In the wake of the loss of the second artefact, questions need to be answered, both by John and his various superiors. But John has some questions of his own.

OK, so the last episode of Halo let itself down slightly by letting itself have an action scene that was basically a video game sequence. Can it pull things back this time out? Yes, wholeheartedly so.

With just how sideways everything went on Eridanus, the higher echelons of the USNC are looking for a scapegoat, and that means that someone is going to have to take a very big fall. Given how thin the ice on which Halsey has been skating is, she seems the obvious choice, though she has plenty of dirt on the right people. Then, John gets added to the mix.

Traumatised and feeling increasingly weaker, John confronts Halsey and forces her to tell him most of the truth behind who he is, what happened to him as a child and exactly how the Spartan program began. It’s grim stuff, and Natasha McElhone and Pablo Schreiber play their respective roles here perfectly. The former all clinical precision and no emotion, the latter a positive powder keg of competing emotions he hasn’t been used to feeling for the past couple of decades.

There’s also a confrontation between John and Cortana. Obviously, he doesn’t trust the AI anymore, and why should he. Cortana is still somewhat of an enigma for her part, and by the end of this episode I am still no closer to deciding whether the show will have her as ally of John or Halsey. That said, I’m not entirely certain that Halsey is a character we will ever get a true read on. On the one hand she’s capable of doing some truly awful things. On the other, she seems to genuinely believe that she’s doing them for good reasons, which arguably makes her even scarier.

Amanda finds herself in a somewhat elevated position given everything that’s going on, and that in and of itself leads to some fascinating interactions. More importantly, it gives John someone he can, if not trust, at least distrust slightly less outside of his own squad mates and Kai in particular. It’s interesting that though he shares what he learned with Kai, he’s not quite ready to loop in Vannak and Riz on the truth behind the Spartan program – I wonder if there is going to be further conflict there down the line.

As to Makee, she’s also presenting as somewhat of an enigma. John doesn’t trust her, but he also can’t deny that he shares a certain connection with her. Even though we have seen Makee with the Covenant and ‘know’ that she’s the bad guy, on the strength of this episode I’m still not entirely certain that she is everything the Covenant believe her to be. Having been taken in by them as a child, is it possible that she’s learned to survive simply by doing as they wanted, or is she really committed to their cause? Time will tell.

Overall, it’s a far more focused episode, delving deep into character and giving various actors time to shine in their roles. This is what this show is capable of at its best, and I am here for it.

Verdict: Tight, dramatic and full of character. 9/10

Greg D. Smith