I Really Hope Halo Season 2’s Finale Isn’t What I Think It Is

Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Halo season 2, episode 7, “Thermopylae”

Halo season 2, episode 7’s ending is potentially cause for concern regarding the finale. Starring Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief John-117, Paramount’s live-action Halo has experienced its fair share of controversy due to a handful of creative choices, many of them being departures from the core franchise canon of the original games and novels. However, the Halo season 2 finale could be the most divisive element of the entire live-action series.

In Halo season 2, episode 7, the UNSC is sending waves of Spartan-IIIs against the vastly more powerful Covenant fleet. The hope from the UNSC’s Admiral Parangosky is to trigger a chain reaction that destroys both forces and the first Halo ring which both sides wish to claim. Meanwhile, the major threat of the Flood has been teased while the majority of the show’s main cast is quickly converging on the ring itself. As a result, there is a concern that Halo season 2’s finale will attempt to do far more than it should before the season’s end.

Halo Season 2, Episode 7 Ended With The First Halo Ring

Installation 04 Is Finally Here

As seen at the end of Halo season 2, episode 7. Makee and the Arbiter Var “Gatanai are headed for the first Halo ring, Installation 04, having gone rogue and successfully killed the Covenant priest and his followers who had questioned their defiance of the Hierarchs. The advanced AI Cortana is also with Makee and the Arbiter. That said, she’s also been remotely aiding John-117, helping him recover his armor from the UNSC before guiding him to the first ring as well before the episode’s end.

Keeping episode 7’s ending in mind, one can assume that John-117, Makee, Cortana, and the Arbiter will all be on the ring itself at the beginning of Halo season 2’s finale (if not more characters). This means that the show’s “Silver Timeline” has either arrived or is nearly about to reach the events of the franchise’s very first game, Halo: Combat Evolved. As a result, this leads to the concern that the show might not give its depiction of the first game all that it deserves.

Is Halo Season 2’s Finale The Entire First Game’s Plot?

I Really Hope It Isn’t

With all points converging on the Halo ring before the finale, it’s not hard to imagine Halo season 2 essentially depicting its own version of Combat Evolved’s plot where John-117 and Cortana work together to destroy Installation 04 at the season’s end, just like they did in the first Halo game. This would likely be interspersed with the space battle between the Covenant and UNSC as well. That said, it seems very unlikely that the show could successfully condense Halo’s roughly 10-hour main story into a single hour of television (even if the game’s runtime is largely battles).

With any luck, Halo season 2’s finale will continue to tee up the events of the first game by setting up the key threat of Combat Evolved beyond the Covenant known as the Flood, the reason for which the Halo rings were built by the Forerunners. Rather than trying to do far too much with too little time, Combat Evolved should be the focus of a third season. Halo season 2’s finale should instead celebrate the fact that the show has finally arrived at Halo itself, John-117 and Cortana finally reuniting, and then setting up the Flood for the future.