After a slow start that’s tested the patience just as much as it’s tested the character’s collective resolve, it Halo’s second season is finally starting to gather some steam.
Throughout this second season (and through most of the first, as it happens) the show has managed to take up the bad habit of taking way too many plot threads and creating a narrative log jam that not only slows down the action but also would probably take a blast from the Halo itself to properly dislodge. However, unlike season one, which concerned itself mostly with locating artifacts and examining the need to be human rather than concentrating on the focal points of the gamrs, this second season actually has something to actually shoot for as it builds to the fall of planet Reach – a huge deal in the games. While we’re not quite there yet, Visegrad finally starts connecting those dots and as a result, it seems that Halo’s sophomore season finally has some real promise. To save to show, Reach must fall. And fast.
After lying to the fellow Spartans of Silver Team, Master Chief (aka. John-117) has commandeered a ship and headed out on a private mission in a direct violation of his orders. His endgame is to locate the missing squad of soldiers sent to the Visegrad relay in order to prove that his worst fears are in the verge of becoming reality; namely that the alien Covenant is already on Reach and a devastating attack is imminent.
However, upon arriving, Master Chief and his team are arrested with every scrap of evidence that the other team existed erased or cleared up which succeeds in shaking the faith in John’s leadership with Kai openly questioning his emotional state.
Of course, when you realise that the department that created the Spartans are Masters at gaslighting on an epic scale, it’s not hard to predict what’s actually happening – but what’s so surprising is why.
The truth is that Ackerson, the sinister head of the Office of Naval Intelligence not only knows about the advancing Convenant threat, but has long since already predicted it thanks to the projections of the captive AI, Cortana. As a result, the UNSC have already decided that protecting Reach is going to be an utter wash and thus have already written it off – hence why they’re trying so hard to discredit Master Chief.
As Ackerman and ONI are preparing for the fall of Reach in their own personal ways, also located on the doomed planet is something of an awkward reunion as the imprisoned Dr. Halsey and captured Spartan-turned-pirate, Soren, are brought together on a planet that’s soon about to take more heat than a habitual sunbather’s derriere.
It’s only salvation? Master Chief choosing to go rogue – again.
There’s nothing wrong with a sci-fi show that chooses to go the slow burn route on it’s way to the huge battle scene that the entire season (nay, the entire franchise) hinges on, but Halo’s problem up until now is that it’s neglected to make all this build up particularly engrossing. While all the threads involving Halsey, Ackerman, Soren and Kwan Ha will no doubt merge with the main story at some point (or at least, I hope they will), all they’ve done up until now is provided a tremendous drag factor on the main story – but with Visegrad, something has noticably (and belatedly) clicked. There’s still all the narrative padding that’s slowed down the previous two episodes, but now all these threads are suddenly moving in the same direction, meaning that the pace has increased greatly while not sacrificing any of the large amounts of story it has to juggle.
As always, the main focus is the epic head fuck that ONI is heaping onto Master Chief, and now that we know that Ackerman has long since known that Reach is screwed and is trying to cover it up, it makes the story move all the more smoothly. Ackerman is convinced that humanity is doomed and is trying to subdue the horrifying truth to hold things together in the face of extinction. Mankind will fight, but Cortana has convinced him that its defeat is all but assured.
Interestingly, while you might be expecting a villainous turn from the secretive Ackerson, this episode allows us to see the human side of a guy with more dodgy secrets than J. Edgar Hoover. The imperfect clones that he’s been sending in to keep Halsey company turn out to be that of his sister, Julia, who apparently died during being augmented as part of the Spartan programme and we also see him visiting his alzheimers ridden father who still has enough clarity to ask that his son makes sure that he isn’t taken alive when the invasion comes. Elsewhere, the usual and unnecessary segue to the goings on on Rubble also now seems relevant, as Kwan Ha and Soren’s wife are en route to – you guessed it – Reach in order to save the captive pirate to guarantee that absolutely everyone and their dog is on the targeted planet when disaster inevitably hits.
It’s strange that an episode with almost no action in it whatsoever turns out to be the most exciting installment of the season so far and the sense of impending dread finally hauls the show out of the plodding rut it’s been stuck in. As Master Chief circles in on what’s actually going on, the motif of a strange beat that pops up numerous times during the episode is revealed to be a hidden Covenant message delivered by a gravelly, alien voice that I’m assuming is the Covenant big bad, the Arbiter. It’s essentially a statement of intent that reads simply “All puny humans are righteously fucked” and after getting the details from an understandably traumatised Perez, an almighty explosion rips through the window of the church where John has met with her.
Is this the attack on Reach finally starting, or is it yet another fake out from a show that’s trying to agonisingly draw out suspense for it’s big finish? Hopefully it’s the former as the upcoming battle really deserves to be a multi-episode affair, but whatever happens next, hopefully this gear change in storytelling continues as it finally shifts its immense bulk of congealed side stories in the correct direction.
While still resolutely in the realms of “good, not great”, Visegrad is a vast improvement and hopefully is a exciting sign that Halo is about to lock, load and give us the stuff we’re all craving as it belatedly extends its reach toward utter destruction.
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