The season finale ofHalois finally here and unfortunately, the first slate of installments went out with a bit of a whimper instead of a bang. That’s not to say that thelatest episode ofHalodidn’t offer up plenty of action. It can certainly be argued that it had more action than any of the episodes that came before it. In fact, it started off that action right from the very beginning. However, on the whole, it seems as if perhaps the writers knew where they wanted to go with the ninth episode of the season but couldn’t really figure out a way to get there. Even more disconcerting is that it appears as though the show ran out of budget about halfway through the episode and had to resort to some truly disconcertingly inferior special effects in order to finish off the season.
Wherethis episode ofHaloreally went off the rails is when it started to betray everything it had set up in the first eight episodes. While there are plenty of shows where a character might look and act a certain way only to be shown to be someone else entirely. Done right, the program can even show that this is the after effect of some real character growth. However, in the season finale of Halo, it appears that quite a few switches were just flipped that allowed certain characters to just go against everything the series had shown them to be. That could even be somewhat excusable if it were one person. But it seems as if five or six different people just suddenly realized they were actually someone else entirely all of a sudden. It made for a less than believable story while also making the episodes that were actually good because they were setting up the chessboard, simply not as good.
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Theseason finale ofHalopicks up right where the previous episode left off, as the USNC tries to pick up the pieces from Makee touching the artifact and making her escape. Meanwhile, Master Chief and Kai are trying to talk their way out of a fight with the other Spartans and oddly, it turns out they’re able to do so. This is the first sign that the final episode of the season wanted to find a way for the Spartans to all fight as one again, but didn’t know exactly how to do it.
The show spent the first eight episodes making sure that the audience understood that what made the Spartans different from the other soldiers thatfought for the USNCis that they had a couple of different procedures done to them that made them quite a bit more loyal. This was demonstrated by the fact that Riz and Vannak were willing to go toe-to-toe with Master Chief and Kai in the first place. And they were willing to do it without much thought once Halsey told them what to do. However, in this particular episode, all it took for Vannak and Riz to overcome their “programming” was to tell them they had been kidnapped as children and that Halsey was really the bad guy.
The problem here, of course, is thatHaloshowed these Spartansare different by making it clear that Riz and Vannak basically had their emotions and their humanity removed. It’s what made them formidable in previous installments. It’s what made Halsey so formidable. And now a 30-second conversation was able to undo all of that. It’s not that often that a show is willing to betray its own canon so easily. Of course, that betrayal is almost immediately doubled down on as suddenly Vannak and the other Spartans feel fear and confusion and even have a sense of humor. If the show had done a better job of explaining how all of that happened, it could have been a fun way to put the gang back together. Instead of simply rushing it in order to advance the plot.
Once the gang is back together, the Spartans are able to get themselves on a ship togo after The Covenant, Makee, and the artifacts. At the same time, back at the USNC home base, Dr. Halsey appears to have been captured and is about to stand trial for her crimes against humanity. This capture leads to an exchange between Halsey and Dr. Keyes that is likely supposed to be heartwrenching considering that the audience found out that Keyes is actually Halsey’s daughter in previous episodes. The problem is that it was treated as little more than a “reveal” and there isn’t any kind of emotional ties that pull at the heartstrings. It’s once again a rushed approach to a story beat more than anything else.
While Halsey and Keyes are having their showdown, Master Chief and his gang are fighting for the future of the galaxy by taking on what is apparently the entire Covenant army. To be fair, this is easily the most fun the show has had with combat that is meant to look quite a bit likeseveral of theHalogames. The problem is that this is either where the show had to severely cut down on budget, or it simply didn’t have the ability to make this alien world look as good as the rest of the show. It couldn’t have been more obvious that the Spartans were fighting in front of a green screen. The aliens all looked as though they weren’t really there because a computer had drawn them.
The show has done a very good job for the most part of makingThe Covenantforces look realistic. Whether there were too many on-screen together or it was simply too hard to make them look realistic when they were all fighting alongside the real actors, it became far too easy to see what was entirely fake and what was real. When the big bad boss of the alien forces appeared, he looks entirely like he was something out of a video game, rather than the adaptation of a video game.
On the whole, it’s hard to say the season finale of Halo’s first season was anything other than disappointing. Considering there’s going to be aSeason 2 ofHalono matter what, it’s hard to know if the decline in quality is going to continue or whether the show can find its footing again. There are other twists and turns that should be interesting cliffhangers for the next season, but the way they too, are carried out left a lot to be desired. While there were plenty of explosions, it simply didn’t feel as if the season went out with much of a bang.
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