REVIEW: ‘Halo’ Season 2 Episode 8 — “Halo”

The Halo Season 2 finale is here with the aptly named Episode 8, “Halo.” With two slow set-up episodes preceding it, the finale episode had a lot of ground to cover. And it mostly does. Not only does Halo Season 2 Episode 8 tie off every loose end it opened in the rest of the season, but it has laid a long runway for more of the video game lore to be explored. More importantly, it does this in a way that absolutely lands.

The series has been racing to this point since Season 1. Showrunner David Wiener has had to course-correct some elements, which makes the inevitable conflict for Halo more glacial than initially intended. That said, this season, we saw Reach fall; we had epic battles and emotional burials. And now, as the Covenant stands poised to lay claim to the Halo with Makee (Charlie Murphy) leading the Arbiter (Viktor Åkerblom) to it, humanity has to make a stand.

Last episode everyone drew their lines in the sand.  James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) betrayed Admiral Margaret Parangosky (Shabana Azmi). Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy) stood with John-117 (Pablo Schreiber) while Talia Perez encouraged the Master Chief to let the Spartans know he is fighting by their side. And with that, the climactic battle for the Halo begins. The Spartans are trying to avoid a suicide mission with Kai at their head. Meanwhile, John is pushing forward to Makee to stop her and the Arbiter from claiming the Halo.

At the same time as the battle, an even more pressing issue unfolds at Thermopylae. Dr. Miranda Keyes (Olive Gray) has awoken spores in the ancient civilization she and Dr. Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone) escaped from. In an opening aligning with the best outbreak horror, we see the ancient biological horror that Miranda and Dr. Halsey have unknowingly unleashed: The Flood.

For game fans, the arrival of The Flood isn’t just intriguing, but it sets up a whole new world for this live-action series to play in. A parasitic virus, The Flood washes over the research base. It turns those it infects violent and takes them over from the inside out. Turning people monstrous and violent, The Flood is even better on screen than anything we’ve seen in previous episodes. It’s adapted in a way that may not be truly faithful, but it carries an impact that makes me not really care about its narrative fidelity.

The virus’s arrival isn’t so much a shock as it fulfills Kwan Ha’s (Yerin Ha) visions throughout the season. While I’ve once again been slightly frustrated with the side stories in Halo Season 2—as I was in Season 1—I’ve come around on Kwan’s hallucinations. They have weight now. Halo Season 2 Episode 8 makes all of the choices I questioned earlier in the season make absolute sense.

On the action front, we see multiple fights. The UNSC researchers rip each other apart while infected by the virus. The infiltration of the Covenant ship mirrors the training simulation, which is fantastically shot and has some of the series’ best sound design. We see John 1v1, the Arbiter in his Master Chief armor, using his grappleshot to compensate for the height difference between the two.

But all of the battles have a weight to them. John has to make a fateful choice of where to fight and what orders to follow. While Perez (Cristina Rodlo) has been an awkward inclusion at times, her relationship with John pays off in Episode 8. When he dons the Master Chief helmet, it all feels earned. While some took issue with having John be out of his armor most of the season, Season 2 of the live-action series has made the choice to keep him out of uniform important. No longer just a stylistic choice, when Master Chief dons the helmet, it rouses a cheer. It means even more as Kai gets redemption for not being there for Reach and leaves Master Chief alone with his Silver Team.

The episode has a lot of action that is all shot with the video game in mind, but not crippled by it either. The plasma rifles’ purple glow and iconic sound ring through the enemy Covenant ship, and Chief’s fight with the Arbiter looks straight from the game in a good way. I mean, who doesn’t want to see the Chief walk out of a hallway surrounded by smoke and holding an energy sword?

Halo Season 2 Episode 8 mostly wipes the slate clean of its existing ensemble cast. It’s a stark ending for John and the people we’ve met along the way, but it leaves a clear runway for the future of Paramount+’s franchise. Spartans never die, but they do.

Outside of the action, Halo Season 2 finally lets the ship sail with Cortana and Master Chief reunited again. Having been betrayed by Makee because of her loyalty to the Chief, Cortana is on the verge of being killed as the Covenant ship is burning up in the planet’s atmosphere. John makes the choice not to leave anyone behind, and that includes Cortana. Taking Cortana into his suit again, we’re back with the OTP. Cortana is more than an AI. She knows and loves John, and the series’ dialogue lays that all out.

To end the season finale, however, we get a third act of an episode that directly references well-known images of Master Chief. John’s helmet in his hand, and the Halo’s greenery surrounding him, an energy sword in hand. the use of the lush natural landscape in the episode against the technology of war is beautiful to see.

Cortana tells John, “It all led you here. Everything you’ve been through, every battle you’ve survived.” This is a fantastic lead into the final act of the episode. It ultimately has large implications for the series’ future in Halo Season 3. As 343 Guilty Spark meets John in Halo, the episode ends with an infinite amount of potential. It has honored the video games but has had the courage to be its own sci-fi story, too.

Halo Season 2 Episode 8 is a strong finish to one of the best reboots a television series has in a long time. It declares John’s acceptance of Master Chief as an identity and ultimately brings the Halo rings into focus, setting up the series to be more in line with the video games. The future is bright for this series, with The Flood now in place.

Halo Season 2 is streaming now on Paramount+.