John’s out for revenge. Kai’s just looking for the truth. And Makee turns to the only help she’s possibly got in this scenario, and that’s Cortana.

This is Halo Season 2, Episode 6, titled “Onyx.” John seeks revenge on a secret ONI planet. Perez, remember her, trains to become a new kind of soldier. Kai finds herself torn between her Spartan code and her loyalty to Master Chief. And Makee turns to Cortana to help in her search for the Halo.

When we get into this episode, it’s full tilt. We’ve done the character building, we’ve done all those aspects. But have we? Because there’s a whole new character finally being brought into the fold in terms of development, and that’s Kai. We haven’t seen much of Kai this season, because we’ve been dealing a lot with what John’s had to go through. That’s John-117, by the way, also known as the Master Chief.

A New Kind of Spartan, in Air Quotes

Post the fall of Reach, we pick up where we left off last episode. Remember, I said it was like the Clone Wars. Kai walks out, clearly she’s in charge, and we don’t know what’s going on. A whole new kind of soldier.

We open this episode with a mission already happening, and these special new soldiers refer to each other as Spartans. “Spartans, on me.” Now clearly they’re not Spartan Spartans, because it’s all a bunch of really nervous kids. The mission is they’re going to launch through space at a Covenant ship, land physically on the hull, blow a hole in it, and get to their objective.

This is where we find Perez. She’s on this team, and she’s opted to train for this new type of program. ONI has enlisted Kai to train the next generation of Spartans. I say Spartans with air quotes, because there was a whole lot more to Spartan development than just training. Training is a major part of it, but I feel like Halsey made a major dent in half the work when she genetically augmented them. We’re talking about muscle enhancers, the training, the focus, the whole nine yards. Being a Spartan is a lot more than advanced training. It’s a way of life. It’s one of those things where you have to sit there and say, okay, how do we get rid of an individual’s humanity? That’s how you make a Spartan.

They fail. And we’re in Perez’s first-person perspective almost the whole time, so it’s very uncomfortable, and it’s designed that way, because we’re literally in her helmet. I feel like they must have set up two small GoPros inside the helmet as they were filming, because from any angle you’re just getting those two angles on her.

By the time they get out, you find out it’s all part of this ONI training. It’s all simulator. The idea Kai puts forward is, okay, we can’t get to a Covenant ship by ourselves. But if we can get a group of individual Spartans through their system, it’s harder for them to aim at smaller, tiny targets. And what’s smaller than a human being?

“You Keep Saying That”

Then you have this brief meeting where Parangosky is meeting up with the dirtbag running ONI. She’s got intelligence that someone’s seen Halsey, and he’s like, do you know how many Halsey sightings there are? And she says, really? How many of them are accompanied by the largest man they’ve ever seen in life?

He gets real serious, real quick. “It’s not possible.”

“You keep saying that.”

He’s trying to play it off, but the truth is he’s got no clue. Yeah, absolutely John’s going to be there. And what do we do? Smash cut to John, pulling the thing off of his face and looking around. He’s there, man. He’s on Onyx.

Onyx is where the Spartans were trained at an early stage of their development. Later on you get a moment with Kessler’s dad, who’s still out looking for his kid, because that’s the storyline, and it’s really just an excuse to get these characters out of our face for most of the episode. But toward the end you see where he goes. They get into a specific place, and as he walks in, it’s the place he escaped from when he was a kid. It sounds like Kessler’s been taken to where the Spartans were originally trained, the specific location, the camp itself.

Halsey Goes Underground

The storyline is John’s there, he says he’s there for Parangosky, and what you end up with is, dude, he allows himself to get captured.

Halsey, meanwhile, goes off with Kwan Ha, because Halsey’s got ulterior motives as always. She starts heading toward where she knew her research was, the artifacts and all of it. While they’re underground she’s going turn for turn, the whole bit, and they get to a place and she says this isn’t meant to be here. This shouldn’t be here. She knows what it is, but it shouldn’t be there.

Kwan looks around and she still sees the ghost of that old lady, the shamanist lady from the very beginning of the season. That lady directs her, tells her go this way, and they get a roundabout way of getting to where they were trying to go.

And it’s Halsey’s daughter from last season. Halsey’s all, what are you doing, these people shouldn’t be here, because Halsey was the one who compartmentalized the information so it’d be less dangerous. Her daughter says, “Your work has been very valuable to all of us. Without your research, I never would have been able to discover your mistake.”

Now, there’s a ring. If I remember my game correctly, I think that’s a teleport. I think it’s an entry point, a way either to get to the Halo or to get someplace that’ll take you to the Halo. I’m not super familiar with the games, and I’ve done some research since. If I’m not mistaken, there were portals, areas where you had to go to this place to find the doorway to get to that place, to find the doorway to get to the next one, and it back-and-forths you until eventually you get to the Halo.

Makee Can’t Reach It

Then we jump to the ship where Makee is, and the Arbiter, and there’s a priest on the ship giving them all kinds of crap. Why can’t we find out where we’re going? What’s happening? How come I can’t reach the hierarch? And the answer he gets is that the mission requires silence.

The truth is Makee can’t access the artifact anymore. She thought Cortana could help her triangulate how to get where they’re going, to the Halo. But Makee can’t access it, and she realizes her connection to John is the problem. That’s when Cortana tells her, hey, I could always reach out and get him to come in his direction.

Six Guys and One Latch

John gets to where he’s going in terms of the base, because he gets captured on purpose. The really mouthy lieutenant from way back in Episode 2 shows up again. And as they’re strapping him in, because he’s literally harnessed in by about six guys, one of them manages to get a latch on, and he just rips the thing up and proceeds to hand every single one of these guys their butts, teaching them their place in the grand scheme of things.

I’m telling you, it’s amazing. It is a takedown unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

That’s when he comes face to face with Kai, because just a few minutes earlier the dirtbag revealed to Kai that Master Chief is here, and she gets sent in. He thinks he’s looking for Parangosky. Who knows what he’s looking for. Ultimately he and Kai have an encounter, and Kai whoops him down, because he’s not 100 percent.

My whole thing is, where’s your armor, bro? Where’s the armor? Get your armor on. What is happening here?

Kai Asks the Question

While he’s laying there, Kai goes back to her simulator, and that’s when the dirtbag shows up wanting to know what’s going on. She corners him. “Chief says you knew about Reach. Is that true?” She’s staring him dead in his eyes. And he says what happened on Reach was inevitable.

She changes the scene from the simulation we saw Perez in earlier to the simulation of Reach, the same hallway scene from the beginning of the season. They come out of it and she realizes. He tells her he’s already sent black ops to handle it, and she rushes out.

That’s the last time we see her this episode. I’m hoping she’s going to rejoin him and say, I’m really sorry, bro, sorry I beat you down. I don’t think she would’ve got the best of him if he was in the full setup and fully healed. I think we need a fully healed, fully realized Chief back as soon as humanly possible.

That’s what you’ve got to do, though, with a character like Chief. You’ve got to nerf him to make the whole rest of the thing make sense. And thank you, by the way, to those of you in the comment section from last week. Absolutely, they’re telling a different story, and I’m down. I’m here for the character-driven story they’re giving us. But I’m ready for him to be back in the armor. Just saying.

Chief and Cortana, Together Again

While Chief’s down, suddenly there’s communication. Parangosky has a brief communication with Cortana, and Cortana is so good she’s multitasking. She’s dealing with Makee, she’s hacked the Covenant computer, and it’s communicating out. I don’t think Makee knows, though there’s an argument to be made for Makee knowing and playing stupid. Cortana tells Parangosky what’s going on, and Parangosky says thank you, your mission is to continue.

Then she goes to him. Chief, you’ve got to get up. Wake up. And she explains flat out, you have to find the artifact.

So now he has a goal. His original goal was, well, maybe I kind of want to find Parangosky, and who knows what’s going on. That didn’t happen. Now he’s heading toward where the artifact is, and Cortana is shutting lights off, closing doors, the whole nine yards.

It’s so great to see them together, and to see them working together. I’m very, very psyched to have Chief with Cortana. Get him back in the suit and I’m happy. You’ve given me everything I wanted, and now we can go forward.

The Cut to Credits

Back on the ship with Makee, the priest shows up. She knows, we registered a communication, this and that. He says all you true believers are going to follow my lead, he draws his sword, and he starts taking over the ship. It’s the Arbiter’s ship, but the priest has some sort of a say.

And what you end up with is this moment where Makee on her ship is heading toward her artifact, Chief in the base is heading toward his artifact, and they touch it. We cut to credits.

I was like, oh, good stuff. Classic cliffhanger stuff. Good character beats. I’m overall really impressed with this episode, and I’m ready for them to keep moving in this trajectory. I love the storytelling, and I’m definitely here for the story they’re continuing to tell.

The Verdict

Halo Season 2, Episode 6, “Onyx,” lands at a solid 8.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.

For all of the coming together of the threads they’ve been laying, regardless of the quote-unquote filler episode last week, I firmly believe this episode took all those threads and gave us a very satisfying pull toward the end of the season. We’re carried now as if we’ve been launched through space.

Pros and cons? I don’t know that there’s many. I think this is an all-over, well-rounded episode. I feel like the Kessler storyline has moved to a C plot, and Kwan Ha has moved into the B plot with Halsey. I find that interesting, because anything having to do with Halsey ultimately supports the main story, and the main story is Chief’s story.

What did you think, and what’s your score? Are we vibing or are we jiving here? Tell me your pros and cons, and tell me how soon you need Chief back in the armor. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.