Halo – Series Episode 9 Review : A Weird Course correction

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After last episode the Halo series was at a all time low for me. The whole series has been consistently pretty bad. It has been a huge departure form the source material and not in a good way. The series on its own is rife with boring Dialogue, Bad Pacing and redundant scenes. All this lead up to this season Finale and it was like the show knows that it is messing up. So it course corrects in this episode to be more like “Halo” in the weirdest possible way and it still is not really good.

Halo

*Spoilers for Season 1 of Halo*

An Incompetent UNSC

After the horrible ending of the last episode, Makee somehow manages to run away from the Reach. This makes no sense as Reach is supposed to be a insurmountable human fort. The Spartans regroup and set aside their differences in order to chase Makee but she still manages to run away. Ok…sure, it was just something which is being done to move the plot forward.

Halo Escape1
Makee Escaping

Halsey takes this as a distraction and does the same thing. But unlike Makee it seems like the escape does not really work out. With her creepy assistant getting killed by Kai and Halsey seemingly being caught. But it is very obvious to anyone who was playing attention that Halsey was just a flash clone. With the real Halsey long gone. But this is played up like she was actually captured. And i find kind of insulting for an Audience as it was so obvious. But sure Halsey managed to escape as the clone dies. All this escaping along with the escape of Kwan in Episode one sure makes it seem like the UNSC is incompetent.

Halo Clone
Halsey’s Clone Dying
Chief and the Spartans

So, the main story is Master Chief chasing Makee for the Artifact. And it is kind of fun…finally. The Silver Team Spartans are going down to infiltrate a covenant ritual with Makee is actually really good. The Dialogue does feel a bit too cheesy and bad but the rest almost fully works. The Action is fun to watch and well shot. I hate the Makee Chief subplot and she saves them all with activating both the artifacts showing where the Halo is.

It is made obvious Makee is just being used by the covenant prophets to find the Halo. Maybe it is trying to make us feel bad about is about to happen. She gets shot dead by Kaii. This was in order to bring back Chief from the Halo trance. Unlike feeling sad for her, i was actually happy that it happened as i found her character an hindrance tot he story and attempts to make the audience sympathize with her did not work. So ya Makee dies in cold blood.

Halo Brute
Masterchief Fighting Brutes
What the hell happened ?

This is when the episode gets very weird. The Covenant forces suddenly overwhelm Silver team. Chief asks for Cortana to take control of his body. So that she can carry the artifact without activating it. This feels horribly contrived. As there are like 3 more Spartans to carry it, it does not need to be chief. And Cortana can always bring the ship down form them to escape which she does do later.

Cortana starting to Control Chief

So ya Cortana Meat puppets Master chief’s body making him mute and kicks everyone’s ass and it is the first time Master Chief feels like how he does in the games. But this is not Chief. He is literally used as a meat puppet by Cortana…WTF!!! And we end the season with her in control with Master Chief in control of Cortana staring off into the distance with the star map for the coordinates of Halo while Halsey monologues escaped. Officially making this a Halo show with no Halo.

Final Thoughts

So ya on a whole it was pretty bad. This episode was pretty ok but that does not make up for the rest. The action is fun but that does not save the show. The plots are rushed while being dull. The Dialogue is boring and condescending. The Show does not respect its audience nor its fanbase and a few good actions scenes does not make up for that.

Episode Rating : 5/10

Series Rating : 2.5/10

(The score is not lower because it at least had a few good action scenes and some for the most part is a good looking show)

Somehow Season 2 is still happening

Personally, I am fascinated on how the showrunners will continue the show. With Season 2 already underway i am not sure much will change. I am like 99% sure that Chief will be getting his body back from Cortana as soon as possible. But other than that it does seem like the show has course corrected a lot to be like the games in one episode making this timeline so weird. It is weird and not in a good way. I am just in it for the morbid curiosity at this point. And I hope in Season 2 finally has the damn Halo Ring in it. Only time will tell.

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And for fun why not check out my reviews for the pervious episodes to see my slow decent into frustration as my cautious optimism about the show turns to cynicism;

Srinivas
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