John, Halsey and Cortana go to find answers in John’s past. Kwan searches for her father’s old generals so she can re-start the rebellion on Madrigal. Miranda spends some time with the rest of Silver Team and comes to see them in a new light

It’s interesting to me that this show has specifically set out to be an ‘alternative canon’ to the videogame series which spawned it. Though aesthetically it draws heavily on that source material, it’s clear that it is also carving its own path, and that means that patience rewards the viewer with respect to certain arcs within it.

This time out, John and his escort arrive on his former home, and it’s clear that Halsey and her assistant Adun are a little concerned about just how many memories John might have triggered by being there. Cortana has her own role to play here too, in helping John to piece together what the place looked like in the past. I can’t quite tell if my own memories of the video games are colouring my perceptions here at all or if it’s just the subtlety in Jen Taylor’s performance, but I get a real sense that Cortana is not entirely happy with her dual role as confidant to John while spying on him for Halsey, and I wonder, given her own origins here, how that might play out going forward.

Back at Reach, Kai has decided to take some steps of her own after seeing Chief remove his pellet. This leads her to make some interesting choices with regards to her personal appearance, which don’t go unnoticed. It also means that when Miranda summons her and the rest of Silver Team for tests on the artefact in her mother’s absence, she’s perhaps a little readier to speak up and challenge Miranda’s evident assessment of her and her fellow Spartans. That leads to an interesting breakthrough, as Miranda realises that these super soldiers might have more value to the cause and her work than simple brute strength and combat ability. Seeing Kai start to navigate the idea of there being more to life than fighting at the same time as watching Miranda revise her assessment of the Spartans as mere tools of war is entertaining and tells the audience a lot about both sides.

On Madrigal, Kwan and Soren are ion the hunt for Kwan’s family, and her father’s old generals, so that Soren can get paid and Kwan can restart the rebellion against the USNC and against Vinsher’s draconian new rule. Turns out they may both be out of luck on that score though, as Kwan starts to discover just how little appetite remains to her people for the conflict and Soren finds that there really is no honour among thieves. When Vinsher takes special measures to get rid of Kwan, a wanted fugitive, both she and Soren have to reckon with a brevity of options.

What I am liking more and more about the show is that it has few caricatures in its cast (Burn Gorman’s Vinsher being the sole exception at the moment). Soren strikes the viewer as pragmatic and potentially vicious but is also clearly possessed of some virtues. Halsey is clearly deeply amoral, but also works within a system which not only allows but encourages that. Even the Spartans themselves are deeper than you might initially expect, which goes some way to explaining the loyalty they have towards John and one another beyond simple programming.

Verdict: It may still be a show about factions competing to find a Magical McGuffin which is operable only by Chosen Ones, but it’s having some fun and doing interesting things with it along the way. 8/10

Greg D. Smith