Halo season 2 sets up its endgame in "Onyx," but loses sight of character motivations

Halo has been on a hot streak for the past two weeks, first with the devastating Fall of Reach, followed by the moving follow-up "Aleria." While the Master Chief (Pablo Schrieber) and his allies have been licking their wounds, the loathsome Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) has been amassing a new human army at the hidden Onyx base. In this week's episode, "Onyx," we spend a lot more time with him and those around him after they were left off-screen in the preceding episode.

The result is a compelling, if sometimes convoluted episode of television. "Onyx" doesn't quite hit the highs of the past two episodes, but it maintains a much better baseline than Halo was capable of during season 1. Spoilers for the episode ahead.

Halo Episode 206 review: "Onyx"

"Onyx" takes place almost entirely at the titular military installation, where Ackerson and the rest of his allies in ONI are trying to reboot the Spartan program. Except, since Dr. Halsey (Natasha McElhone) is no longer part of that program, these new Spartans are simply regular soldiers trained in a combat simulator. Overseeing the training is Kai (Kate Kennedy), who left Reach with Ackerson before its fall, totally oblivious to the fact that he was aware of the Covenant invasion.

While Kai wrangles with her guilt over abandoning the planet and Corporal Perez (Cristina Rodlo) comes to terms with her new life as a Spartan, the Master Chief lands on the planet with his crew of survivors. Everyone in his group has their own agenda: the Chief wants to get payback on ONI for abandoning Reach, Soren (Bokeem Woodbine) and Laera (Fiona O'Shaughnessy) want to find their son Kessler, and Kwan (Yerin Ha) and Halsey are mostly content to go spelunking in a cave. Each of these individual journeys works fine for the episode, but the overall feeling I had is that everything comes together a bit too conveniently.

In general, that's the glaring issue with "Onyx," and with this season of Halo as a whole. The production values on the show have gone through the roof and the writing is generally much better, but it still has problems with forcing interpersonal conflicts in a way that requires me to suspend my disbelief to the breaking point. For example, late in the episode Kai and the Master Chief come face to face. This is a huge moment which should be fraught with emotion. But I had a hard time focusing on it, because despite Kai saying her mission was to bring the Chief in, she instead just beats him to a pulp while he stands there not fighting back, and then she leaves him unconscious on the floor. A few scenes later, he just gets up and keeps doing his thing. How is that "bringing him in?"

Later, we see that Kai heard some of what the Master Chief told her about her duplicitous ONI masters when she confronts Ackerson, but in the moment her actions still didn't make sense. The show pushed them through in a certain way in order to make the scene more dramatic. This has been a consistent issue in my opinion, especially when it comes to Ackerson and the plotline where he tries to villify the Master Chief (or turn him into a martyr to motivate new soldiers). On paper, the idea of this conflict is interesting. But the way it's presented just doesn't always make the most sense. Which is a shame, because the acting and staging are often good even when the scenes don't quite gel.

Fortunately, that gripe aside, "Onyx" is almost as solid as the rest of Halo season 2 has been. The episode remains largely focused on Chief, Kai and the conflict between their two factions. Soren and Laera mainly just get to their next destination as set up for Episode 207, while Halsey and Kwan have a similar travel episode going through the caverns beneath the planet, but they get a bit more screentime and might take the prize for my favorite odd couple pairing of the episode. Yerin Ha and Natasha McElhone rarely get to share scenes together, and their viperish back-and-forth was a highlight.

While all of this is happening around the Onyx base, Makee (Charlie Murphy) is manipulating her butt off to stay alive on the Covenant Arbiter's ship. The Arbiter (Viktor Åkerblom) wants Makee to lead him to the Halo using the help of Cortana, but the priest aboard his ship wants Makee to be killed because she's an untrustworthy human. This allows for some much needed development of the Arbiter, who Halo players will know as an important figure from Halo 2 and 3. The show seems to be setting the Arbiter up to fulfill a similar role as he does in the games, as a sometimes unwilling ally of the Master Chief.

It all culminates with Cortana (Jen Taylor/Christina Bennington) contacting the Master Chief at Onyx, leading him to the alien artifact which will show the way to the Halo. At the same time, Cortana's transmission causes the Covenant to devolve into in-fighting, as the priest accuses Makee of betrayal and the Arbiter finally lets loose and starts killing the opposition. The episode ends with the Master Chief touching the artifact, setting up a potential mind-reunion for him and Makee next week as we speed toward the endgame of the season.

All in all, there was far more good than bad in "Onyx." But since the middle of the season set such a high bar for the series, the slight dip this episode made me a little nervous to see how the final two installments of the season will measure up.

Halo Bullet Points

• This was a big episode for Admiral Parangosky, and actor Shabana Azmi made the most of it. She was extremely watchable anytime she was on screen.
• Halsey's daughter Miranda Keyes (Olive Gray) made a surprise appearance near the end of the episode! She's been absent since season 1, and now we see where she's been: underneath the hidden Onyx base, digging up something mysterious in the tunnels. Considering that Kwan's visions seem to be leading to whatever Miranda was digging up, it's probably something important that has to do with space mysticism. Here's hoping we find out more next week!
• The Master Chief's fight scenes were brutal in this episode. He's spent a lot of time duking it out with the Covenant this season, but I think this might be the first episode where we've really seen him just level a bunch of humans by tossing them around like rag dolls.
• That brings me to one of my biggest frustrations: Ackerson's new Spartan program. The old Spartans were the result of lifelong training and dangerous scientific experimentation. We've established that Ackerson doesn't like that because his sister was a failed Spartan experiment, but I don't understand why Parangosky or anyone else would be on board with his new plan to just...train soldiers and tell them they're Spartans? How are they any different from regular UNSC soldiers?
• We saw the Arbiter with his armor off this episode, which gave him a sense of vulnerability that I found really interesting. Now that he's made his move against the other Covenant on his ship, I hope we get some more development for him in the final two episodes.
• I also hope Makee is able to do something other than panic in the final two episodes of the season. She's largely been a prisoner desperately trying to bluff her way out of one situation after the next. At some point, Makee is going to have to start making some moves to stay interesting, because right now it feels a little like Halo doesn't know what to do with her.
• Perhaps one of the biggest twists is that Parangosky knows Cortana is with the Covenant, and is asking her to relay intel about their forces and search for the Halo. When Cortana asks about leaving, Parangosky assures her she is to stay there until she's no longer useful, which sounds like asking her to do a suicide mission. That's been happening a lot on Halo this season, and while I do appreciate how the show has been handling it, I really hope there's some big ideological payoff to push back against the fact that ONI has been sacrificing people left and right.
• The opening simulation scenes, where Perez and her comrades dive out of a spaceship toward a Covenant vessel, were pretty exhilarating. Halo has had consistently great visuals and special effects this season.

Verdict

"Onyx" is another good episode of Halo with plenty of entertaining moments and interesting turns, but it continues to force our characters into unbelievable situations. When the action's up and there isn't time for scheming, Halo tends to be at its best. When it's trying to think of reasons why the humans don't trust each other, it doesn't always work. With only a few episodes left, I'm hopeful that Halo can re-establish the balance it had a few episodes ago and deliver a solid ending.

Episode Grade: B

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