When it comes to the Halo television show, one thing is perfectly clear. The series has not offered what fans of the video game franchise expected. While members of The Covenant have popped up here and there, the Paramount+ show has largely been devoid of the kind of action people likely expected. The war between the aliens and the humans has largely been a bit of a cold war, with skirmishes here and there. There have been some episodes that have shown just how overmatched the UNSC is when it comes to going up against the big bads of the show a few times, but mostly the first seven episodes have been all about setting up the pieces on the board.
It appears that in "Allegiance" the game has finally really started. Or, at the very least, the pieces have finally all been put on the board for both sides. The penultimate episode seems to be setting the stage for what could absolutely be a pretty crazy finale. It makes some sense that the first season would be laying the groundwork since it's long been known that Halo was renewed for Season 2 even before Season 1 premiered. While there have been times when it felt like the series was just spinning its wheels, the most recent episode seemed to finally be paying off all the standing still that came before it.
Things are taking a turn in the balance of power between the UNSC and The Covenant right from the beginning, as the humans are largely running and hiding with their artifact. The alien forces are not just sitting back and waiting for them to show their faces. Rather they are going after human settlements and once again showing that they are quite a bit more powerful than what humanity is prepared to deal with. This culminates in one particular scene that is pulled off quite masterfully when it comes to showing not only how truly powerless the UNSC is but also in showing a bit of real humanity among the armed forces that have mostly been portrayed as killing machines.
When it's revealed that The Covenant has killed more than 11 million people, and not just killed them but basically wiped their settlement off the face of the planet, what's at stake comes into view quite quickly. This is all going on while John and Makee are finding out more about each other and apparently even falling in love. These scenes show a human side to both characters that has mostly been lacking, though they did start to show up a bit in Halo Episode 7. Though at the time, it felt as though Makee was mainly just acting, now it appears she really is being indoctrinated back into the fold as a full-fledged human.
One thing that can be said about the Halo series is that its star seems to have hit his stride as the season has gone on. While the Master Chief character was obviously meant to be stoic and even wooden, it still felt like Pablo Schreiber was mostly just going through the motions of playing the character. Later episodes have allowed the actor to seemingly step more into the combat boots of the character and really make it his own. This episode continues that evolution and it's now starting to feel as though Schreiber really is, Master Chief.
While there was certainly pushback early on about seeing Master Chief without his helmet, the way the show has laid out its storytelling, it certainly makes quite a bit more sense. The show needed to show that he was more than a man in a suit. That still might not sit right with some of the biggest fans of the video game series, but this is the way the Paramount+ plus series has chosen to go and it certainly seems like it fits well with the story the writers and showrunner are wanting to tell.
While quite a bit of the story centers on the relationship between John and Makee, there is also plenty going on behind the scenes. That includes Dr. Halsey being ostracized almost completely by the UNSC in a way that actually backfires completely. Much like the show has been slowly building the "humanity" in Master Chief, the series has also slowly been showing just what a villain Halsey really is when she doesn't get everything she wants.
In this episode, she's working behind the scenes almost from the very beginning and laying a trap for several of the different characters in the show. Much like the best villains on television and movies, she shows her hand just late enough that it's believable that she could turn against the people she worked for so completely. She also played a bit of possum when it came to just what she could do and how she was able to basically completely undercut the UNSC, Master Chief and the Spartans in one fell swoop.
Because this episode is all about setting the pieces on the board for the final time before the game really begins, there's quite a bit of really good drama and suspense towards the end of the installment. There's a bit of a family feud among the Spartans, as well as an interesting reveal when it comes to the history of Dr. Halsey and the UNSC and the people that are in charge of the human armed forces. And then there is the inherent distrust of outsiders that is both totally understandable and then incredibly frustrating.
There's an awful lot of talk about how humans are far from perfect. In fact, they are actually quite dangerous. It's one of the more interesting twists in this episode of Halo because Halsey is clearly trying to manipulate Makee when she lays out just how bad humanity is, but those manipulations prove to be true by the end of the episode. It also turns out that the humans have made some moves that are almost certainly going to come back to bite them. All in all, it's one of the best installments of the season so far largely because it does a fantastic job of teasing what's to come, while still offering plenty of interesting story on its own.
Halo is now available on Paramount Plus with new episodes launching every Thursday.