Review | Halo the Series: S02E08 – Halo (Full Spoilers)

S02E08 – Halo is my favorite episode of this series, and I advise you to go watch it before you read any further as I’m going to do a full spoiler-filled breakdown of a fantastic culmination of this season’s major plot arcs in this Halo season 2 finale review.

The Cold Open

The episode begins with a dimly lit John-117, the Master Chief.  He’s speaking about events we’re yet to see.  “What is that thing, why is it here?”.  Of what does he speak, and to whom is he speaking?  We get the definitive answer to one at the episode’s end, but not the other.  My initial thoughts are “he’s on Halo, talking to a monitor, and he’s scared shitless after meeting a Gravemind.”   A quick cut back into a massive zoom-in on a single cell as we find ourselves on Onyx in Miranda Keyes’ research lab.

Talk of “dormant spores” leads to a new, soon-to-be-dead character named Janine who has some incredibly passive-aggressive lines towards Miranda explaining how these cells may have woken up now that they have a “food source”.  That’s right, this episode is dominated by the release of the Flood.  No time is wasted, as Janine’s curiosity gets the better of her and she begins to spread the infection quickly.  A 60s-style pop song plays as the horror begins to unfold.  All these bright, cheerful O.N.I. employees chit-chatting until one of them gets a pen in the neck and the gore starts to flow.  Queue the opening credits.

Kaboom

Kai, Perez, and their assortment of Spartan IIIs are ready to fly through space and try to board a Covenant Cruiser.  Right smack in the middle of Kai’s speech their ship gets blown the f*ck up and it’s chaos.  Body parts are flying around as Perez desperately tries to stop spinning out of control.  It’s the 2nd time in this episode that I jumped a bit after feeling completely caught off-guard.  The plot armor holds as Kai, Perez, and a handful of Spartan IIIs make it to a ship’s hull after avoiding the debris of their exploding comrades on the way.  Then we see it, a mother jumpin’ Covenant Super Cruiser that dwarfs every other ship in size by at least ten-fold.

Chief and Parangosky get to chat over their instantaneous comms.  Chief is stuck watching the battle and wanting to help, while Prangosky implores him to reach the Halo as quickly as possible. She’s in full “Oh Jon yay you’re alive, how wonderful!” mode to try and cover her butt, but Chief isn’t having any of it. He calls her out directly and you can see the life start to drain out of her body as the realization that she can’t sweet talk her way out of this one begins to hit.  We see Soren and Kwan gearing up in his ship to go and save Laera and Kesller. They’re stuck in the brig in a cell opposite of Ackerson, and adjacent to one with… oh no, an obviously Flood-infected side character that we saw for a split-second earlier.

Heading back into the Covenant ship with Kai’s team they start to get their asses whooped as the Covenant is ready for them.  As they fight desperately we intercut with Chief and Parangosky still going at it over the comms.  He doesn’t want to leave them to die, especially Kai.  At this point, Perez’s words about Chief being special finally resonate with him, and we see a cool but also kind of a weird shot of him flipping a coin until it all stops mid-air, Matrix-style.

The Chiefson One

John has made his choice.  He’s done taking shitty O.N.I. orders and we get the epic trailer shot of him opening the bay of his Condor and overlooking the battle in space. To counter this epic moment we get Makee and Cortana next, discussing what to do next.  Cortana thinks they’re best buds and wants to find an escape pod with Makee to make it to the Halo ring.  Makee though, oh no no, she knows Cortana is loyal to Chief and she can’t have that.  After a short back and forth Makee drops Cortana’s external-ssd and smashes it with her foot, killing her?

We ping-pong back to the Covenant ship and things aren’t going great for our team.  Spartan IIIs are getting one-shot left and right while Kai does her best to pull the hard carry.  Perez takes a side shot of plasma and dual-wields a pair of Needlers as Kai drags her out of immediate harm.  After a will she/won’t she few moments of Kai deciding on using the Spike that blows ‘em all up we hear an explosion that hits right at the crescendo of the soundtrack.  Chief’s timing as always is impeccable and he single-handedly mercs every Covenant that was assaulting Kai’s team.  He’s refusing to leave anyone behind and everyone makes it off the ship alive except for Kai, who says she’s right behind them.  It’s not obvious to Perez but at this point, all I was hoping for was a worthy death for her.

Kwan and Soren start working their way back through an incredibly infected facility.  Everyone is standing still, not breathing, and for now, not moving.  Kessler and Laera almost get got by the creepy Flood lady as she breaks all her bones and grows a lovely new appendage to reach through the bars of their cells.  They’re saved by Ackerson who uses the obviously infected guard’s pistol to shoot the woman a bunch before said guard turns on him and tries to bite off a piece of that smarmy ass.  They are later saved by Kwan and Soren who let Ackerson out as well after they learn about his earlier heroics.

Da Fwud

Parangosky is so damned desperate that she brings in Halsey, who was evidently captured off-screen, to try and talk Jon into heading for the Halo instead of Makee’s ship where he’s now going to try and save Cortana.  Halsey instead tells Chief the best way to get on board, because she knows how special Cortana is and that she’s worth trying to save.  Jon finds the broken SSD and is very sad for a few seconds before we hear Jen Taylor’s voice say she hopped into the Covenant ship’s systems as it was the only place she could go to not die.  After telling Chief he gone die alongside her as they crash into Halo in a few seconds he does the Chief thing and punches technology.  Really, he punches the Covenant control panel and absorbs Cortana into his system before everything fades to white as they (don’t) die in a horrible crash.

John awakens on Halo, and it is glorious.  The music hits, and they recreate the iconic Chief holding his helmet by his side pose from the games and it FEELS LIKE HALO.  The thumbnail for this article is that shot because it’s so damned good.  Halo is a living network and Cortana can make her kinda-weird looking hard-light ass appear anywhere. Chief picks up an energy sword and the music swells as we see Makee and Arbiter make their way to a tower facility not too far away.  Seriously, Bear McReary’s music is fantastic throughout the episode but this is my favorite.

Next up, sadness.  We’re back in space as Perez and the lady who yelled at her during their fake mission in an earlier episode are now on a Condor.  Perez has had her wound stabilized and quickly realizes Kai didn’t come with them.  We then see Kai(urt) potentially go down in a blaze of glory as she pilots the Covenant ship into the Super Cruiser, destroying it.  This turns the tide of the battle for the UNSC, but it seems like we’re down to one Spartan II left fighting.  #Salute

Back on Onyx Halsey and Keyes are covertly discussing their discovery, which Miranda realizes was a horrific thing to have found.  The situation room is quickly overrun by those infected by the flood.  A bit of makeup and some CGI creatures that crawl into your damned eyes abound and Halsey barely escapes as Parangosky and everyone else is swallowed by the chaos.  It’s another surprise story beat that I didn’t think would happen this quickly and brutally and I loved it.  The Flood spores had their familiar shape though they were smaller in size, because this isn’t an old video game where showcasing a 2 or 3-inch-long enemy would be infuriating to try and fight.

Kwan, Soren, Laera, Kessler, and Ackerson are working their way to escape through Onyx’s basement parking.  All but Kwan make it, though she isn’t attacked.  Instead, her Ancestor lady talks to her as a group of infected humans stare at her all menacingly while their bones crack every time they move quickly.  The old lady voice knows what this infection is, and what it wants.  Ghost Witch states “This is the flood” and we get another beautiful hit of music.  Just chef’s kiss type of stuff.  Her ancestors for some reason can hold off the Flood from attacking Kwan and she dashes as we cut back to Keyes’ lab.

Another Shocking Moment

Halsey has made it back to her daughter and they start to bicker. Keyes thinks the Flood is horrifying and Halsey’s still bat-shit and thinks it’s incredible.  Of course, it’s only from a scientific understanding point for her but before Miranda can call her Mom a loopy dame she realizes Halsey isn’t talking anymore.  She’s just staring blankly and looking a little pale…. oh dear baby Jeebus she’s infected!   This one got me pretty good, I did not think they would infect Catherine Halsey with a damned Flood spore in this episode. 

We then cut back to Soren’s group as they attempt to escape.  He’s determined to go back for Kwan but she comes running up and they all get out, well all except one.  Laera locks the door behind them and Soren turns back, not understanding why.  Laera shows him her arm, she’s been infected by the Flood and she tells him she’s sorry for calling him a creepy bitch in the last episode and that she loves him before slowly fading to black.  At least that’s what I thought because between Bokeem Woodbine’s desperate screams and everything this was the first time I felt any deep emotion about their characters.  Goodbye Laera, you did your best.

Then it’s showtime at the Halo-pollo.  Chief catches up to Makee and The Arbiter and they duke it out for a while.  After gaining the upper hand The Arbiter makes the typical bad-guy mistake and doesn’t finish his fight.  Chief gets back up and uses his grapple shot to systematically beat the ever-loving shit out of the Arbiter.  He ends up punching him in the face so many times that he destroys the Arbiter’s helmet and dislocates one of his mandibles.  Beaten, bloody, bruised, and shamed the Arbiter begs for Chief to kill him as Makee cries for him to not give up.  Chief stabs the Arbiter right in the chest where a human heart would be and lucks out because it instantly kills him. Makee uses her special hands to open the front door of the forerunner facility they were in front of. 

We cycle back to Soren and his group as they are understandably sad at the fate of Laera.  Keyes has put her mom into a cryo-chamber and as the frost surrounds her promises to find a cure. As we are shown Kai’s body floating, intact, in space Makee starts telling Chief he’s a dipshit. As she’s spewing truth bombs Chief looks out to the horizon as the ring has started to activate.  Fans of the games know that this is a bad thing because the ring is getting ready to fire due to the presence of the Flood.  Covenant and human ships are entering the ring’s atmosphere and Makee heads into the facility. 

We finish with Chief talking to what most of us would have guessed is a monitor.  The monitor is trying to understand Makee and Chief and who he should use/trust.  They each have said the other is dangerous, but Chief has talked to the “thing” down there in the dark that “has been waiting all this time, to meet you”.  The episode ends as Chief puts on his helmet and we see the cracked visor from the show’s opening.  He’s covered in blood and has obviously been through hell and back since entering this facility but that’s it for season 3.

Wrapping things up

Halo’s season 2 finale is by far the best episode of the show’s run, managing to wrap up most if not all of the plot threads it had built throughout its prior seven episodes.  We get the Spartan II’s back in their suits, kicking ass, and the people talking in rooms parts are the best they’ve ever been.  The Flood is here, and the show shifted well into being full-on horror whenever they were around.  I cannot wait for season 3, so please renew it soon Paramount.