Let's roll it back to about a month ago; you would've caught me texting my buddy, and longtime Halo Co-op partner, about how the trailer for Halo: Season 2 looked like a massive improvement, as though someone had cracked open one of the Halo books or, imagine this, played a Halo game (gasp), and realized they had gotten the story, characters, and pretty much everything aside from the general look entirely wrong in the first season. Sure, they were still showing Chief's face entirely too much, but the visuals looked better, and it certainly looked like the focus would be almost entirely on the Human/Covenant war, as it always should have been.
So high were my hopes that I recently activated a 7-day free trial of Paramount+, a streaming service I've done nothing but clown on in the past, just to see if the first few episodes were worth my time. And the verdict?
It's all of the exact same problems hidden behind one excellent opening sequence.
I mean good lord, it's like the creators just can't help themselves! After 20 minutes of admittedly great Halo action, we're right back to the same old shit; Humanity bickering amongst themselves, shady military officials causing problems for the Spartans, Master Chief being overly emotional (and talking to a sex hologram like it's a therapist????????), and an entire side story about space pirates that takes up roughly half the episode and has seemingly nothing at all to do with the main conflict. The Covenant is once again moved to the background to make room for Days of our Lives feat. Master Chief.
Now I mentioned this in my review of season one, but apparently it bears repeating, and I hope that the creators of the show see this because if they don't figure this out soon, Halo probably won't be getting a third season;
HALO IS ABOUT HUMANITY RALLYING TOGETHER AROUND THE MASTER CHIEF TO SURVIVE IN A LOSING WAR AGAINST A TECHNOLOGICALLY SUPERIOR ALIEN RACE.
That's it, that's the plot, that is 90% of what any Halo story set during this war should be about, and then throw in the Forerunner stuff once the war bits have been established. If you find yourself telling any story that relegates any of that to the background, I have bad news for you; you haven't made a Halo story.
I don't need to see Chief arguing with military officials about how the Covenant is a threat, they should know that. I shouldn't see Chief dealing with anger issues, Spartan's don't have those. I shouldn't see Chief having flashbacks to the human traitor he slept with, there aren't human traitors and Chief shouldn't be having sex. I shouldn't see Space Pirates, what in the hell is this plot full of made up characters?
As I mentioned in my previous review, it seems abundantly clear that what happened here is that someone pitched a sci-fi drama series to Paramount, who either through lack of faith or "dollar sign eyes" decided that they should take this sci-fi drama and slap the trappings of Halo onto it. I can't believe I've allowed this series to dupe me twice, and I won't be giving them a chance to do it again.
1/5, please make Master Chief put his damn helmet back on.
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