Halo review: Master Chief returns to his abandoned home in “Homecoming”

An influx of foggy memories beckons Master Chief to return to his childhood home on Eridanus II. Dr. Halsey comes along in hopes of finding another Covenant artifact and to observe Chief’s behavior.

Elsewhere, John isn’t the only Spartan developing their own agency, as Kai-125 begins to explore her individualism just before Dr. Miranda conducts a test with the Spartans using the recovered artifact. Meanwhile, Kwan and Soren arrive on Madrigal and attempt to reunite her father’s revolutionary team, but are met with heavy resistance by the new governor Vinsher. It’s a return to home (not so) sweet home in “Homecoming.”

And spoilers, there is no Tom Holland cameo.

A Story in Threes

This episode is split in three. In the A story we have Master Chief and Halsey returning to his childhood home on Eridanus II. It moves slowly. Not much happens, so the episode has to cut this story into many sequences and use the other storylines to make it feel like it’s longer than it really is.

It isn’t bad, though. Halsey walks a fine line between observing Master Chief and directly manipulating him with the subtlest of words. She tells him to be wary of what he sees in his memories, saying they may not be accurate, as if anticipating Chief remembering her involvement in his childhood. Although I don’t know why they’d show Halsey in the flashback early in the episode if we only see her meeting Chief as a kid in his last flashback? If it is going to be a mystery to him for most of the episode, keep it a mystery for us too, no?

Kwan and Soren visit Madrigal

The Master Chief story keeps things moving, but lacks for thrills. We find those in the B story with Kwan and Soren arriving on Madrigal.

My main problem with this B story is that it follows characters that I don’t care about. Kwan’s introduction was botched in the first episode, and through 2 and 3 she hardly does anything at all. Now she gets to grab the wheel, but it feels like too little too late. It doesn’t help that the dialogue between her and Soren does nothing for me.

I don’t understand Soren’s involvement in general. Eventually we learn that his ship got stolen, but before that I genuinely didn’t understand why he doesn’t leave Kwan in the Madrigal capital and take off. Because of the promised money? For one, a “pirate” would see this as a huge waste of time and either cut his loses or turn Kwan in for the bounty. For two, even if accepted that Soren was choosing to protect Kwan for this promised money, why would he? The show hasn’t shown him being desperate for cash. He has a wife and kid at home and is (seemingly) the leader of a whole underground colony on The Rubble where he has his own private home. Why put up with this? I hope the show doesn’t think it has set up an emotional bond between Soren and Kwan that would explain his insistence in participating.

Well, worry not: these questions don’t matter because Soren’s ship gets stolen and he has no choice but to come along. Way to patch them holes, writers.

Anyway, after some hoohah, Kwan finds her aunt, who tells her to find the Mystics her father met with before she dies dramatically at the hands of an assassin sent by Vinsher. She and Soren escape in a poorly done chase sequence, and that’s the end of that.

You know, a thought occurred to me as I was writing this: does this storyline have anything to do with the Halo games? I never played them so I didn’t know, so I checked with a friend who is a huge fan, and he told me no. Kwan and Soren, the planet of Madrigal…all of this is just fanfiction basically. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m against the writers exploring the world of Halo, but they are going about it so lazily. It feels to me like the writers got a note from the studio heads that said, “Put in a Star Wars subplot.” Doesn’t it feel like that? Kwan is Luke, Soren is Hans Solo,  and Kwan is an orphan fighting against a fascist who dresses all in black and killed her father who was the leader of a resistance against a larger galactic empire. Hello? Seems rather strange for a major storyline in Halo to not only have nothing to do with Halo, but to ape off the most famous science fiction movie ever.

Get to know the Spartans

Lastly, in our C story, we follow the three other Spartans and Halsey’s daughter, Dr. Miranda, who has been tasked with testing the Spartans and seeing if the artifact reacts to them like it does to Master Chief. Here we get some sorely needed character development. I barely know anything about these characters, and now I know them a little better, particularly Dr. Miranda and Kai.

My problem with this part of the episode is that, because the show is prioritizing character development, some of the scenes don’t actually further the overall plot in any way. Character development is important, but if there are no stakes it can come across as boring. As a result I end up forgetting what I learned about the characters; I remember Kai the most, because she is the one we see take clear action; she removes her emotional spine chip and uses the blood to dye her hair. Riz and Vannak fall into the background because they just talk about themselves without actually doing much.

That said, I thought Kai’s bonding with Dr. Miranda was well done. At first it came across as a standard get-to-know-you convo, but eventually the connection felt natural. I appreciate the parallels of them both being Halsey’s daughters in one sense or another. Both are getting more rebellious. Lots of common ground for them.

My last tiny nitpick with this storyline: I hated the monologue Miranda gives about her mother. It came across as incredibly expositional, talking about aspects of Halsey’s character that anyone paying attention would have already gathered based on her actions. If Halsey is a cold, calculating scientist, then let’s just see it. I don’t need and don’t want to be told about it; show me. I get the intention behind the monologue — Miranda is venting about her mother — but the words and performance lacked the emotion that could have made the speech revealing of both subject and speaker. It felt like lazy exposition by writers who don’t trust their audience to “get” a character.

The devil in the details

I want to wrap up and talk about the details of the show, because the lack of attention for them that the show has really starting to annoy me. A simple one first: in the opening when Master Chief’s ship heads towards Eridanus II, we see establishing text appear on scene: “Planet: Eridanus II.” But then we cut to the intro. Why establish the setting if you’re not going to go there?

But that’s the least of it. The most grating sloppiness comes in the Kwan storyline. Remember those action scenes I said we’d get to?

Planet: Action Scenes

Review Quadrant 4, 1400 words deep

Well, here we are. The Action Scenes, and boy was the editing for them reeeeeeally bad. It would be one thing if it was edited choppily, but it is worse than that. The editing is genuinely disorienting. Example: Kwan goes to a memorial service and Vinsher’s goons arrive to break it up. Within the first jumble of second-long cuts, we get a shot of Kwan looking down at the floor at something. What is it? The camera decides not to tell us, until she picks it up. Ah, it’s a solider’s weapon. How did it get there? Did a solider drop it after being punched or something? Maybe that’s what the script says, but we don’t see it. All we see is Kwan look down, she crouches, and suddenly a weapon is in her hands. A weapon, by the way, that she doesn’t use at all for the rest of the episode. Genius stuff.

I could write another paragraph on the motorcycle chase sequence, but let’s not. You get where I’m going; the action is just very poorly done.

Actually, maybe it isn’t. Maybe the action was done incredibly well, but you wouldn’t know it based on how the camera and editing shows it.

That’s all for this week. You know, as much as I complain about this show, I have to say doing so is not only incredibly fun, but rather educational. Nothing teaches you better than other people’s mistakes. Overall, “Homecoming” continues to maintain and even build my interest in certain storylines, yet other major elements are dragging behind, and the show in general is still missing a great deal of polish. Let’s see where it goes next week.

Grade: C

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