I couldn’t stand Halo Season 1, but with changes made internally, I wanted to give Halo Season 2 a shot and here is my review. It’s a lot better than Season 1, but it’s still not as good as it could be! The finale for Halo hit Paramount+ on Thursday and I am writing this on Thursday evening after just finishing watching. So It is fresh in my head.
I’ll start by saying Episode 8, the finale, was really very good with only 1-2 minor quibbles. I am not however so sure I could say that about the preceding seven episodes of Season 2. Though compared to Season 1 which was borderline unwatchable to me, things are still a lot better.
As you may guess, where Season 2 excels is where it follows the canon story of the games most closely. Where it falls down is usually when it goes outside of that basic plotline. If we were to compare this TV series to the games and books, then we have spent roughly two season to get to the point where the first game begins. This period was handled in only one novel called The Fall of Reach. The book Fall of Reach is still superior by far to both Season 1 and Season 2. If you dislike reading books, I suppose Season 2 is a viable alternative for the basics. However, I still remain baffled that they didn’t just adapt that novel. Season 1 was just wasted time. However that does affect Season 2 because the show is now rushing to get to Halo itself.
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Even then, there’s time spent in Season 2 on fruitless side stories which could have been cut. The fall of Reach happens in Season 2. However, it happens with Chief and the other Spartans out of their suits and for me it was a mistake to do so. There was also too much time spent on getting Soren and Kwang from where they were in Season 2 to where the writers want them going forward.
Still, this does feel like Halo far more than Season 1 did and the writing is far superior.
As for the finale itself, it was actually very good and could be a hint towards an excellent Season 3 that would be an adaptation of the original Halo CE game. However, I did say I had a few gripes, so here they are. Warning, as I will be getting into some spoilers for the Season 2 finale here.
The Flood
Yep, we all knew they were coming at some point. However the first outbreak, whilst handled extremely well visually and design wise caught me slightly by surprise. Fans of the lore know that the first interaction the audience normally has with The Flood is when Chief finds them on Halo, directed by 343 Guilty Spark. Chief is on the way towards that as the episodes ends and we do meet what I presume is Guilty Spark. However, The Flood had already been released and spent the whole episode turning Onyx into a zombie movie. It’s pretty clear Onyx is a Forerunner Shield World now. However, it’s become completely overrun by The Flood discovered in a sample by Miranda Keyes and Halsey.
The way the infection and spread was handled was straight out of the games. People making weird decisions early in infection, to becoming frozen and immobilised, then turning aggressive and finally the real body horror kicks in and it’s pretty wonderfully imagined. So, my issue isn’t with how The Flood have been handled but the fact we are introduced to them before Chief even is.
I assume Season 3 will have the Shield World wake up to The Flood’s presence and sentinels will start destroying the infected. That may be how Miranda and Halsey are rescued, otherwise, they’re all dead surely? Though the decision to infect Halsey is a weird one because there is no known cure to The Flood outside death. Ergo, even when Halsey is rescued, they surely can’t cure her infection? We can assume Chief will meet Flood on Halo and there will be more infected there until Chief has to destroy the Halo to contain the outbreak.
Conclusions
So yeah, Season 2 is much better. It does drag the story to a place matching closer to the books and games. However, I still can’t help but feel this would be even better had someone just adapted the games and book universe rather than changing so much. Reach, and the Spartan III’s would have been better. We’d have no McKee who’s still annoying and pointless outside showing us the Covie point of view. We’d also probably have Blue Team have their proper names. Instead of the weird name changes, despite the characters feeling just the same.
Oh, and that fight between Arbiter and Chief was actually brilliant. However, remember casual fans of the games, Arbiter is position, a position that will be filled in the future. In other words, no, Chief did not just defeat his ally in Halo 2 and Halo 3, but a predecessor.
Overall I’ll Grade Season 2 on it’s own. Season 1 was awful and I won’t even grade that. However Season 2…
GRADE: B
Now that’s not as bad as I expected at all. What did you think of Halo Season 2, or my review of it? Thoughts below as always.
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