HALO

Paramount Plus

Season 1 Episode 9

Transcendence

Beaten, battered and betrayed, John 117 leads the Spartans on a suicide mission to find the Halo and save humanity. But at what price?

The finale begins immediately after the events of the last episode. In the aftermath of Makee taking control of the artifact, everything is in chaos with the Spartan’s prepared to kill each other and Halsey attempting to escape. With all of the storylines coming to a head, there isn’t a lot of time for dialogue, but the episode manages to have a couple of big reveals in the beginning that justify character actions. Mostly the beginning of the episode is action based and those moments look really good. We get to see the Spartan action that I know I’ve been wanting all season.

Kai looses her bid for revenge when Halsey escapes, but it does have a cathartic undertone that is interesting. The Spartans finally band together after learning the collective truth and decide to go after Makee. There’s a brief chase with Halsey that is actually a little funny. It leads to a potential final showdown between mother and daughter that frankly needed more development throughout the season beyond intellectual rivalry.

Master Chief and his team take a dangerous trip to locate the Covenant holy site. There are some great special effects employed in that sequence. The Spartan’s make it to the planet and the special effects continue to impress as they make a Halo drop to the planet’s surface. At the same time, Makee’s destiny is laid out by the Covenant brain trust.

What follows is the action I’ve been looking forward to all season. There’s plenty of video game level action and visuals and I like seeing the action move from first to third person seamlessly. While there were some issues with the tension of the final moments and the pacing didn’t fully deliver on the stakes, it was a good sequence that kept me engaged in the story.

The finale has some good moments and ends on some even more interesting mysteries. I would actually be enticed to watch a second season based on this finale.

HALO S01XE09

8.2

8.2/10

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