Halo Episode 6, “Solace,” isn’t even as action-packed as the last one, and so much happens. I know I’ve been saying “this episode is great” a lot lately, but I’m telling you, the Halo show is really firing on all cylinders. You get all kinds of backstory, you see all kinds of new stuff, and I think you understand where the show is going.
The official line on it: survivors from battle return to Reach. John confronts Dr. Halsey and the lies of his past. The new prisoner seems to know John better than he knows himself. Determined to understand more, John turns back to the mystery artifact, which shows him something truly startling.
This may very well be another amazing episode, right in line with last week. The only detriment last week’s episode had, and I still gave it a 10 out of 10, was the storyline with Soren and Kwan. This episode doesn’t suffer from that. They totally dropped that storyline for this one. I’m sure there’s a reason, and I’m positive we’ll get back to it next time or whatever.
John Tests the Leash
It opens on John, still in the Spartan armor, all banged up and bloody and nasty looking. He’s just sitting there, very melancholy. He looks up at one point and sees Halsey packing some things, and she looks over at him, and you can tell his mind’s working. Then out of nowhere a hand grabs his, and it’s Kai. The other Spartans are all there, holding her down, trying to tranquilize her because of her injuries, and she’s struggling. It definitely takes a Spartan to hold down a Spartan. And John is just floating in his own thoughts.
We cut over to Miranda, who’s checking out Makee and her injuries. At some point Chief stands up, walks out and goes looking for the captain, and while he’s walking he gets these flashes, these thoughts and remembrances. He’s really ruminating on this whole thing, and he clearly has ideas about what he wants to see happen.
When they arrive at Reach, you see them unloading UNSC bodies, and Captain Keyes is still very much of the mindset that John saved their lives. Then you get this shot of Halsey going into a section of her laboratory, and all of a sudden John’s there. He locks Halsey in her lab and jams something in the door.
Cortana shows up and she’s like, what are you doing, why did you lock Halsey in? And the whole time I’m sitting here going, what’s going on, and he’s just rattling off facts. Apparently the guy who invented some of the systems on the ship forgot to fix one thing, and that’s the UV decontamination system. It doesn’t register that someone’s in there. He learned it the hard way. He died rather gruesomely.
It’s so funny, because apparently Chief knows quite a bit that people don’t realize. When you’re dealing with something like the Spartan setup, information’s power. It’s innocuous knowledge, and he just has it.
So he activates the system, and Halsey realizes, oh my goodness, she’s stuck. The decon system is going to run a test while she’s in there, and she’ll die. Cortana’s like, Master Chief, what are you doing? And he’s like, what do you think I’m doing? We’re going to see, once and for all.
She tells him he can let her out right now. And he’s like, oh yeah? Why don’t you stop me. Make me do it. Take control of my body. She says, I can’t do that, I wasn’t built for that. I can only shut you down. I can’t do what you think.
And the countdown is going lower and lower and lower.
Normally in sci-fi you get the countdown, the classic trope. You saw it in Galaxy Quest and you see it in everything ever. It gets down close to one and then you save the day. Nope. John’s waiting, and he waits until it gets to zero, and then bam, he unlocks the thing, tosses Halsey out and slams the door shut. He looks at her and he’s like, don’t thank me yet. I just wanted to see the limitations of your AI.
He’s the Master Chief for a reason, bro. This guy’s the guy. Think about that for a second. He pushed it to the limit, and what he’s telling Halsey is, I’m just not going to play your game, but I had to make sure I understood how much control the AI actually had. Talk about a beast move.
Everybody Wants a Scapegoat
Makee’s being looked at and checked out, and then you get this meeting between the heads, or the council if you will. The council comes out flat and says, yeah, we don’t trust Master Chief. We don’t trust any of this stuff. There’s a significant problem here, and clearly someone has said something, because they’re looking to blame somebody for the failure of what’s happened.
Then there’s an interrogation scene where Chief meets Makee for the first time. They sit down and she proceeds to tell him, we’re the same, you and I are alike. He asks where they’d take the artifact, and she tells him it’s somewhere in the Helios system, I believe. I’ve got to double check that. Either way, that’s where she says they would have taken it.
From there we explode into a busy command center, people going around, and Keyes is like, I want to know where this thing is, and he’s ordering people around. It’s very exciting. And Master Chief is in the artifact room trying to understand what it is Makee knows, and whether she’s right.
We let that moment sit in the air and come back to Halsey, who’s being questioned by an attorney. Then we get a quick glimpse of Captain Keyes and the admiral in these little reclining chair things. (Yeah, that’s right, I just tried to recline in my chair. Weird. Whatever.) They have these little things on their foreheads that let them be in the room, getting a bird’s eye view of the whole scenario, and they’re really worried Halsey’s going to give them up.
Chief shows up at the door, and they tell him there’s an inquisition going on. He says, I need the room. You heard Master Chief. Get out. So the guy gets up and leaves, and Chief sits down, and Halsey looks at him and says, ask your question. And he says, tell me the truth. What happened, and why?
Before she answers, we get a brief glimpse of Miranda, who walks in and sees Keyes and the admiral listening, and she plugs into the same thing. Her dad tells her, you’re not authorized for this, and the admiral’s like, shut up.
That’s when Halsey tells Chief the whole story, specifically about the clones and how they were set to die at a certain point. You see Halsey as having the classic warped mad scientist mentality that says the ends justify the means. It’s the whole Star Trek adage, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. She’s like, yeah, this happened in order to save everyone, and you’re the end result, and everyone’s going to know that I was right. She’s trying to manipulate and control the situation, not realizing she really has no control at all.
And John says, yeah, I am going to do this. I’m going to do exactly what I’m supposed to do. But not with you. And he leaves.
Miranda walks away from her father with tears in her eyes, and she’s outside the door as Chief walks by in the hall. She tries to tell him she’s sorry, and they have a moment. He walks down the hall and he’s really, really upset. At some point he starts to hyperventilate, and he gets behind one of the little pillars just trying to breathe.
A little further in, we see a conversation between Master Chief and Kai-125, and he tells her the truth. She asks about the others, and he says, when they’re ready to hear it. Then he tells her, listen, I need you to get better, because I’m going to need you. And I’m like, okay, good. He didn’t ground her completely. He’s going to work with her, and that’s wonderful.
Halsey Gets Shelved
Halsey walks in on the admiral, who’s overlooking the command center. We’ve seen them talk in this same place before. Halsey’s like, well, those theatrics went well, again thinking she knows everything. And the admiral’s like, yeah, it’s not theatrics. They want a scapegoat. So we have a solution. I’m taking you off the Spartan project, and I’ve set you up a nice little lab at a specific location.
Remember, after the series got started I went on YouTube and watched all the cinematic movies people put together from the games. I’ve also played a couple of the games in the past, but not much, not enough to be really familiar with the overall story. I’ve literally played like one level of Halo Infinite, the one where he wakes up and Cortana’s sort of getting sick and he has to go help do the thing, and that was a test version or whatever. That’s about it.
But my understanding is that in the game history, this exact type of thing happened to Halsey. Like I said before, it’s like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel’s following the comic books to a point, but it’s its own version of the same story. I think that’s exactly what we’re doing here.
Halsey still has both of her arms. In the games, at a certain point, a much older Halsey with silver hair has one arm. I’m thinking we’re eventually going to get to one-arm Halsey. My belief is they’re going to step her out of the thing, and you’re going to have a stretch of time where she’s not involved. And I do believe we’re going to get a time jump at some point in future seasons. I absolutely believe it. Mark my words right now. Eventually we’re going to get a time jump, and you’re going to see older Halsey, silver hair, possibly with the blue and white jacket from last time, one arm, in a secret base where everyone forgot she was, continuing research of her own. That’s what happened in the games, and I believe they’re going to do some variation on that same story.
At this point, though, the admiral is sending her there. They’re getting their scapegoat, and someone more responsible is going to take over her research. Halsey says, Miranda? And the admiral’s like, yeah, she’s going to get the promotion she should have gotten a long time ago, the one you denied her. Then she has Halsey taken away and her clearances revoked. It’s insane.
Two in a Billion
Chief, by the way, is in really rough shape.
There’s a brief moment where Miranda’s with Makee. She tells her they’re going to get her some clothes, and then she walks Makee through the scenario that Makee caused. One of our ships was attacked by a corvette like yours. Everybody was butchered. We have one transmission with a female voice, and I’m going to have it brought over so you can tell me if my translation is correct. That’s Makee who was talking. That’s from the earlier episode with all the little tentacle thingies.
Master Chief begins to feel a certain way. He stalks over to a ship, sticks his arm in one of the medical things and asks for a quick scan, and you find out he’s not well. The computer tells him he needs to go get help. But not before he sees a vision of Kwan, and Kwan’s like, what are you doing? He looks around. He’s losing it for sure.
Back at the command center, the admiral and everybody else are still looking for this thing. She asks Captain Keyes, have you found it? And he says no, there’s nothing there. The entire system’s empty.
There’s a quick interjection where Kai-125 rejoins the Spartans and they’re all looking over some stuff. Then you see the first time Miranda walks into her lab. She goes to one of the main control centers to look up some blood work, and all of a sudden on the screen you see giant words: SEE ME. That’s right. Even from her cell (cell, I say, quote unquote), Halsey manages to get a message out.
So she gets a visit from Miranda, and she tells her, look, I don’t know what you expected from me. And it’s the truth. What did you expect? She says, “I don’t believe in this familial construct,” which is a thing sciencey people say to sound intelligent. At the end of the day, there’s nothing more scientific than the biology of family, and it’s something you can actually quantify.
After Miranda leaves, Halsey calls her assistant over and takes out a contact lens. I’m assuming she scanned something from Miranda, probably her retinal scan, something that would give her a way in.
Then it’s Miranda and Master Chief in the lab. It’s the same lab where the two suits of mithril (no, Mjolnir, that’s the word I’m looking for), the Mjolnir armor, Mark One and Two, are sitting as well. She’s found a DNA marker in his genes, and she tells him, this is the only thing that’s unique to you and Makee. I’m not saying this is the holy grail, but it’s the only thing you two have that nobody else does. They’re two in a billion. That’s how remote this genetic marker is. I think a lot of this speaks to our connection to the Forerunners, the people who created the Halo, or what they’re calling the Halo.
So he goes and has a conversation with Makee, and midway through it he stumbles back and starts to fall. She starts describing what he’s going through, and he’s like, how do you know that? And she says, because that’s what I went through. She explains that she used the stone to find the other stone. And you can see him thinking, aha.
The Cortana I Want on My Shelf
Back to Halsey, who’s having a conversation, and all of a sudden you see her little teeny holo thing, and what do you get? A tiny little Cortana. It’s the same one we’ve seen in the games, the little teeny one on the little stand. She’s not full-blown emitting anymore. She’s on this little thing, and it’s a very reminiscent Easter egg, because that’s usually how we see her in the games. About the size of a Hot Toy.
I would love to see the Cortana Hot Toy that comes on the little holo display, especially if they can make it semi-transparent. Let’s go, Hot Toys. Accept that challenge.
And of course Cortana found a way in. She tells the assistant, I can give you a patch for the pinhole I made, and dude’s super offended. There’s no pinhole in my code! Whatever. Cortana is awesome, period.
The Ring
Chief tells Miranda everything Makee said, and she’s like, are you sure? What if she’s fooling you? And he says, I’ve got to try.
Sure enough, he goes into the room and they connect. While they connect, Cortana tells Dr. Halsey this is happening, and you get this sequence where Halsey immediately brings up Makee’s stats, brings up Chief’s stats, and overlays them. They’re the same. Halsey realizes right then that they’re interconnected through a mental link.
And with this loud crescendo, the two of them find themselves in a very unfamiliar landscape. To either side of them, you see the land go up into a curve. They’re on the habitat ring, which is the Halo, where people live. They notice one another, they come closer, and they understand fully that this is something very, very different.
Then they wake up, and we roll credits.
There you go. Now you know. And if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
Where This Is Going
How stupid fast was that? The episode zips by.
So what’s the Know-It-All Index for this week? I like where they’re going. I like what they’re doing with the show. It’s a compelling story, I don’t feel like it’s cheap, and I feel like you can still fold in the future events we know about from the games. There’s so much story to open up. All they did was take a step back. I believe they started the story just a hair earlier than the games did, on purpose, and I think we’re eventually going to get to a place where Master Chief, like I said, moves through time, going into cryosleep or whatever else.
I’m actually not too worried about what’s going on with Kwan and Soren at the moment. That whole storyline was a little bit boring, to be honest. But I’m very much invested in what’s happening right now, and I can’t wait to see the next one.
Your turn. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one, especially if you’re someone who’s not super familiar with the games, like I wasn’t. Tell me what you think it all means, because there’s nothing more fun than theory crafting. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
