REVIEW: ‘Halo’ Season 2 Episode 3 — “Visegrad”

The two-episode premiere of Halo Season 2 showed off the new path the series is taking under new showrunner David Wiener. However, Halo Season 2, Episode 3, “Visegrad,”  capitalizes on its actors’ talents and starkly distances itself from the first season for the better.

The last episode ended with John questioning the UNSC more than ever and the realization that the Covenant had, in fact, made it to Reach with Makee (Charlie Murphy) leading them. Here, John-117 (Pablo Schreiber) and the Silver Team embark on a mission right in their own backyard. Only to find that the Master Chief’s orders weren’t sanctioned, leading Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy), Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac), and Vannak-134 (Bentley Kalu) to question John more than ever. Back at the Rubble, Laera (Fiona O’Shaughnessy), Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha), and Kessler (Tylan Bailey) must escape Soren-066’s (Tylan Bailey) mutinous crew and hopefully make it back to him.

The real meat of this episode is that the Covenant is on Reach, but the UNSC is ignoring it. The audience knows that John is right, but his team does not. With their emotional regulators gone, they don’t follow orders. Instead, John’s choice to put them on an unsanctioned mission raises alarm bells, especially when coupled with the fact that he told Kai that he saw Makee on his last mission. To them, Makee is a figment, a ghost. But the audience knows better, and apparently, so does John.

Captain Jacob Keyes (Danny Sapani) enacts James Ackerson’s (Joseph Morgan) gaslighting plan when the team is grounded from combat. Cobalt was never on Reach. They were never missing. And that causes doubt among all of the Silver Team. This season, the Spartans have more weight in the narrative. They can push back and question. It’s used to great effect in the story, especially as they and everyone else begin questioning the Master Chief. However, the Spartan who gets the most spotlight is still Riz.

Riz was initially searching for pain relief when she reached out to Louis-036 (Marvin Jones III) and his partner, the healer who helped her during the last episode. But with them, she’s found family and comfort. When she questions John and the team that was her family, she leans on them. Opens up to them. She’s in the process of finding herself in a more authentic way than Kai last season. Instead of losing herself, she’s searching to find herself and to find a life outside of being a Spartan.

On the other hand, Kai is trying to save her team. She appeals to Ackerson’s sensibilities, but instead of comfort, he offers reprimand. Kai is an earnest character. Everything she does comes from a place of wanting to make things better. But she is still a marine. She continues to seek out help in the form of the chain of command. This leads her to expose John’s seemingly mental break to Ackerson, the man who aims to have his wings permanently clipped.

This episode shows exactly why Joseph Morgan was cast in this role. He’s a coward in every way you can imagine. He leaves Reach to die and trusts Cortana’s (Jen Taylor/Christina Bennington) calculations so much that he refuses to see an out. He claims to love his family, to fight for it, and to seek justice. But how he leaves his father is heartbreaking.

Morgan plays Ackerson with an intimidating stillness, but he’s never emotionless, moving just beneath the surface. It’s a performance he mastered during his stint as Klaus in the Vampire Diaries universe, but it pays off in Halo Season 2 perfectly. We know that Ackerson is an antagonist, that he is a coward, and that he is bad in his selfishness. But the heart underneath all that makes him dynamic, even with the little time he spends on screen. When he antagonizes Keyes and Halsey, his sensitivity comes to the surface. He is stoic, but he is scared, and he’s sad too. That, balanced against his power and the cowardice with which he wields it, turns him into something threatening.

For John’s part, his size is paramount in this episode. He is made to stand heads and shoulders against everyone else, and the strength he wields matches. But Schreiber is also given the range in this episode to explore what it means to question reality, and this time with more grounded footing. The truth tortures him in a different way than last season, and it allows John to become something more than a soldier.

This season is Schreiber at his best, taking the character of John-117 down a grounded dramatic turn that firmly belongs in science fiction. If you can’t get the Master Chief created over 20 years ago, I’m glad we see an iteration rooted in its future instead of withering in the shadow of the past.

The Covenant is on Reach. The fall is imminent, and Ackerson is just accepting it. There is no fight to be had, just an evacuation of the powerful and acceptance of the fall. The reality is to escape while you leave a population to burn. This is where Keyes sets his line in the sand with the UNSC, “Go f__k yourself.” Halo Season 2 Episode 3 also expands General Keyes’ role. He is more prominent in commanding John but also more informative.

Halo Season 2 Episode 3 also shows Kwan Ha returns with a larger importance, taking care of Soren’s family. While still detached from the larger narrative on Reach, the detour to the Rubble isn’t meaningless. By situating the cutaways to Soren’s family and Kwan, the series uses her to build a bridge between the Rubble and Reach. She doesn’t lose her fighting prowess or her guilt for the loss of Madrigal. But it does chart a new path for who she is in the series context. She isn’t waiting for someone to save her; she is doing the saving.

The biggest issue of Halo Season 2 Episode 3 is that it’s unbearably dark. With such fantastic work on the Spartan suits, it’s a shame to get them lost in muddied cinematography as John’s Silver team searches for Cobalt. But even with that issue, the series is proving to be so much better than what came before.

That said, one of the smaller issues this season is choosing to use Corporal Perez and her family as a vehicle for John to find religion. It’s unsettling but matches what other science fiction series have done with Latino characters. However, the injection of Catholicism into Halo will never stop feeling out of place and shoehorned, not to mention stereotyped.

Halo Season 2 leans into the intrigue of sci-fi. Plus, it builds investment by leading with the Fall of Reach instead of stringing audiences along for the season. Halo Season 2 is shaping up to be infinitely better than the first (pun intended), and that’s captured in Episode 3. Far better than the premiere episodes, there is a mean edge to some of the character choices in “Visegrad” that turn the series into something comfortable in its skin.

It’s no longer chasing the 343 Industries high and instead exists for itself. The build-up to the Fall of Reach has been steady. The continued unmasking of the UNSC’s cowardice and role in the loss of life remains central. Closing on a bang of a cliffhanger, Halo’s second season is going places, and it’s going to be devastating.

Halo Season 2 Episode 3 is streaming now on Paramount+.