In the ancient world there’s a story about 300 Spartans who protected a pass at Thermopylae. It’s the place where they were honed, where they were tested, where their metal was put through the fire and purified. That’s what you get in this episode of Halo.
I can’t believe this week’s episode. I don’t know where you are in the whole Halo thing, but we’re absolutely spoiling it, because I want to talk about everything that’s going on.
This was the penultimate episode, the second to last. Generally speaking, in most things, this is where the story crests. Either the next episode is the downhill side of that crest and you get the resolution of everything that’s happened through the season, or this one is the setup for something huge. That’s what this episode was. It’s called “Thermopylae,” and it’s one of those episodes where they really worked to make the entire thing fit inside that particular story. It did a good job. I was pleasantly surprised by everything that’s happened so far.
By the way, thank you to everybody who’s been in the comment section. I see each and every one of you, and I really appreciate us having this discourse all season. I went into this thinking I was going to be the only person enjoying it, mainly because I heard so much Season 1 hate. It’s not like the game, this and that, all these criticisms which, while valid, were sort of harsh. I’m more of a believer that you give everything an opportunity and let it sit on its own, and this show has absolutely become that.
The Snake Eating Its Own Tail
The episode starts with the resolution of last week’s cliffhanger, John and Makee each with their hands on their own artifact. The moment it happens they’re on the Halo again, talking, and it’s a quick exchange. Each of them says essentially the same thing. We have to find this, because if the Covenant finds it they’ll kill humanity, and if humans find it they’ll kill the Covenant. It’s a whole snake eating its own tail scenario. And Makee is telling him that finding it does more than destroy. The Halo is much more than a weapon, and I’ve been doing more of my research, so hold that thought for the end.
Right as they’re coming to that conclusion, John sees through the hologram mist, if you will, that she needs to move, because she’s under attack. Sure enough, we cut back to the Covenant ship she’s on and some of the bigger soldiers are coming after her. The priest guy chases her down, and at the finish Cortana shows up and distracts him long enough for Makee to take her little energy sword and punch it right into this guy’s chest. Boom, you’re done. Then we cut back to John, and as he takes his hands off the artifact this energy wave issues forward through the entire place. It’s amazing.
What They Actually Trained the Spartan-IIIs For
There’s a very brief exchange between Ackerson and Parangosky where you find out she’s going to start throwing the Spartan-IIIs at the Covenant ships, because the Covenant fleet is coming. Ackerson pushes back, and she’s like, I thought you said they’re ready. Well, yeah. Her answer is basically that he figures them out and she figures out what to do with them.
Ackerson gets real suspicious. He goes down and runs a simulation on the spike, and come to find out, what they trained the Spartan-IIIs for isn’t exactly the right thing. They were told the spike gives the Covenant ships a virus that makes them all drop their shields and makes the fight easier. That’s not the case. No matter what, when they put the spike in, it’s going to send the drives into overload, and the explosion takes out something like 100 million miles in all directions. It’s ridiculous. It’s something stupid.
You Want Him Dead, You Do It Yourself
Cut to John stalking through the halls, and the lieutenant’s stupid face shows up again. We can’t stand her. This is literally the third time we’ve seen her. She shows up with a bunch of flunkies and she’s like, take him, he’s resisting, take him down. John literally took a step forward. It was hilarious.
So he walks right up to the first one, and this kid literally looks like a kid, and he puts his chest right in front of the dude’s barrel and tells him to go ahead, then. You’ve got to pull the trigger. He’s been on the other side of the gun. Finally all of them stand down, and it’s pretty awesome. He looks at the lieutenant and tells her, you want him dead, you do it yourself. And they leave. They leave her.
Kai shows up and knocks out the lieutenant, and John’s all, didn’t ask for your help. She comes back with, well, you lied to us. And he tells her she believed people who were out to kill them, and that’s a problem. He’s got to get his suit. That’s when she notices he’s following blue lights. Cortana is leading him somewhere.
It’s a Clock
Then it’s back to Halsey. Halsey, Kwan Ha and Halsey’s daughter are all in that original laboratory area where Halsey was researching the Covenant and the artifacts. We find out this is where she found the mixed Covenant and human DNA. She and her daughter manage to open it up with the help of Kwan Ha, who, by the way, finally becomes relevant to the series at long last.
What they uncover looks like constellations. They think it’s a navigational map, and Kwan Ha says it isn’t a map. It’s a clock. If you remember from a few episodes back, she’d seen drawings in a cave that looked like suns or stars or constellations. She starts moving these little points on the map, and as she moves them they begin to form what looks like a ring. It looks like a schematic of the Halo.
As soon as they do, they all move into that ring, the one I thought was going to be a portal. It turns out it’s a doorway, and the doorway leads to a Forerunner base, a Forerunner science lab. It’s literally like a level out of the games has just jumped right out. There’s the energy force shield bridge they have to run across, and on the other side they find the body of one of the Forerunners holding what looks like a small piece of something. Halsey and her daughter believe very firmly that if a scientist was clutching it, it has to be the scientist’s work.
They’re about to start investigating when the place starts shaking. It’s not falling apart, but it’s pretty darn close. They barely escape, and as they’re running back across the energy bridge the entire floor beneath them begins to light up, and you see what looks like a Forerunner city, an entire underground city of some kind. That’s what Halsey is focused on. They make it out, and Halsey looks at her daughter and says, tell me you grabbed the thing. Sure enough, her daughter did grab it.
Everything Comes With a Price
Cortana leads John and Kai right to Ackerson’s office. Ackerson is sitting there, and John walks right up and picks him up by the throat. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill this guy right now.” “Honestly, nothing comes to mind.”
Later on he tells him, “I came here to punch a hole in your chest and watch you bleed out the way Vannak did.” And I’m like, God bless, bro. John’s no joke.
He tells him he came to get his suit, and Ackerson says he’ll take him to it, absolutely. So he takes him to where the suits are, and sure enough, there are the three suits they took with them. Kai clearly has hers. Ackerson turns around and starts in with I didn’t know this and that, and John tells him, but you did know. He tries to put it on Parangosky, and John tells him flat out that he needs to go tell everybody. Ackerson says it’s going to be his word against Parangosky’s. Not after John walks out. When he walks out there, there are going to be an awful lot of questions, and Ackerson had better be ready to answer them.
So the dude’s like, it’s going to ruin me. And John says, “Everything comes with a price. This time it’s you.” I was like, dang. It’s great. So Ackerson goes off to come clean, and John gets into his suit.
Where They Split
Kai makes the decision that she’s going with the Spartan-IIIs on their mission, because no matter what, the fleet has to be stopped. John says Parangosky isn’t wrong, we’ve got to stop them somehow, and you’re going to have to lead them. She says all right. He has to go to the Halo.
This is where they split, and I firmly believe this might be the last time we see Kai. Maybe she manages to survive. But I genuinely think this is how we end up with John as the last man standing, the last Spartan. That’s what gets us to the place where he’s literally the only Spartan left.
Everything is coming to a head. John’s in a ship heading toward where he believes the Halo to be. Makee and the Arbiter have finally managed to take control of their ship. And if you remember from a couple of episodes back, the Arbiter had that thing he used to brand himself as a traitor, as the marked. Makee takes the same thing and marks herself, binding her and the Arbiter together.
Where I Think This Has to Go
I think we get to a place where he manages to stop them, or he ends up using the Halo himself. Either way, ultimately he’s going to have to go into some form of cryogenic sleep and we’re going to get a time jump, because now the show has to start doing things similar to what happened in the games. In the games there’s a major time jump between the first game and the second game, and it’s because he gets put in cryosleep and eventually gets woken up again.
Eventually, probably in something like Season 3, we start building toward Cortana being the villain. Spoilers and all that down the road. For right now they really have to get the two of them together and meshed.
Look at what you realistically have to look forward to. We’ve gotten the Fall of Reach. We’re going to get the Covenant defeated. Then we get the Forerunners, and then you have to have the Covenant and humanity working together, which will be a major time jump. After that, the next thing is Cortana trying to take over everything, because she goes insane during the next time jump, the one where he’s in cryogenic stasis. Those are the major key points of the storylines moving forward, and with plot points that big, I feel like you can’t really skip them. Yes, you can alter elements of the story, the little parts, like we’ve seen. But at some point, in order to be the story we know, you have to keep the highlights. That’s what I think we’re going to end up getting.
There is a B-plot, with Kessler in it, and I’m leaving it at that until the finale next week.
The Verdict
Halo Season 2 Episode 7, “Thermopylae,” is a 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. A straight nine. I really liked it. I thought it was really good.
Regardless of how you feel about the series, whether you’re here for the games or not, it’s definitely carrying its own story, and I feel like it’s doing it successfully. We’re getting closer to something that feels very earned. There’s the moment when Chief is walking down the hall in his armor and everyone sees him, and he doesn’t have the helmet on, which, really, y’all? But I feel like we’re getting to a place where we get Chief, Cortana, the armor, the whole nine yards, all together. And I’m here for it.
Did you enjoy what this one had to offer, and are you interested to see where they’re going? I know I certainly am. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
