The third episode of “Halo” Season 1 showed us Makee’s (Charlie Murphy) and how she was recruited by the Covenant. We also got a hint of her powers when she unleashed a horde of worm-like creatures on a UNSC ship in order to find the location of the Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) and the Fleet Command. Master Chief spent most of his time back at Fleet Command becoming acquainted with this A.I. assistant of sorts, Cortana (Jen Taylor). And although it seemed like Cortana was trying to become friends with Master Chief, the episode eventually revealed that it was all a ploy by Miranda (Olive Gray) to understand Master Chief’s connection with the artifact and how it could be weaponized. “Halo” episode 3 ended with Master Chief, Cortana, and Keyes heading to what was supposedly Master Chief’s home planet.
Major Spoilers Ahead
See More: ‘Halo’ Episode 3: Recap And Ending, Explained – Is Cortana Master Chief’s Friend Or Foe?
Master Chief and Kwan Ha’s Homecoming
Directed by Roel Reiné and written by Justine Juel Gillmer and Steven Kane, the fourth episode of “Halo” titled “Homecoming” sees young Soren, Kai, Vannak, Riz, and John in the UNSC Bootcamp. A young Halsey (Natascha McElhone) confronts young John (Casper Knopf), who wants to go home, and convinces him that the UNSC is his home and he’s here to serve a higher purpose that’s related to the survival of humankind. Then we cut to the present to find Master Chief staring at the Slipspace just like Kwan (Yerin Ha) did when she traveled through space for the first time. Cortana jumps in because her data (as well as Halsey and Adun’s readings) shows that the Master Chief is experiencing anxiety. Master Chief is surprised that that’s what anxiety feels like and that it’s associated with him going to his home, Eridanus II.
Meanwhile, Kwan and Soren (Bokeem Woodbine) enter Madrigal, and Kwan gets a little snarky with Soren. Soren thinks it’s a result of sleeplessness and then corrects it to “bad memories.” Soren talks about how it took a long time to regain his memories after escaping the Spartan Program. Once he did, he remembered his father’s death. Soon after that, he remembered that he was the one responsible for it. Why? It’s probably because Soren’s father was a rebel, and the UNSC used Soren to kill him. Or maybe Soren just killed him for a personal reason before he enrolled in the Spartan Program. Well, whatever it is, Soren professes that memories let a person know who they are. And that’s when we cut to Kai (Kate Kennedy) standing naked in front of a mirror as she has extracted the suppressive pebble in her spine, just like Master Chief.
Sad Revelations
On Eridanus II, Master Chief uses his memory to identify his house and then proceeds to make an estimation of where the box that he keeps seeing in his artifact-induced flashes has been buried. On Madrigal, Kwan runs into one of her friends, Attu (Ali Khan), and asks him about the state of the rebellion. Attu hesitates to even speak to her and tells her to come to her father’s funeral at night, and she’ll get all her answers there. Soren points at a digital poster to tell Kwan that Vinsher (Burn Gorman) has put out a bounty on her. While polishing her gun, Kai has some kind of an awakening, and she randomly colors her hair red before proceeding to Miranda’s (Olive Gray’s) experiment around the artifact. In the room housing the artifact, while Riz and Vannak answer robotically to whatever Miranda says, Kai shows curiosity regarding the artifact, something that even Miranda notices.
Master Chief finds the box which is filled with John’s drawings, which prompts Master Chief to go to his abandoned house. Kwan and Soren attend her father’s funeral. Kwan interprets the Madrigal citizens’ sadness as a sign of weakness and accuses everyone of betraying her father’s cause. While Kwan throws a fit, Vinsher’s army infiltrates the gathering and starts attacking people. Soren drags Kwan out of there so that she doesn’t fall into Vinsher’s hands that easily. At Fleet Command, Miranda runs her tests to see if the artifact reacts to them in the same way that it does in Master Chief’s case. Riz and Vannak do the needful and walk away (no, the artifact doesn’t activate). But Kai rants a little about how Miranda sees the Spartans as nothing more than machines even though they are more educated than anyone else in Fleet Command.
On Eridanus II, Master Chief orders Cortana to digitally recreate his house and feed it directly into his helmet. Halsey warns that since Cortana is going to recreate things from Master Chief’s memories, he should be aware of the frightening nightmares that may come out of this little experiment. The process starts off pretty timidly with Master Chief walking through his dining room, the spot where the plants used to be, and the wall on which John’s paintings used to be hung. But things begin to get spotty as Master Chief starts seeing things on his own and without Cortana’s help. He sees John playing with his dog. He sees his father growing plants. He sees himself talking to his mother about going out to play. Then he sees John drawing the sketches they found in the box and running past the designated areas and into what looks like a pit. As he goes through the pit, he finds a strange-looking rock that activates when John touches it.
After that, Master Chief shifts his focus back to his home and sees John talking to a woman. Yes, that woman is Halsey before she recruited John into the Spartan Program. Shocked, Master Chief opens his helmet, looks at Halsey, and walks away. At Fleet Command, Miranda and the Spartans share a brief moment of levity and sad realization (largely about how Halsey trained the Spartans to only create bonds within themselves and not with animals by letting them have pets and then finding ways to kill them) that leads to Miranda deciphering a keyword that might help Miranda understand the Covenant message that the UNSC has intercepted. In Madrigal, Soren finds out that his ship has been looted, and he plans to meet Vinsher’s army head-on. Kwan offers an alternate way that involves his aunt, Soojin (Yuha Shin). Vinsher assigns an assassin named Violetta Franco (Angie Cepeda) to kill off Kwan before she starts a rebellion.
See More: ‘Halo’ Episode 2: Recap And Ending, Explained – What Was The Secret Behind The Covenant Artifact?
‘Halo’ Episode 4: Ending Explained – Finding Out The Extent of Halsey’s Villainy
On Eridanus II, Halsey tries to re-establish her connection with the Master Chief by trying to convince him that he has been destabilized. Master Chief asks her point-blank if she met him when he was a boy, and his parents were still alive. Halsey continues to say that Master Chief’s memories are muddled, and that’s natural when trauma is involved. Soren rips off the person who promises to take him off Madrigal “for a price” (probably hinting at giving up Kwan to Vinsher) and takes his bike. Soojin reveals that the rebellion is a lost cause now and that Kwan’s father fought for a lie. Apparently, years before the war, Kwan’s father met a group of mystics in the desert who convinced him that it was his responsibility to free Madrigal. Kwan asks Soojin where she can find these mystics. But before she can get the answer, Franco barges in to kill Kwan.
Franco kills Soojin, and when she’s about to do the same to Kwan, Soren comes back to take Kwan away. Soren shoots Franco and sends her bolting out of the window. With the entirety of Vinsher’s army on their tail, Soren escapes with Kwan, probably heading towards the spot where ships leave Madrigal every night. Master Chief claims that he knows the location of the second object and drives to the place with Halsey and Adun (Ryan McParland). He follows the same route that he did as a kid and reaches the strange rock (with Halsey behind him) that he saw in his memories. However, that revelation is given a dark undertone through Kai and Miranda’s conversation, where Miranda warns Kai about the fact that Kai is starting to think for herself. When Kai asks why that’s so dangerous, Miranda says that Halsey is very particular about her creations. And when her creations start to work in unexpected ways, she gets uncomfortable. Miranda says that, unlike most human beings, Halsey sees the world as a set of data, and she’ll do anything in her power to eliminate glitches that can stop her from achieving her goals.
