Warning: this review contains full spoilers for Halo: Episode 5! If you need a refresher on where we left off, here's our review of Episode 4.
Halo laid out its strengths and weaknesses in its first episode, and not a lot has changed in that regard over the past month. This show succeeds in taking a slightly different and more character-driven path with the source material. On the other hand, the series has come up a bit lacking in the action and spectacle department, and there's the matter of that pesky Hwan Ha/Soren subplot. The good news is that one of those two flaws is addressed in Episode 5.
Unsurprisingly, that aforementioned subplot is no more engaging in this episode than it has been for the past several weeks. The complaint is always the same: Kwan Ha no longer feels like a particularly necessary or compelling character now that her story has diverged from Master Chief's. The series continues to hint that eventually their paths will cross again, but that's hardly enoguh to justify all the screen time being devoted to Kwan and Soren goofing around in the desert. Not to sound like a broken record, but at some point the show really needs to establish why Kwan's arc matters and why the civil war on Madrigal is relevant to the larger UNSC/Covenant conflict.
The focus on those two is all the more frustrating in Episode 5 because it takes up valuable storytelling space that could be better directed elsewhere. This is the first episode since the premiere to devote much attention to Danny Sapani's Captain Keyes and his dysfunctional family dynamic. What we do get this week is a welcome addition to the mix, but it's hard not to want a little more.
Episode 5 does add some intriguing new layers to Captain Keyes and his relationships with both Miranda and Master Chief. There's a clear sense that he's not quite the neutral third party in the cold war between Miranda and Dr. Halsey that he'd like to appear to be. We see that he's all too willing to manipulate his daughter's career for his own ends, even if he ostensibly has her best interests at heart. There's also plenty to pick apart in Keyes' conversation with John where he promsies to "look into" Halsey's shady behavior. Is he being honest and forthright there, or is he merely stalling for time because he knows his own hands are dirty? Hopefully that's a question that will remain at the forefront in the latter half of the season.
For all the strengths of the Halo series premiere, that episode didn't do the best job of nailing the larger-than-life action of the games. Expensive though this show may be, it's not quite up to the task of depicting the Covenant creatures and tech and making those elements feel like a seamless part of the live-action environment. The big action sequence in Episode 1 certainly echoed the Halo games through the use of first-person perspective and those familiar weapons, but the exciting, visceral nature of actually playing Halo was lost.
Thankfully, Episode 5 does a far better job at delivering that trademark Halo spectacle. That's not to say the special effects are necessarily "better" than they were in the pilot – the Covenant characters are still trapped in the CGI Uncanny Valley, and that's probably something fans will just have to acclimate to over the course of the show. The difference is more in the scale of the action: this time around, we're not simply watching a team of Spartans gun down a Covenant platoon, but a multi-pronged assault involving both ground and aerial combatants. It's much easier to ignore the sometimes-dodgy CGI and simply enjoy the chaos. This sequence, unlike the one in the pilot, truly does feel like a Halo game come to life.
It helps that the stakes are much clearer and more immediate, as well. Master Chief and his allies are much more on the defensive this time. Plus, there's the question of how John and Kai will each react to fighting their first real battle without their emotion-inhibiors installed. Not well, it seems. Far from being the unstoppable super-soldiers their creator intended, Kai is paralyzed by the first pangs of fear she's probably felt in her adult life, and John blows the entire mission in order to save her. This series has made a smart choice in zeroing in on the conflict between conditioning and free will with the Spartans, and that pays off handsomely in Episode 5's gloomy climax.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/CRK2zl8
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