The first episode of Halo Season 2 came with a lot of surprises, some of which might seem like a bit of a copout as we go along. Cortana was not controlling Master Chief anymore. Master Chief’s Silver Team had their emotion-and-memory suppressing pellets removed, which led to a bit of bitterness with the Spartan teams that hadn’t removed their pellets. Makee was allegedly alive. Catherine Halsey was nowhere to be found. Ackerson, the head of ONI, was in charge of UNSC, and he grounded the Silver Team and didn’t miss a chance to cast doubt on Master Chief. Soren was arrested by a dude called Felix. And Kwan Ha wasn’t on Madrigal anymore; she was on The Rubble, hiding in the caves. Let’s find out what other surprises Episode 2 has in store for us.
Spoiler Alert
Kai is concerned about Riz and Master Chief
Episode 2 of Halo Season 2 opens with Catherine Halsey interviewing a girl named Julia while playing a round of backgammon. When Halsey starts asking her about what lies beyond the room that they are in, the man that’s controlling everything, and whatnot, the girl starts bleeding out of her nose and then dies. During the concluding moments of Halo Season 1, after faking her death, Halsey was seen writing about humanity in Manassas. So, maybe this is part of her analysis? If it’s killing people, then maybe it’s just another one of her sinister plans. Well, more on that later. The focus shifts to the Spartans as Kai notices a scarred but recovering Riz preparing for a training session. Kai tells Riz to take a break, or else she is going to get some permanent injuries and spend the rest of her life as a vegetable. Riz refuses to listen to her and walks away. Kai goes to Master Chief, who is staring at the mission information display system.
I find it interesting that on this uber-futuristic planet, where almost everything is digital, this display system is analog, with the status of each of the teams being manually changed by a guy via physical cards. It’s dramatic. There’s a sense of tension and anticipation about it. So, when the card-changer changes Cobalt’s status from “Deployed” to “Standby,” Master Chief gets angry because he suspects that something has happened to them, and the UNSC doesn’t want everyone to know. Hence, he heads over to Ackerson’s office to have a little chat. By the way, while standing there, Master Chief admits to Kai that he saw Makee in Sanctuary. Going by Kai’s expression, she is concerned about Master Chief’s mental state because he is saying that someone who was killed by her has come back from the dead.
On The Rubble, it seems like refugees have been marked with a tracker that’s attached to their ear, like an earring. Two guys, Oswyn and Clive, claim to be a part of a faction known as the Spiffs, and they are keeping track of these refugees. Kwan Ha has this tracker on her, and it seems like she is trying to get rid of it by forcefully removing it from her ear. When Oswyn tries to get a hold of her, she runs away, and Oswyn and Clive go after her. It’s a pretty great chase sequence—with some excellent stunt work, camerawork, and editing—and it ends with Oswyn and Clive’s deaths (Clive’s death is really good). Also, Kwan painfully manages to get rid of the tracker. Back on Reach, Louis (a former Spartan who is blind) advises Riz to take a break instead of spending her whole life as a Spartan. Of course, Riz refuses to do so, but going by her expressions, she knows that Louis is right, and she has to look for an alternative in the near future.
Catherine Halsey Interviews Clones
Master Chief goes to Ackerson to learn about Cobalt, and, as expected, Ackerson continues to aggravate Master Chief while not giving him the answers that he wants. So, Master Chief threatens to bypass him and sanction a mission, and Ackerson reminds him that that venture is futile because he is the be-all and end-all of the institution that he is a part of. To rub salt in Master Chief’s wounds, Ackerson informs him that Perez (the survivor of the Covenant assault on Sanctuary) has contradicted Master Chief’s claims about the Covenant attack. Everyone knows that it’s a lie, but the question is: Why is Ackerson entertaining it? What does Ackerson have to gain by pretending that the threat of the Covenant isn’t real? If the UNSC and the ONI are overprepared, what is wrong with that? Isn’t being overprepared better than being underprepared? Maybe this is what “powerful people” do when they know that the enemy that they’re about to go up against is a lot stronger than them, because it’s easier to say that anyone who says the truth is mad instead of facing the truth itself. Elsewhere, on the Rubble, Laera confronts Soren’s crew and realizes that they’ve abandoned Soren, and they’re not in the mood to go on a rescue mission. Probably Laera is going to track down Soren herself or leave with Kessler for good, just like she had planned.
Talking about Kessler, he is seen taking care of Kwan Ha. However, they get into an argument because little Kessler thinks Soren is coming back, and Kwan Ha knows that Soren isn’t coming back. Hence, she is frustrated that she can’t do anything to get Laera, Kessler, and herself off the Rubble. Back on Reach, the Silver Team is seen going through some rigorous training, with Riz being put through the wringer because she is currently the weakest member of the team. When everyone asks Master Chief why he is going so hard on them, he says that he has a feeling that the Covenant is training extremely hard to do something radical. So, they have to be equally ready. By the way, this whole sequence with the Spartans is excellent. Everything from the setting to the way Riz tumbles from great heights—it’s all great stuff. Also, this scene is proof that the show can do what the fans of the game are asking them to do: Don’t make the Spartans take off the helmets. The actors, the directors, the writers, the editors, and the cinematographers clearly have the ability to convey everything that the Spartans are experiencing without making them take off their helmets way too often. Who knows? Maybe by Season 3 (if there is one), they’ll do exactly that and have the actors double down on their helmet acting skills.
After the training program, Riz goes to a therapist named Danilo, who is there to take care of Spartans who have physical and mental injuries. This whole section and the conversation between Ackerson and Kai about Master Chief’s mental health shed light on government-sanctioned killing machines and how they are being used while totally disregarding their health. The anti-military and anti-war propaganda isn’t as on-the-nose as Starship Troopers (which is something you should watch if you haven’t already), but it’s there. Does Danilo have any superpowers? I am not very sure. It’s possible that he simply knows what to say and what to do to convince a Spartan to part ways with the pain that they’re holding onto. Anyway, the focus briefly shifts back to Catherine Halsey interrogating another version of Julia, and she dies as well, thereby proving that it’s some kind of cloning program. I know that the show is trying to make Ackerson come off as someone who is more sinister than Halsey, but Halsey is something entirely different. Maybe I feel that way because I’ve seen her go through a very detailed, emotional arc in Season 1 and not change in a good way. I know that the show wants me to hate her, and they have done a good job so far because I do hate her.
Is Makee alive?
Master Chief confronts Perez about the lies she has peddled. This leads to a cute dinner scene with Perez’s family, who are ecstatic because Perez has won such a huge prize. But then things get somber again as Perez admits that she lied because she knows the UNSC or the ONI wouldn’t have believed her. I mean, she isn’t wrong. The UNSC and the ONI don’t believe the Master Chief. So, what chance does a communications officer have? They haven’t jailed Master Chief because he is the poster boy of the Spartan program. Perez is nothing compared to him. Who knows what they’ll do to her if she starts talking about how dangerous the Covenant is and how the UNSC and the ONI are not prepared to face them?
Here are some big reveals: Halsey is actually within Reach. She is imprisoned in a VR program that is being monitored by Ackerson. He is sending clones of Julia to Halsey for an unknown reason. Ackerson has Cortana in his custody. How has he trapped an AI program? By putting her in some kind of closed-loop system from which she can run a limited number of simulations. What are the simulations for or about? I don’t know, but it sounds ominous and apocalyptic. It’s unclear if Ackerson is happy that Cortana has served her purpose or not, but if he is using Cortana, it’s safe to assume that he doesn’t have a fruitful outcome on his mind. In addition to all that, the episode shows us that one of the two pieces of the artifact is in the facility, which is housing both Cortana and Halsey. Based on how Ackerson touches it, I guess he’s trying to become a “chosen one” like Makee and Master Chief.
At the end of Halo Season 2, episode 2, Master Chief finds out that the Cobalt Team hasn’t left Reach. So, he assembles his teammates and tells them that the Covenant has breached the planet’s barriers. He isn’t wrong, as we see a small group of UNSC soldiers getting absolutely slaughtered by a single Covenant soldier. And the individual who stops his rampage is none other than Makee. She asks him to open the vault door. As she walks into the vault, we see another part of the artifact. That means Makee is the leader of the Covenant, and she intends to use the artifact for her personal needs. However, how the hell is she alive? Good genes? Clones? Advanced healing powers? To be honest, it’s impossible to know because the show doesn’t give a single clue. We have to wait till next week to get a concrete answer. It’s a shocking twist, but is it more than that? Will Makee 2.0’s arc be as substantial as her arc in Season 1? I truly hope it is because I like Charlie Murphy’s acting, and I don’t want her to have a bad emotional journey.
