states that she’s from planet Circumstance and that they were all taken prisoner by aliens. Her family is dead, she states, and she’s alone on the ship. The Commander of the Gladius prepares a drone pod to bring Makee back to the Gladius. This won’t end well for them. We know this because Halo hasn’t bothered to give The Commander a name. He’s as good as dead.

Back on Planet Reach, Master Chief and Cortana are ready to experiment with the keystone. As John touches it, we get a flashback to his childhood. We don’t get much information from this flashback, other than visions of a dog and a giant cave, before the keystone stops working. This happens the moment that Cortana is given the green light to access John’s brain and, in extension, the keystone. John states that the experience with the keystone was different this time, and Dr. Halsey tells Cortana that she can’t have full control of John until she understands why the keystone only responds to John as John. Cortana does not like being an assistant, though, and this is going to be a problem.

Back with Gladius, the pod has returned with Makee, who is still pretending to be an orphaned victim of an alien attack. She’s searched by colonial marines before the Commander welcomes her aboard the Gladius. That's when she unleashes a barrage of alien snakes to take out the marines. It’s a whole other level of Snakes on a Plane!

Makee calmly makes her way to the Commander, as her snakes hold him captive. She wants to know where “the demon” took the keystone. The Commander refuses to answer her questions, so she stabs him dead with a blade that materializes from her finger and accesses the ship’s computer herself. She’s going to hunt down Master Chief.

Over on Planet Reach, Master Chief meets up with the Spartans under his command, known as the Silver Team. He tells them that he’s been cleared to return for duty. We’ve spent virtually zero time with the other Spartans, and as a group, they’re rather forgotten. They’re supposed to be an elite fighting force, and yet, we’ve only seen them fight once, and that was in the first episode. This is one of the many ways in which the show has deviated from the video games: It’s not really about the Spartans.

Cortana appears to the Spartans, against Master Chief’s commands, and lets them know that she’s there to provide logistical and practical support to the Silver Team. She finally relinquishes control back to John and disappears. Silver Team is not sure what to think of John’s new traveling partner.

Over on The Rubble, Kwan is spending time with Soren’s family, another set of characters we’ve spent little time with. If Halo spent more time building these characters and their universe, and less time on exposition, it might have a chance. But three episodes in, the show feels mostly hollow.

Kwan wants off The Rubble, and expresses to Soren’s wife (does she even have a name?) that she is wants to fight for her displaced people back on Madrigal. However, before we can explore the relationship between these two characters, the show shifts back to Master Chief again. So much for character building.

Master Chief and Cortana are struggling to live with one another. Cortana just wants to be helpful, she assures John, and John decides to let her into his world. He tells Cortana that anytime he touches the artifact, he sees memories of a forest, a picnic, and a dog. Cortana searches a computer database and finds numerous worlds that contain the specific flora and fauna he is seeking. She brings up the list for him to search through. He zeros in on Planet Mamore. He states that they lost Spartan Nora 098 on Mamore, but he doesn’t “feel” anything about her loss. We aren’t given an explanation as to who Nora 098 is, and it just feels like more exposition.

Master Chief, who doesn’t have feelings due to an emotional regulator that all Spartans carry, states that when he touches the keystone, he doesn’t just have memories, but the feelings associated with them. He decides to try and remove this regulator. Cortana reports this back to Dr. Halsey, but she wants Cortana to help John remove the implant, because she doesn’t want John to believe Cortana to be a spy.

Master Chief removes the regulator, located inside his lower back, with Cortana’s help. One of the Silver Team members, Spartan Kai-125, though, is spying on him and sees what he is doing. She looks worried.

Master Chief, free of the emotional regulator, decides to check out all that his world has to offer. He sees the beauty in the world around him for the first time. Along with Cortana’s help, he navigates over to Tchakova Park, a busy cultural center. John is in awe as he takes in a classical music concert, for the first time, with his new emotional presence. He just wants to be like everyone else.

Master Chief heads over to the control center housing the keystone and touches the artifact. He accesses a memory of himself as a young boy, along with visions of a second artifact. After he releases the keystone, he relays this information to Cortana. He states that he must have buried a second artifact as a child, and that this artifact is on a planet with ice rings around it. He believes this is where he must have lived when he was a child.

Cortana helps Master Chief access a virtual reality of the planet he believes to be his home. It’s called Eridanus Two. John is confused, though, as Eridanus Two is supposed to be uninhabitable. Cortana tells John that Eridanus Two used to be part of an ambitious project called Reach for Life. The goal of Reach for Life, Cortana tells John (the viewer), was to seed life on barren planets so to extend humanities’ life throughout the galaxy. This is where John was born.

Cortana reports that the project was decommissioned, however, due to a plague that killed off most of the population. This is why there are no records of John’s parents, as the planet was sealed off once the infection took hold. Dr. Halsey walks into the room, though, disrupting Master Chief and Cortana’s research into his past life.

Master Chief tells Dr. Halsey about the other artifact on Eridanus Two. John Dr. Halsey that the images he’s been seeing are actually his memories. He tells Halsey that he’s going to Eridanus Two. Halsey states that she’s going with him. It doesn’t sound like a debate.

Over on The Rubble, Kwan is trying to steal a ship so that she can get back to Madrigal. Soren, though, won’t let her leave. Kwan promises that she can pay him if he’ll just let her go. Soren, always after a buck, decides that, either way, he’ll get paid: either with the money Kwan can give him or by the bounty that Vinsher will place on her head as the daughter of the former leader of Madrigal.

The scene cuts over to Makee, who is hacking Gladius’s computer so that she can communicate with the Covenant. She tells the aliens that she is making her way over to Madrigal so that she can try and find the keystone.

Over on Reach, Dr. Keyes is instructed to untangle the signal that Makee is sending, although she doesn’t yet know that the Gladius has been overtaken. However, she can’t work on this problem, yet, as her computer is recovering from a crash. Her father instructs her to use her time wisely as he tells her that Dr. Halsey is off on a mission that’s taking her away from the artifact. This, again, is more exposition that gets in the way of any real character or world development.

Dr. Halsey and her creepy scientist friend are discussing this new artifact that John has discovered. We end the episode with her monologue overlapping with the departure of Master Chief to planet Eridanus Two, as her coworker reminds her that if John finds his other memories, it could bring them all down. Dr. Halsey states that this is exactly what Cortana is for: to keep John in line.

Whew. That felt like too much exposition for a single episode. I’m exhausted just trying to keep up with it all. Halo is light on world and character building and heavy on explanation. Can it recover in episode 4? It better, because this show is losing steam fast. We shall see!