The recent trending show “Halo” has released its second season as of Feb 8, at 12 a.m. P.T., with new episodes being released every Thursday on multiple streaming services such as Paramount Plus, YouTube Premium, and Amazon Prime Video and has won numerous awards such as the 2022 Golden Trailer award for the “Best Viral Campaign for a TV/streaming Series”.
The new season follows Master Chief, played by Pablo Schreiber. As the story progresses, he encounters continuous conflicts as he pursues his task of destroying any presence of the alien covenant with his fellow Spartans in arms.
On Feb 8, Halo started the new season with a bang, with its first episode explaining in detail the evacuation and destruction of Planet Reach due to a shift in the Covenants plans. The Master Chief feels that there is a new danger closer to home and worries that the new regime, James Ackerson, played by Joseph Morgan, isn’t taking his concerns as seriously as he should.
Halo released its 2nd episode of the 2nd season on Feb 8 as well which describes in summary Master Chief’s frustration towards his new Regime because of the proud ignorance James Ackerson has in his leadership. This frustration causes the Master Chief to disobey orders and follow his own instinct in exploring and exploiting the new Covenant threat after the Chief’s suspension of the Covenant came true when Cobalt Team went missing on Reach. This causes Master Chief to push his Spartans (Silver Team) to their limits to prepare for this new Covenant force.
The 3rd episode of the 2nd season was released on Feb 15 and explains the plan Master Chief decides to go through with in attempting to save Cobalt Team from the Covenant on Reach. This puts Ackerson in a tough situation as soon as he gets troubling intelligence from his AI; Cortana, and now has to decide on a plan that’s caused by an irrevocable decision.
On Feb 22, Halo released its 4th episode of the new season which explains the devastating Covenant attack on Reach and the betrayal the Marines and Spartans felt when they heard that the higher class military had already escorted themselves before the attack began. Now the remaining Spartans and marines must hold back all Covenant forces to fill the last evac ship full of civilians and travel away to a safer planet. As the Spartans hold back the Covenant, the last evac ship safely makes it off the planet and the Spartans find themselves backed into a corner looking for any way out before they take their last breath. In that split moment a rescue vehicle arrives and shoots down the remaining Covenant and safely escapes with the Spartans on board.
Halo released its 5th episode on Feb 29 which will be the last video to watch on streaming services until March 7th. This episode shows the aftermath of the attack on Reach as the Spartans Safely make it off Reach and arrive to a desolate planet known as Aleria. The Spartans gather materials and seek assistance in the closest emergency room for medicine and surgeries to get back into shape for the next battle. One of Master Chief’s friends takes a bus to go and look for his missing son who had apparently been transported to that planet, but later discovers that the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) had already picked him up and had taken him to the new Military base. After the Spartans are finished resting, they’re ready to hop back on the ship and track down the back stabbing military forces who had left them on Reach to die.
Overall the first 5 episodes have been a great start to the second season in following the same storyline as the Halo video games with the fatalities and destruction of Reach, as well as the abandonment of the Spartans and the journey they must embark on to get back home. All of that said, I would give the storyline of the show an eight out of ten for how closely they followed in detail with the characters, journeys, and events that occurred in the original videogames.
The overall effects of the show including the CGI of the aliens and their weapons all the way to the perfect amount of detail used for the armor on the Spartans, I would give the show a nine out of ten. The show did a great job on how they displayed the fight scenes between the Spartans and the Covenant by using great CGI with the Plasma weapons the aliens used and the hand to hand combat the Spartans are so good at. In general the show did a good job at keeping the story of the original game intact with the characters and the plot of the game.
