Halo Season 1 Episode 3 is the third episode of an American military science fiction television series developed by Kyle Killen and Steven Kane for the streaming service Paramount+, based on the video game franchise of the same name. The series had been languishing in development hell since 2013 before becoming a streaming TV series, after failing to appear as a movie or traditional TV series. The first season will feature nine episodes, with a 2nd season already greenlit.
S P O I L E R S
Entitled “Emergence”, Halo Season 1 Episode 3 introduces Cortana the A.I. ‘assistant’ embedded into Master Chief’s brain, voiced by Jen Taylor, who also provided Cortana’s voice in the video game. And perhaps it is this new story element that freshens the series up immediately, after the disappointment of the last episode.
Cortana’s origin story is dark and disturbing in itself as ‘she’ was created from flash-cloning several persons and when the clone’s brain is extracted, the clone itself is killed and dissolved by acid. Which highlights how much value the USNC places on human life in its quest to win its war with the Covenant. Speaking of quests, this episode is chock full of them and probably that’s why there is a strong narrative drive – even more than one – running throughout.
Master Chief needs to investigate the planet of his own origin and search for the missing part of the Keystone that he saw in his visions. Makee is on a mission to recover the Keystone herself and this episode we get a chance to see how deadly she really is as she takes out an entire USNC ship. Kwan is on her own journey as she seeks to return to Madrigal to aid the resistance, with Soren in tow.
Halo Season 1 Episode 3 has clearly demonstrated that there is enough story juice to carry this series forward.
Now streaming on Paramount+.
… still there’s more …