They should’ve let Master Chief keep his helmet on more. I’m telling you that up front, because as far as I’m concerned, hey, man, it was good enough for the Mandalorian, and it feels like that’s kind of the tone they’re going for, down to his voice and a lot of other things. I’m sorry, but I don’t need to see the actor. Let Master Chief be Master Chief.
This is Halo Season 1, Episode 2, “Unbound,” and this show has really taken me by surprise. It’s got a lot of twists and turns, and in this episode I was really, really excited for where the story’s going.
I like the moral quandary he’s in. I also feel like they’ve taken us a step back from some of the things we knew in the video games. I’ve done a little bit of research since last week, and, spoilers obviously, they’re introducing Cortana, and how they handle some of that is going to be interesting to see. In the games there was enough drama in how Cortana breaks down over time, and in Master Chief having cryo-slept through some of his experiences. So seeing how they marry him to her, I fully believe either we jump forward in time at the end of the season, or that’s coming later, because they’re going to have to have that mentality moving forward. They’re building to big things.
Five Minutes at the Fence Line
The episode begins with a flashback, and it’s of a young Spartan. John, specifically. Spartan-117. He stops off at the bunk of Spartan-066, grabs a gun, sneaks out, and goes to the fence line, where we find the young Spartan labeled 066 sneaking out himself. He’d wanted John to sneak out with him. He’s running away.
John starts reading the party line off to him, and the kid’s like, look, man, you should come with me. Ultimately John lets him go. Gives him five minutes. That’s going to become important a little later. Dude takes off.
Then we cut to the current age, the current Master Chief, in what’s called slipspace. The ship is surrounded by something like a bubble as it goes through space. At one point he tries to explain it, and Kwan’s like, you’re ruining it, please stop. There’s a lot going on in his own head, and he’s trying to take her someplace where he believes they’re going to be safe.
Keep It Above Board
We jump back to UNSC headquarters, FLEETCOM specifically. Halsey’s on a balcony having a conversation with the admiral. The big admiral, the big head chief guy of all the military, an older gentleman. He more or less trusts her, and he’s supporting her in trying to get John back. He’s like, look, you handle things the way you need to handle them, just make sure you do it above board. Keep it real simple.
Then we cut to the Spartans in the control center, and one of them’s like, I don’t understand what’s going on. They’re starting to realize that if their leader is questioning things, if Master Chief is acting irregular, why? I think that’s a good mentality for them to have. These big strapping soldiers, all twice the size of anybody else, are the ones being put in charge of bringing in Master Chief, the best of them. It’s an interesting endeavor.
A Web of Rocks and a Stack of Boxes
Master Chief and Kwan drop out of slipspace into a big giant meteor cluster. They navigate it somewhat deftly until they arrive at this place, a series of meteors all attached by giant cabling, so it creates a sort of web. It’s neat. I like it. Very, very sci-fi.
When they get where they’re going, Master Chief and Kwan step out into the main hall, and the place looks like something straight out of Total Recall, the Arnold Schwarzenegger version. There’s smoke, there’s people, and everyone’s like, oh, it’s a Spartan, it’s a Spartan, and they’ve got guns and stuff.
So these guys put a giant stack of boxes smack in his path. And you can’t even see his face, which, by the way, is why they need to keep him in the helmet. I feel like we can conjecture an awful lot from his performance. And I’m sorry, this guy’s not anywhere near the actor that Pedro Pascal is.
Master Chief proceeds to just move the whole thing over. It’s hilarious, because it’s a giant machine and he just moves it. It’s brilliant.
That’s when a much older Spartan-066 shows up. He’s Soren, and he’s played by Bokeem Woodbine. Bokeem Woodbine I’m a big fan of, and I like seeing him stretch and do these kinds of roles. I’m a big fan of what he’s doing in this whole thing. Apparently he had some deformity that was a result of the Spartan training or whatever else. He walks up, he’s like, hey, welcome to the place, and he brings him in and shows him around.
The Cables, and the Kid
As they’re walking, Soren’s asking him, hey, what’s going on, what’s happened? And you start to realize there’s a whole lot more to this place. They take an elevator down to this car thing, almost like a train car. They get in, and it goes almost Indiana Jones style, a roller coaster, up and down and around, until it comes to an opening and bursts into open air, where the thing pops out and latches onto the cable.
From open air they eventually get out into open space, and now you see why the cables exist. The cables take people to their individual meteors. You can probably own one of the meteors, or lay claim to it. He parks it right in the bay, and that’s where they’re greeted by his wife and child.
John’s somewhat taken aback by this. Master Chief’s like, wait a minute, I thought we couldn’t have kids.
The One Who Got Away Draws a Circle
We cut over to the alien space brain stem place, also known as High Charity, or the forward position for the Covenant. They’re in their throne room thing, questioning the one Covenant guy who survived the cave in the previous episode. The one who got away. The Spartans tried to pursue him and that wasn’t able to happen.
The Blessed One, their sort of albino-looking human, asks him: and you saw him do the same thing I do? Oh yeah, absolutely, he did the same thing. What was it? He describes it exactly, and he draws the circle. The Halo they’re all searching for.
This is funny. In my research, and spoilers for what might be the storyline, who knows, in the games I guess the Covenant thinks they’re looking for the Forerunners, or something along those lines. They’re looking for their technology, or looking for them, and when they eventually find them it’s not what they think. I think that’s brilliant, and I hope we do something along those lines with the show. That would be really interesting.
She decides she needs to go herself. Find this person, see this person. She has a conversation with her overlords, and she’s like, look, you guys saved me, I’m not going anywhere. And the answer is, you understand you’re that valuable. We’re starting to understand that they need these Blessed Ones, human beings with the genetic ability to tap into Forerunner technology. I’m actually really impressed with this whole thing. It’s very high sci-fi, which, if you know anything about the Halo series, makes total sense.
Halsey Puts Cortana on the Table
At UNSC fleet command they’re having a big meeting about how to bring him back and how to put him under control, and Halsey takes the opportunity to put the Cortana program forward.
Don’t get me wrong, the admiral’s not happy. She’s not happy in the least. Admiral Parangosky is not a happy woman. She’s played by Shabana Azmi, and Shabana Azmi is doing really good work as that admiral who’s like, man, people are going to try to give me a hard time. It’s just really good.
One of the other command people had been like, well, I thought this program was based on technology that’s illegal, which is flash cloning. Flash cloning being, you grow a clone really quickly. So the fleet commander, the one Halsey was talking to, looks over and asks Parangosky, are you on board? And she’s like, yeah. Short leash. He goes, okay, cool, I’m going to leave it to you to figure out the logistics.
Which basically means we need to fix this. I don’t care about what she’s saying in terms of stuff being illegal. I want this fixed, and if that means you’ve got to fudge the numbers, then do that. That’s really what I’m getting.
Madrigal Has a New General
Back on the planet Madrigal, we get our first look at the new guy who’s replaced the old general, also known as Kwan Ha’s dad. He’s sympathetic to the UNSC. He’s made a deal with the UNSC. And he’s executing the old general’s people, just boldly executing them. Then he looks up and shoots a camera, and you find out Kwan was watching the feed off that camera.
Those Weren’t Treatments
Back in the meteors, Soren’s wife is very sympathetic, because apparently the Covenant destroyed her planet. There’s a point of connectivity there, and I see her trying to bridge that gap.
Soren offers John food, and John’s like, yeah, I don’t really taste anything. That’s because the Spartans were put through what he calls treatments. Soren’s like, yeah, no, those weren’t treatments. Those pellets enhance field focus, military focus, and dull everything else. Sense of taste, emotion, everything. It makes you numb. And now that’s changed somehow.
The admiral also has a brief encounter with Dr. Keyes. Dr. Keyes is like, look, I’m the one who’s supposed to be handling alien technology, I don’t know what’s going on, Halsey shouldn’t be doing that, she takes all the money. And the admiral’s like, look, I’m done being manipulated for the day. You need to calm down and deal with it. I’m done.
Blood in Your Eyes
John explains the Covenant device to Soren, and Soren recommends they go visit somebody who’d been captured by the Covenant. He’s sort of a crazy, wild-eyed guy, a really interesting character, and he explains to them that the Covenant has Blessed Ones. They were kidnapping human beings.
Obviously there’s a bigger connection happening here, which is that human beings clearly share a lineage, genetically, with the Forerunners. The Covenant doesn’t. So they need humans. Whether they’re out to conquer them or not, they definitely need them.
And that’s when the dude’s like, I can tell it’s you. Blood’s in your eyes. You’ve got the same look she does. Then he slaps the thing into John’s hand, and boom, you see the ring, you see everything light up, the whole bit. And he explains: this is a weapon. This is something that can utterly change the universe the way the Covenant wants.
The World’s Getting Too Big for Him
John makes a decision immediately. No thought involved. He starts leaving, and Soren’s like, what are you doing, where are you going? Look, man, I have to go back.
Soren tries to dig at him a little bit. Oh, you’re going back because Halsey, this and that. And the truth is, that’s all John knows, man. The world’s getting too big for him and he needs clarity. He needs focus again.
He makes Soren promise: hey, watch out for Kwan, make sure she’s safe. Then he leaves and turns on his beacon, and the UNSC pulls him in. He’s in handcuffs, obviously, and Halsey comes to visit him in the brig. She asks him, why did you come back? What was it about her? And he’s like, I don’t know. I don’t normally feel anything. This is all alien to me. I don’t know who else to trust.
So she knows she’s got him.
Yeah, man, there’s a lot of big things happening in this episode, and they’re laying the groundwork in a really big, bad way. I’m excited for it. Heck, even my dad asked if I’d seen this Halo show. So he’s excited too.
The Verdict
Halo Season 1, Episode 2, “Unbound,” is a 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. Nine out of ten.
I like everything they’re doing in this episode. That nine is for good, solid storytelling more than action or anything else, and I was really happy with the storytelling. There’s not a whole lot of use or need for a bunch of CGI here, so there wasn’t really much to criticize there. But at the end of the day the story itself is very tight. Very tight. I see the threads, I like where everything’s going, and the pacing is nice too. To me that deserves a nine out of ten, period.
They’re doing good things, and I can’t wait to see where this goes. Paramount Plus has already said they’re going to renew this for a second season, which is great, so we know for a fact that they’re excited about it. I’m excited about it. I can’t wait for next week.
Let me know what you think of this one, and whether you need Chief back under that helmet as badly as I do. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
