Halo Review: Homecoming (Season 1 Episode 4)
Halo Season 1 Episode 4, “Homecoming,” dives more into Master Chief’s history but doesn’t manage to really say very much.
Master Chief has always been a blank slate character. He’s very much a self-insert figure throughout the games, a stoic superhuman that you slip behind and embody for the duration of the campaign. This series has attempted to backpedal on that, attempting to color in his personality and interiority a bit more.
Halo notably has already done this by spending a multitude of scenes without his helmet on and allowing him to legitimately carry conversations that aren’t monosyllabic. That makes sense because otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a show.
It has taken this another step now by showing us what John’s life had been like before he got put into the Spartan program as a child, which isn’t a bad impulse. It just ends up being nothing, more or less. The episode doesn’t feel it’s contributing very much in that regard.
A part of this is our familiarity with the lore versus what is technically valid on the show. Halsey already knowing John before he comes to the program isn’t surprising to us but it could be to someone that is newer to the franchise. That just feels par for the course.
There’s a disconnect because we’re still not clear on how much of Halsey’s past and current methods will end up making it into the text of the series. Without really getting into the nitty-gritty of it all, she did some monstrous things in order for the Spartans to be made and it’s hard to tell how much of that is playing into things here.
The hope is that this first season is a slowburn of everyone truly discovering Halsey has done but that’s all it really is at this point.
At the same time, that is the kind of the larger point of the episode: control over the Spartans. While you see the effects that removing his inhibitor is having on Master Chief, you also get to see how that very thing affects other Spartans like Kai. She takes hers out and it’s simultaneously debilitating and freeing for her.
She lets things bother her more and she’s more impulsive but that very thing leads to discoveries being made. To a degree, the episode makes the point that the control that Halsey maintains over the Spartans is only that. Perhaps more things could have been learned from them if they felt the need to be more forthcoming, something that only comes from emotions.
On the other hand, maybe they wouldn’t have managed to endure everything they have been put through — both by the Covenant and the UNSC — if they had not been dulled. It’s hard to say but control only gets one so far.
What did you think of this episode of Halo? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Halo airs Thursdays on Paramount+.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.