Paramount+’s Halo Finds Firmer Footing in a More Consistent Second Season

I have a confession to make. Despite its many flaws, I found quite a few things to enjoy buried in the first season of Paramount+’s TV take on Halo. Sure, it was full of strange storytelling decisions that led to unevenness throughout, it didn’t exactly embody its source material at times, particularly when it came to some off-putting costuming and set design choices, and, to the chagrin of a demanding fanbase, it featured too much of the Master Chief taking his helmet off. But these issues notwithstanding (besides the last one, which I don’t think is a genuine problem because the show is explicitly about him rejecting being a faceless, emotionless killer), what made it interesting is how it delved deeply into the particulars of this nightmarish, far-flung society where children are kidnapped to create super soldiers and a militaristic Earth government crushes those who dissent from its influence.

Perhaps most noticeable of all, it took the series’ protagonist, John-117 or the Master Chief (played by Pablo Schreiber), a character who was thinly characterized in the games so the player could more easily self-insert into his power-armored shoes, and tried to flesh him out beyond being a stoic badass. The show followed John and the rest of the Spartans, soldiers who had been systematically indoctrinated and chemically lobotomized to make them into perfect weapons, as they slowly broke free of their programming. This angle produced the TV series’ most arresting sequences, and it was cathartic to watch as these symbols of the regime began to push back on their upbringing and embrace their buried humanity. However, for each of these well-considered moments, an equal amount of screentime was dedicated to less well-explored backdrops, like a goofy pirate planet or a poorly defined insurrection movement, which contributed to the first season’s previously mentioned inconsistency.

Thankfully, at least through the four episodes we received, the second season of Halo hones in on the elements that worked best from the previous run. While the story picks up where things left off, there is a noticeable difference in its presentation this time around, which likely extends from the fresh faces involved, such as the new showrunner, David Wiener. So far, the new season successfully focuses on the Spartans, the particulars of an uncaring UNSC government, and the escalating conflict with the Covenant to create a largely appealing sci-fi cocktail. Its storytelling can still be a tad head-scratching at times, but there are far fewer narrative dead-ends, making this a more coherent journey.

For franchise neophytes, the Halo games follow an apocalyptic war between the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), the military wing of an imperialistic Earth government, and the Covenant, a theocratic coalition of alien species, as they fight for control of a ring-shaped superweapon. The show takes place in the early phases of this conflict, as the war hero and government-manufactured super soldier John-117, the Master Chief, begins to question his circumstances. The second season picks up six months later as the Chief’s squad, Silver Team, finds themselves sidelined by the new head of the Spartan program, James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan), a man with a secret agenda. As the Covenant continue to wipe out planets in the outer colonies, John comes to believe that the higher-ups in the UNSC may be hiding something about the security of the planet Reach.

Halo has always been defined by a hodgepodge of influences: Ringworld, Dune, Starship Troopers, and Warhammer 40K, to name a few. However, if the games largely emphasized the first two of these through the recurrence of the titular Halo rings and grandiose messianic prophecies, the TV series’ best moments bore more resemblance to the latter pair, foregrounding the brutal realities of being caught between genocidal aliens and a despotic human-run military hegemony.

The show’s focus on the Spartans, symbols of the brutality of the Earth-led regime, continues to be arresting in the latest run, and it’s fascinating to watch as they attempt to balance their place in the war machine with their increasingly human inclinations after removing their emotional suppression pellets. The banter between Kai (Kate Kennedy), Vannak (Bentley Kalu), and Riz (Natasha Culzac) is a much-needed point of levity and one that highlights just how far they’ve come, such as when Vannak begrudging admits to a newfound hobby. Riz has a particularly thoughtful arc over these episodes as she considers her worth outside acting as a government-sanctioned death dealer.

But while John’s buddies find freedom in their regained ability to feel, the Chief comes under increased scrutiny due to becoming “unpredictable.” After witnessing something strange during a mission, he begins to suspect a conspiracy, causing those around him to question his mental state. These sequences are shot with the paranoid headspace of a psychological thriller as John begins to see enemies in every shadow. It’s a shift that at least partially works, in large part because we witness the cracks in the UNSC’s façade alongside our protagonist: inaccurate military broadcasts paint an overly rosy picture of the war effort, holograms with the Chief’s visage encourage enlistment, and we even hear about a Spartan-themed videogame being used as jingoistic propaganda (just like in real life!). Shots of a thoroughly frazzled John and snippets of difficult-to-parse events do a good job of driving us into his fractured headspace as we march toward a conflict that we know is inevitable.

I’ll keep things vague to avoid spoilers, but the weakest element here is that if you’re familiar with where the story goes or have heard what the creators have said this season is about, there isn’t much ambiguity over who is correct and who is delusional, undermining some of this intrigue. Furthermore, even after the truth of the situation is revealed, why these deceptions were orchestrated in the first place feels poorly defined. There is an explanation provided, but it requires a massive suspension of disbelief, and even as someone usually willing to do so, it’s a little difficult to buy how certain faction’s decisions make any real sense. While these events fit thematically and further elaboration may be provided later, this turn could have been conveyed more elegantly.

Thankfully, when things finally break out into wider conflict, the series leans into its most compelling plotlines. One of my biggest complaints with the show’s original run is that it focused too much time on extraneous adventures that weren’t particularly interesting and had little intersection with the overarching story, such as Kwan’s (Yerin Ha) circuitous journey on Madrigal or blasé antics on the Pirate colony. While some of those threads occasionally reappear, emphasis has decisively shifted towards the battle between the UNSC and the Covenant, a much more exciting struggle further elevated by frenetic fight sequences.

This season starts strong with a desperate, cold-open skirmish that demonstrates the self-assured action filmmaking found throughout. These scuffles have an appropriate air of grandeur, conveying the scale of destruction leveled by humanity’s relentless foes thanks to expensive-looking VFX work and enough grounded details to keep us tethered to this futuristic conflict. Because we come to at least partially know the people who live on Reach, this feels more like a real place under siege rather than just a generic skyline.

Solid camerawork further bolsters the action. At one point, an obligatory Children of Men-styled oner delivers bracing close-quarters combat as our crew works through a deadly weave of incoming fire and faces impossible odds. The action choreography particularly shines when Chief and company get a chance to strut their stuff, ducking under Energy Swords and dismantling Elites with uncanny precision. There may be a bit too much shakey-cam in spots, but the visuals generally have enough clarity to get by.

However, while I can’t deny these sequences were cool and paid off the previous build-up, there is some undeniable strangeness that this story, largely about the evils of the UNSC military-industrial complex, suddenly pivots to the aesthetics of a war epic, heroic last stands and all. This is partially a problem with the Halo lore itself: it turns out that these monstrous experiments to create superhuman killers (originally designed to suppress political dissidents) were ultimately “justified” because they created the only effective weapon to fight against genocidal aliens that suddenly appeared from deep space. The strange framing here, of war simultaneously being a bad, terrible thing but also a vehicle for rad action sequences, isn’t exactly a new problem, but it feels particularly dissonant in this case because the series commits to both these modes.

Overall, the first half of Halo’s second season isn’t perfect. Its story still diverges towards the less exciting corners of the galaxy at times, and there were occasional characterization or narrative decisions that felt odd or out of place. Perhaps a bigger problem this time is how its focus on this dystopian government and relatively thoughtful portrayal of the people trying to scrape out an existence under its thumb feels strange alongside scenes of patriotic self-sacrifice for that same machine.

But compared to the previous season, the show does a much better job focusing on what it’s good at. In its quieter moments, it hones in on the experiences of dehumanized soldiers clawing back some measure of normalcy. And when it does go loud, its action sequences are as good as they’ve been, conveying biblical-scale destruction and the frightening proficiency of the Spartans. If you positively hated the last season for not being 1:1 with the games or because it tried to flesh out the Chief beyond the laconic badass he is when you have a controller in your hand, there may still not be a lot for you here. But, if you’re like me and saw some good in this messy story, Halo Season 2 has largely delivered sci-fi thrills.

Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves videogames, film, and creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11.

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