Attain has fallen within the Halo TV universe. If you understand something in regards to the lore of the Halo video games, you understand that the subsequent factor that’s speculated to occur is Grasp Chief escaping from Covenant forces above Attain, his ship getting attacked, after which promptly crashing onto the collection’ first Halo ring. In different phrases, that is mainly the second the place the motion begins. That’s not what occurred within the Halo TV collection. As an alternative, Chief (Pablo Schreiber) and his buddies took a reflective tour to a backwater planet that felt much more like a detour than character growth.
After escaping Attain, Chief and everybody else on the escape ship with him (which is mainly the entire still-living collection regulars apart from Kate Kennedy’s Kai), go to Aleria, a small grime farming planet with loads of land to spare and almost poisonous soil. After an episode as large and thrilling because the Fall of Attain, this seems like a really HBO-style respite: the sort of episode devoted to taking inventory of the characters we misplaced and inspecting the brand new form of the world after a giant shake-up. However these reveals earn these reflective episodes with constant high quality earlier than them, they usually are inclined to make these quiet episodes really feel ever greater and extra essential than the loud ones. That was definitely not the case in Halo season 2’s fifth episode.
In protection of the Halo collection’ total premise, it has no obligation to comply with the occasions of the video games instantly. For the reason that present’s announcement, the artistic group behind it has been cautious to specify that this collection takes place within the “Silver Timeline,” which is totally separate from the canon of the video games. So going someplace apart from Halo after the Fall of Attain isn’t actually an issue. The issue is that the present as soon as once more fails probably the most primary and essential take a look at of doing attention-grabbing issues with these modifications.
The collection appears satisfied that the viewers loves and cares about its facet characters. However they’re simply not attention-grabbing. Throughout this episode probably the most coherent plotline we spend time with includes Soren (the fantastic Bokeem Woodbine, attempting his finest as all the time) and his spouse trying to find their youngster. We see them query varied folks across the village, and even discover somebody they suppose is maintaining their child from them. However by the tip of the episode, they uncover that he was truly kidnapped by the UNSC — a company we nearly completely know at this level because the navy that loves kidnapping kids. It’s a bland, “no shit” reveal that feels each too apparent and completely meaningless on the identical time. One other of the episode’s plotlines includes Riz, a Spartan who was launched only a few episodes in the past, deciding that she desires to be a farmer now that she is simply too injured to be a Spartan.
With plotlines this boring, about characters that the present by no means actually does a very good job of convincing us to care about, it’s getting awfully onerous to not lengthy for the round perfection and alien weirdness of the Halo rings that give this franchise its identify. So why aren’t we there but?
The reply appears to lie within the Halo present’s strategy to the rings generally. The collection clearly acknowledges one of many nice strengths of the primary recreation was that Halo was profoundly mysterious. However the present is approaching that thriller in a really totally different means than the unique recreation did.
For the sport, the thriller of Halo was in how little data you had about each the alien ring and the online game’s world. Apart from the essential premise of humanity being on the again foot in a conflict in opposition to aliens, nearly all the pieces else was a black field. So if you crash-land on Halo within the recreation’s second stage (a stage additionally referred to as “Halo”), the trail is obvious for the sport to slowly reveal its secrets and techniques about Forerunners, the Covenant faith, the Flood, 343 Responsible Spark, and all the pieces else that feels commonplace within the collection right this moment. The TV collection, alternatively, determined to make Halo a vacation spot. As an alternative of giving us no lore, it’s been stacking up piles and piles of lore by its first two seasons and dangling the Halo ring in entrance of his by way of characters’ prophetic visions. This path to Halo isn’t inherently unhealthy; a well-done buildup and reveal could make for a implausible second in a TV present. However just like the Hatch in Misplaced, the hot button is that it’s a must to present the viewers why the factor is mysterious and essential — it’s a must to actually show it to us, not simply have characters bombard us with insistent dialogue that it issues. And extra importantly, the characters truly need to get into it will definitely.
None of that is to say that the present has run out of time to make it to Halo, and even that it may’t be good as soon as it will get there. However it’s to say that the journey there up to now has felt profoundly misjudged and means too sluggish, and it’s beginning to really feel prefer it may not occur in any respect. On this episode, Makee (Charlie Murphy) tries to persuade the Arbiter to go to the Halo rings as a result of she insists that the Prophets are mendacity in regards to the Nice Journey, telling the remainder of the Covenant fanciful tales about its significance and transcending the bodily realm, however by no means truly planning to take them alongside on their journey to divinity. Now, I’m not saying that the Halo collection is the Prophets and we’re the remainder of the Covenant, however I’m saying that our lack of a journey to a Halo ring is beginning to really feel a bit suspicious, they usually’re working out of time to persuade me we’re actually going.