After a (mostly) terrible episode 4, I’m back to give Halo one last shot. I want to like this show. I need a good sci-fi show. I’m a big fan of the Halo video game franchise. It’s not too much to ask for good story telling and tense action scenes. But that's not what we’ve gotten so far. I do like the Soren/Kwan combo, and believe that the show could build around their relationship, but at this point, the show runners really need to add in some humor and action to get this going. As for the Covenant, can aliens be less entertaining? At least let them destroy some villages. Anything to move this sloth of a show along.
Ok, let's get to it, and then we’ll see if, after this episode, I have the desire to continue reviewing Halo. I’m trying to make it to the end of season one.
We begin the episode in the past, with Dr. Halsey visiting a Reach For Life Installation on Planet Eridanus II. She’s touring the facilities like a mother inspecting a pre-school. That’s when we see young Master Chief, John, already showing his hero skills by rescuing another young boy from the playground. We see Dr. Halsey and Dr. Keye’s father, (we’ll call him Old Man Keyes, because the show can’t even bother to remind us of his name) who are pretending to be interested parents in the Reach For Life program. But why are they really there?
In the present day, Dr. Keyes has arrived on Eridanus II to help look for the Halo artifact. Her father is there to escort her to Halo in the hopes that she can unleash the its potential. Master Chief and Dr. Halsey are already there, and a serious excavation and examination of the artifact has already begun.
On Planet Madrigal, Kwan and Soren are in search of a ship to get off the planet. However, their motorcycle broke down in the middle of the desert. Kwan isn’t ready to leave; after explaining this to Soren, he handcuffs her to the bike because, as he says, he’s owed a ship and a shit ton of deuterium money. He walks off into the desert in search of another set of wheels, leaving Kwan chained to the motorcycle.
The Silver Team has finally been put to use, as they are there to escort the Halo artifact back to Planet Reach once Dr. Halsey extracts it from the ground. Something tells me that isn’t going to go as planned.
Kai asks Silver Team member Vannak if he ever wonders why they’re actually fighting the Covenant, to which he doesn’t have an answer. Nor is he inclined to deliver one. He hasn’t had his emotion regulator chip removed like Kai.
Master Chief, observing his team from afar, notices that Kai has dyed her hair blonde. He rightfully assumes that she removed her chip, and Kai states that she’s never felt more alive. Master Chief decides that this is the perfect reason to ground Kai from active duty, although I’m not sure why, since he removed his chip as well. He says something about her not thinking clearly now. Maybe it's her hairstyle.
On Planet Madrigal, the Blessed One, Makee, is using the radiation from the first keystone to find the location of the Halo artifact. It’s a thirty second scene and then it’s over. One of the issues with this show is how quickly it jumps from characters and settings. Makee and the Covenant have little screen time, and the time they do get is cut into such small bites that it’s almost not worth digesting.
Kwan finally frees herself from her chains, but before we get a chance to follow her character, we’re already back with Master Chief, who is speaking to Old Man Keyes about his memories. I don’t know why we’re spending so much time on this subject, and I’m annoyed that they continue to interrupt other aspects of the show just so Master Chief can have yet another trip down memory lane. Master Chief’s childhood memories story line needed to be condensed so that other story lines could flourish.
The UNSC and Dr. Halsey are at odds with Master Chief’s liability now that he’s having memories of his childhood. Dr. Halsey thinks it’s a good thing that he has fragmented memories, as this will help them realize the potential of the Halo artifact and thus win the war. Admiral Margaret is skeptical. Old Man Keyes just wants to get the hell out of there. I don’t blame him.
Adun, one of the scientists with Dr. Halsey, who in a previous episode showed his creepy side (is the show just ignoring that now? What was the point of that?), is shooting a laser at the Halo artifact, which causes the keystone to emit a sudden burst of energy. This, of course, alerts Makee and the Covenant to the whereabouts of the keystone. Trouble is on the horizon!
Master Chief arrives at the Halo object just as it stops emitting energy. He stands in front of it, helmet off again (just leave the helmet on, guys!), ready to meet whatever destiny awaits him. Will he finally touch the Halo artifact and unlock its power?
Meanwhile, Dr. Keyes suspects that the Halo artifact isn’t a weapon at all, but some type of communication device. Her father, though, lets her know that she is no longer on the project. It’s Dr. Halsey’s game and they are her pawns.
Master Chief is pretty upset at the lies and coverups he’s being told by Dr. Halsey and Old Man Keyes. He asks Cortana for help in uncovering the history of his adoption and the Spartan program, but she’s useless, as the data is lost. This prompts him to reach out and touch the Halo artifact. It’s about time.
The memories the object brings back are not pleasant, although it’s still more of the same for the viewer: Master Chief sees an image of himself and Dr. Halsey, and then finally comes to the realization that she kidnapped him as a child. But there isn’t anything else that the memory reveals, and our would-be hero, pissed that he’s been lied to, decides that’s enough to charge at Dr. Halsey. Cortana, though, doesn’t think this is such a good idea and, on the command of Dr. Halsey, shuts Maser Chief down before he can do any damage.
Soren returns, where he left Kwan, with a new vehicle. He should have known better than to leave the girl alone, as he now has to find out what’s happened to her. He doesn’t have to wonder long, though, as she was just hiding underneath some rocks and sand. She gets the jump on the renegade, and uses a stun gun on him. I guess he’s not going to be going back home so soon after all.
The Covenant, alerted to the location of the Halo keystone, launches a surprise attack on the Spartans and the rest of the UNSC military. They take down the mother ship, Pioneer, with little trouble. Dr. Halsey wants Master Chief to forget their differences and retrieve the artifact and place it on Dr. Keye’s ship. Finally, we’re getting a Halo battle!
The battle is the type of action I’d been hoping to see from this show, with plenty of Halo-the-video-game elements, including drop ships, jackals and Spartan and Covenant weapons. The graphics aren’t superb, but they’re good enough for our first battle since the opening scene of the series.
Kai’s emotional state does end up compromising her in the battle, and Master Chief decides to forget the mission in favor of saving his fellow Spartan. He does so in a blaze of glory, battling aliens on his way to save Kai. It’s the best scene of the show so far. It’s unfortunate that it took five episodes to get here, but I’ll take it.
Makee has a trick up her sleeve, as she tells her alien brethren to “make it look good.” They beam her down to the planet at Master Chief’s feet. The aliens leave her, and we finish the episode on this cliffhanger. What is her ultimate plan?
I will say that this was definitely the best episode of Halo so far. It had the action I believe the fan base is craving, and we finally got to see the Spartans and Covenant fight. Will it be enough to keep the show afloat? For another episode, yes. But if Halo continues it’s slow, mostly boring plot toward the season one finale, it will have wasted their best episode.
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