Halo Episode 2 Review: Master Chief Rediscovers Himself A Strong Episode From Paramount+
Cast: Pablo Schreiber, Jen Taylor, Shabana Azmi
Director: Steven Kane, Kyle Killen
Streaming Platform: Voot and Paramount+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Record-breaking ratings for Halo debuted on Paramount+ without having the exact data in our hands, we know it’s the first time a Paramount+ show has entered Nielsen’s top 10, beating the previous record set from the Yellowstone prequel, which had reached 4.9 million admissions. A good result, to which we would be curious to follow up with the data from Italy, which has decided to publish the episode on Thursday evening in the original language, to follow the American programming, and on Monday evening in dubbed version, to allow everyone to follow the events of the Master Chief without having to focus on subtitles. We tell you what the second appointment with Halo left us, anticipating that inevitably there will be spoilers below.
Halo Episode 2 Review: The Story
In the second episode of Halo it is time to continue to discover what is the secret that hides John-117, the super soldier who was created with the aim of carrying out all the orders of the UNSC, but who has decided to take sides alongside the only survivor of Madrigal. In this race that takes him into space, giving us the opportunity to admire the attention placed in the composition of what lies outside the planets, Master Chief continues to show his more human side. He is no longer the character we met in video games, a soldier who had been trained for a single purpose and devoid of emotions: from the words of Pablo Schreiber pass the difficulties that what was once a human is going through. The choice to take off Master Chief’s helmet in the Halo series it allows him even more to look like a normal person, in the eyes not only of the spectator, but of all those he meets on his path.
There are so many questions in John’s head, there are so many doubts, so many needs: he does not trust anyone within the UNSC, just as he realizes for the first time that he is trying something new, unique. In his assertion that he finds himself in front of totally new emotions, the Master Chief almost seems to want to send a message to the videogame saga, in which he has never had the opportunity to express himself in a human and natural way. Schreiber confirms himself to be excellent in this role, although he does not let too many emotions show on his face: it is something new for the soldier, he does not know how to relate to what is happening. Surely the progression of the character and the growth of him in these nine episodes will be central to the development of the entire series: his thirst for knowledge and knowledge, to find out what is special about others, will push him towards unexplored boundaries until today.
Halo Episode 2 Review And Analysis
And that secret is the motive of the entire second episode, in which Master Chief begins to discover the power of the relic he found on Madrigal, that ring that allows him to unleash a sort of explosion. Put aside for a moment Kwan Ah, who accompanies John for a good part of his pilgrimage, in the second half of the show’s episode, the relationship with Catherine Halsey is given more prominence. The UNSC scientist is the creator of the Spartan program, as we already explained in our review of the first episode, but the bond that unites her and the Master Chief is much deeper than this.
In addition to showing us her willingness to further disrupt the Spartans’ behavior by admitting that they are not just people, Halsey shows us what Cortana will be., the artificial intelligence that in the videogame saga assists Master Chief with tactical suggestions and information related to the scenario. In the television series it will certainly have a central role to allow, perhaps, the UNSC to manage contact with the Spartans, as well as become a technology that could attract the interest of the Covenant and fuel the war that is taking place throughout the universe.
The road begins to get rough: if the Spartan believes that Halsey is the only one he can trust within the UNSC, it must be taken into account that she is still an employee. She reciprocates that trust, she lets him escape, we could almost say evade, convinced that sooner or later she will return, despite being brandishing with her a dangerous weapon recovered on Madrigal, but she seems to be just waiting for the moment to cage the strongest and most special of her kind. We are sure that in the next installments this relationship will become more and more ambiguous, until the moment in which both end up betraying each other.
Another aspect that glues with what happened in the first episode is the constant presence of humans: in the lore of Halo we have already said that they mostly represent only an element of the scenario, while now they acquire a key role. Beyond their being Blessed, he is one of the humans who can understand the power of the weapon that John wields, that ring recovered from the Covenant Detachment. Strengthened by his being a psychic, he proves to have abilities which, however, are surpassed by those of the Blessed themselves. All elements that are added to the narrative and that allow the Halo series to continue to insert narrative content that sooner or later will have to explode into something much broader, we hope already from the third episode onwards.
Halo Episode 2 Review: The Last Words
It rewards the choice of having the Master Chief take off his helmet, because having a window on a less solemn and more fought world gives John a more human and more fragile dimension. His quest for truth goes beyond the concept of a super soldier created with the aim of following orders. Doubting him allows him to be more vulnerable – and therefore more open to conflict – with those who gave him life and allowed him to become a Spartan. Now the meat on the fire seems a lot and we trust in the fact that from the third episode we can deepen what will surely lead Master Chief to a civil struggle with his lineage.
