Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole? The All Things Alice podcast will explore the cultural phenomena of Alice in Wonderland. Frank Bader, the author of the Looking Glass Wars trilogy, is your host through a wonder-verse of interviews from all types of creators as they chronicle the dark yet empowering reality of Lewis Carroll's fantasies and answer the question, what is it about Alice that captivates us still today? The All Things Alice podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts. From the team that brought you the award-winning show Retro Replay and the Emmy-nominated comedy series Con Man comes a new idea just crazy enough to be good, introducing couch soup! I know, I know, you're probably wondering, what is couch soup? Well, couch soup is content for your hungry nerd soul! Daily articles from fans, not pundits, weekly podcasts that contain a multiverse of opinions on all things pop culture, exclusive videos and weekly live streams where we laugh, scream and sometimes have technical difficulties, all created by folks like you, the gamers, the film nerds, the TV, bingers, comic book lovers, bookworms and pop culture enthusiasts all in one giant bowl of beautiful, disgusting, soupy goodness at couchsoup.com. What's up everybody and welcome back to the watching now podcast over here on couchsoup where we are diving into every new episode of Halo Season 2 and it's finale day guys, it's the final episode of Season 2. We're going to get into, there's a ton to unpack, it's a long episode, there's a lot of new stuff that happened in this episode, there's a crazy amount to get through, so we're going to get through all of that, but before we get to that, we just want to say a big thank you to our sponsor for this episode. Our sponsor for this episode is Paramount Plus, so if you're not watching Halo, make sure you go down into the description and follow that link where you can go to Paramount Plus and create your own account and you can watch Halo, because on Paramount Plus they have Halo, they also have the Knuckles series coming up soon, they have a bunch of cool stuff on there, so go and sign up for a account over on Paramount Plus, if you support them, they also support us, so it's a win-win for everybody, go and do it. Thank you again to Paramount Plus for supporting us, we love you guys. Awesome. So introducing our cast for this episode, do you have myself Nick, your host, we also have Dan. Move like he had a purpose Marines. We also have Tom. That one. That one. That one. And the Superman Drew. Hello, I'm Superman Drew, also known as the Spartan that died immediately when he landed on this ship. Alright, what's up guys? So let's jump into the episode recap of the season finale of season two, it's time to finish this fight. Alrighty, so we open up episode eight with Chief, he's kind of, he's in a suit, but no helmet, he's kind of just in the dark, and he's talking to a mysterious person, and immediately I'm like, where the hell is he? Who the hell is he talking to? This is all very vague and confusing, it's one of those like, I forget the term, it's like not in media res, but it's like, you know, where Chief is already kind of at the end, and you kind of like he's narrating it almost, and you kind of play catch-ups throughout the episode. I love the storytelling device, but I'm like, who the hell is he talking to? Because I don't recognize their voice, and we don't see that person, it's like, this is very interesting, and I think we have explanations for it, but we'll get to that later. We then see some cool little CGI scenes where we see some microscopic, like, bacteria of sport, of sorts, and they, like, I think Miranda's studying it at the time. She's looking through a microscope at it, and they call it sports for the first time, which, I don't know, I think you guys were saying that was the flood thing, was like, sports? Yeah, that was our theory last week that they opened that thing, and that's going to release the sport. And it's a sport. Yeah, so that's the first time I was like, damn it, like, Dan and Tom are right, it's a sport, it's definitely a sport. So obviously, flood. And we didn't really have to wait long for that to be confirmed. But what I thought was really, really funny, it was such a great way to open the episode, is that that little scientist or a lab assistant, her name was Janine, like, she was kind of like Lee. Yeah, she's like really annoying, and she's like, oh, Miranda, I love you. Please can help you. Way too bubbly for Miranda. Whatever. And I was like, yeah, I was like, I'm sure nothing's going to come out of her scenes at all, and she's affected. Like, if you think about it. It's true anyway. She's apparently a biologist, which she would assume that means she knows proper protocol to touching stuff, and she doesn't know what it is. Yeah. But she's been touching. She told Miranda that she didn't touch it. She totally touched it. She totally touched it. It means she bloody raw dogs touching a random alien artifact that we don't know. Let's just, you know, oh, this is cool. Shit. I'm infected now. Up it days. Meanwhile, talking shit to Miranda, I'm like, she's not a her mom was a better biologist than she is. It was like kind of a weird moment to your like, why is this what's happening right now? And you're like, that was a, it was a interesting, interesting moment. You kind of, you kind of hate her a little bit. You're like, you know, if anyone's going to be patient, Sarah, I'm glad it's you. Yeah. Yeah. Even Miranda was like, get, get, I got work to do. Peace out, please. This is an interesting, like device that they use here, right? With this cold open, right? To kind of set up this larger problem because like the way the last episode ended, you're kind of like, we're in space battle mode, chief is on the way to the ring. And we're kind of jumping into this pretty long cold open where we don't see any of that, right? You know, we don't even know where chief is. He's in some weird dreamscape, talking to some unknown voice. And now we're in like this like resident evil style, like opening where the T virus is getting out and infecting everybody kind of. And I think the only problem I have with this with cold open is they don't really show how the transmission is and like how the virus or how the spores infecting people because it starts out to seem like it's airborne, like in the sense that it's just floating and everybody's getting infected via airborne or via touch. Like I have it. I touch you. You have it kind of like a cold would be kind of like, what was that movie? Not outbreak. Contagion. Contagion. It kind of like, you know how it shows like the dust around people's hands when they touch a doorknob and that whole movie scene, like you're kind of like, oh shit, that's cool. And this felt that this had that vibe to it. But then later on, that sort of goes out the window. That sort of idea that it's spreading airborne or spreading by touch. Like, so that was, I was a little kind of confused. But anyway, we then go to Perez and she's in space and her, I remember from the last unit is being deployed and she's in a big ship and she's actually part of Kai's units. And it's space battle time. This is what I was looking forward to so much in this episode. We're seeing how they do this, but like the battles in space because, I mean, we've seen a lot of battles in space, right? We've seen Star Wars. We've seen Star Trek. There's a lot of stuff that we've seen in space, but holy shit with us. Space battles cool in this episode. It caught me off guard like when they were like getting ready to jump out. And it's like, all right, ready, steady bang. This is what we train. Explosions like, oh shit. Are they all dead now? Yeah. It was a little weird though, like that the front of the ship, like they were facing the fleet, but the back of their ship exploded. I was like, I didn't know how that like they showed a laser beam up and around. I don't know. I thought it was a thing where they were like, they were flying in and then they took you adrift it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the creation I got. And they add to that chaos by adding in like the corpses of the other Spartans when they're like debris field. Wait, this isn't debris corpses, you know, and they're like crashing into the other dead Spartans that have already been blown out of space and just trying to dodge around them. That was a rule. That was great. I think that was, I thought that was pretty good. It kind of, it, it told the story of like this is how like vicious it is for these, I mean, could we, or we knew about in the last episode is that waves of Spartans had been sent on this suicide mission. And then now we were actually seeing the results of that. So I thought that was really well done. We then get back to chief and chief is kind of in park at the beginning of the episode. He's still trying to just, I guess decide. He seemed pretty good. He said at the end of last episode, but I loved how they had that coin where we were talking about this. Last week where he has that coin, which is like, he's always been lucky that like, he always flips the coin and he always guesses. Right. That's his whole thing is that he's lucky. And I love this sort of visual symbolic storytelling of basically he's not lucky. That's just how good he is. He can see it's going to be heads or tails. So the idea of picking heads or tails is like it's his choice. You know, it's his sort of, um, his, his, I don't want to say destiny, but like he's in control. And, um, I feel like this was really good in this scene where he kind of takes control, especially because Parangoski then contacts him. Um, I guess she found his number somehow. And I suppose he's on one of their ships, I guess. Yeah. I was just thinking it'd be so funny if chief is just like new phone, who this? And then just hang up. He kind of does actually. He kind of does. That's it. I love it. But, uh, yes, um, he contacts him saying she's happy. The first thing she says as well, she's like, I'm happy you're back with us. And I'm like, bitch, what gave you that idea? Or that gaslighting. Keep the hijacked one of your ships in the last episode. Like Parangoski just all out constantly like hail Mary gaslighting right now. Gaslight gatekeep Gilbas. There you go. There it is. But yeah, chief's not having any of it. And you pretty much just hangs up on her. And that's all we see from chief for the time being. Because then we go back to Kwan and Soren and Kwan and Soren. They had themselves a bit of a journey this episode. Um, so it starts where, uh, Kwan gets a vision from the shaman lady. Uh, so it's that shaman lady from sanctuary from episode one. She spoke to chief and was like, you are the devil. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So she's kind of, I don't know why she spoke to chief at the beginning. I don't even know if she's even alive. But what is she? Do you guys have any ideas? Well, I, I have a, I just thought of something. So it could be that she called chief the devil because chief's the one that can activate the rings. And if she is connected to the flood, he's one of the only people that can stop them. So in there in the floods, he's the devil. So the covenant, the covenant thing. She's the devil. The blood. I'm not going to think. She's the devil. I'm not going to think about it. 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I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. Aaron Goskey very much tells him that the Spartan 3 is that hopefully they are there to buy him time. He needs to get to the halo. They're there to buy him time so that he can get there unimpeded kind of thing. That's where he flips his coins and flips his coin. He has this flashback. We spoke to Perez on Reach just before the planet was destroyed where they talk about his luck and how he got it right 11 out of 11 times. I think that he comes to terms with the fact that he isn't so much lucky as he controls his fate more than anything else. He then stands up and he puts that helmet on and he gets ready to go. As soon as you put that helmet on, I was like, "Ooh, let's go!" I'm so freaking excited. I was like, "This is going to be awesome. This is going to be awesome." Then we go back to McKee and Cortana. There's a lot of these moments in this episode that builds you up. Let's go check something else out, which I love because it keeps you amped and ready to go because there's a lot of really cool scenes that follow. This scene with McKee and Cortana. Cortana recommends that they get to a drop ship as their ship is taking damage. I did not understand this at all initially in this scene. I was like, "Why is their ship taking damage? Are they being shot by the fleet or what's happening?" It actually gets explained later that their ship is, I think, burning up in the atmosphere or it's a part of the gravitational war. It's sustained too much damage from the fleet to survive reentry into the atmosphere. I think Perrin got this in dialogue where she talks about it being attacked. There was a brief shot where you can see the Covenant Armada firing on them. Yeah, Cortana explains it. She basically says, "You've sustained too much damage. I'm not going to make it like that." They'll break it as like terror kicks by the high rocks and junk. What I liked about the rest of the scene was Cortana. Then she says that she can answer any questions. She has got all of this knowledge. She can answer any question except about Master Chief because she has this loyalty to him. McKee then says she's going to erase Cortana because she's done with him. Cortana's loyalty to Master Chief could be a hindrance to McKee later on. She smashes that device that's holding Cortana and Cortana disappears. I don't know who would think that, "Oh, no, Cortana's gone." But clearly, she's not going to be gone. I mean, it's Cortana. But I guess if you've never played the games, if you don't know who Cortana is, maybe you were like, "Oh, she's not gone." But this moment, I don't know, it didn't hit enough for me because it was like, "Yeah, you just smashed her device." I mean, we've had moments like that already where, like, Chief died and then he was brought back to life and, you know, was the Cortana was taken out of him. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that she could do something to get out of her. I feel like this is just really making McKee. They're just doing a lot of work here to make McKee seem more like the villain, right? Like she's just making too many bad choices, you know, to really be redeemable. So I think they're really leaning her more towards... We're season one, you're kind of like not sure, like where her allegiance is by and where how she falls and the two sides. Now she's kind of like not either side. She's just her own... She's a chaos maker, right? Like she's a... She's just doing everything for herself. So it's kind of seems like where it's kind of netting out. Yeah, I like that for McKee. I think she says later in the episode that she doesn't have like any allegiance to anyone. She's just herself and the arbiter. She wants like the arbiter with her and they're going to like create a peaceful world or whatever. So I like what they're doing with McKee. I think they've kind of... They've given her character, her character, but more substance. And I definitely enjoyed her season two, a lot more than season one. I'll tell you that. So then we head back to Kai and they are continuing to summer. And I think this is going to be one of the coolest scenes of the whole episode for those who have played the games. So Kai Perez, that whole team, they're really suffering and they're running out of ammo. So Kai says, "Hey, you ever shot a plasma rifle before?" I love that shot part. And Perez is like, "No, never." And Kai is like, "Well, there's nothing like your first." And then they grab the plasma rifles and start fighting with them. And then Perez gets like hit badly. Yeah. Not to be a dick, but they don't actually pick up plasma rifles. They weren't. A carbine and a needless plasma rifle. What is the carbine? Why not plasma pistols, if all things? Like, where's the plasma pistols at? That's a good point, yeah, the plasma. But I noticed that at two times that Kai was shooting a carbine and then Perez got the needless. Perez is like the needless, but not the weapon rifles. I mean, either way, they kind of made it up for it, which is that shot of Perez with a dual wheel in the needless. I was like, "Oh, yeah, here we go." That's what I was going to get to next. I was going to say, if you're a fan of the games, you're seeing, because Perez takes like a big shot, Kai's like dragging her back. And then Perez picks up one of the needless, and then she picks up another one and goes, "A Kimbo with a freaking needless, which is something you can do in the games." That's Halo 2 and the needless action right there, where you just smoke the dudes with needless, and they just turn into a cloud of pink dust. I was watching that thinking, "This is our freaking dust." I wish we saw more of the pink dust explosion. I wanted to see that. Yeah, I wish they showed the aftermath of all those needless hitting a dude. Yeah. We saw it a little bit with Vanik. Yeah, it was turned up so cool. Vanik. Yeah, I know. I liked how badass Perez was in the scene and in general. She's really starting to come to her own as like a bit of a soldier, because she gets hurt really badly, and she's still kind of like jokes about it. I think Kai says something to her, and then Perez kind of like responds. She says, "I'm an idiot with two needless." That's like she's cracking jokes. No, that's off. It was so good. Yeah. But yeah, she has heard really badly, and you know, Kai has the spike, and she's kind of thinking about using it, but there's like so many covenant around, and then bang, big explosion. And hey, it's Master Chief, and he gets in there and kicks some serious ass. Yeah, we get the a smoky room from a far action shot of laser swords and death, right? It was kind of like, okay, you know, I get it. I get it, but I was a little like... A little bit key-shaped, but it's a cool way to reveal. I mean, it wouldn't have been surprising to see like, like Ben Affleck's Batman pop-up, but it was Master Chief. I'm Chief. You had to be in the machine. In the shadow. So moving on from there, Master Chief just kind of, he's in there, and he takes out all the covenant in that sort of area, so he kind of saves Kai and her team. And what was really cool, he has Kai and Chief kind of have like this heart to heart where they're looking out at the fleet and everything that's kind of going on. And there were some really cool sort of lines here where she says Kai says to Chief, she says that they are the last of their kind. They are the last Spartan twos because, you know, everybody that's there are Spartan threes and I guess four was as well. And then she says Spartans never die, but they do, don't they? And it's kind of like, yeah, I mean, Vanik died. I mean, we have no idea what's where is is. I was hoping to see what happened to Riz, like in some small way. But what I really liked is that... So Kai says that like, you know, Spartans never die, but they do, don't they? I like how Chief replies and he says, not today. And then he's kind of like, you know, channeling. I feel like he's really starting to channel all of his anger from this whole season. You know, I feel like while he's fighting, I can almost see him thinking about Vanik and thinking about Riz, thinking about how he was manipulated and how he lost reach. And it's kind of, I feel like it feels really well-earned. You know, it feels like he actually has like a vengeance on his mind. I think there's an important line there too where he mentions not leaving anyone behind because that's a big mentality of the video game Master Chief. Yes, he also says that he says that they're not going to leave anyone behind today. Like he's kind of, he's like taking charge and he's like... He's made the decision to kind of save people. Yeah. Because that's another thing I want to get to later is talking about how he's growing and how his decision plays into it. But we'll get to that. Kai then heads to, as Master Chief walks out, Kai then heads to the panel and she's got that spike. And she's kind of thinking about it. She's like, "Ooh, I can just put this bad boy in here." But she doesn't do it just yet. But it kind of is there just so we know that like that's, you know, she's close to it. We then head back to Kwan and design, Kwan has decided to go with Soren and help him by Kessla and Lyra. And the two of them head off to look for Soren's family. People in the station are kind of just frozen in place. This was, this was really cool. It's kind of chilling. I really like this where the people were kind of just frozen in place. They just weren't moving. I don't know if you guys have played a video game called Control. But in Control, there's an infection there as well where people like their floats in the middle, in the air. But they're also kind of just frozen in the air. And you can sort of hear their voices kind of thing, but they're just frozen. And there's, to me, there's something so eerie and so creepy about people that are just completely like frozen. Not like frozen in ice, but just frozen like they're just emotionless. They don't move. Like it's just so chilling. And then Kwan kind of goes up close to one of them and says, like, they're not breathing. And I was like, okay, that's, that's even groovy. Why are they not breathing? Is that a thing? For the blood stuff? Well, maybe they could, like, I think they changed it again. Cause I don't think the flood feels more like the adoption for the TV show version of the flood. Cause the flooding games just kind of takes you over and like when you die, the flood dies. Okay. Cause that was creepy where she's like, yeah, they're not even breathing. I was like, so is it like rigor mortis? So they're just like dead and frozen. I saw this because it's a microorganism. What's happening is it's that transition period of where the flood's taken over the brain and the body just goes still while it's happening as it's kind of doing it. Okay. That's, that's a cool theory. I like that. No, that's a good explanation of it. But as they leave this area, there's one of the last infected that that they walked past. He's kind of frozen. And then he sort of like clicks and like cholts and what looks at them. And immediately the first thing I'm thinking here is this, this seems very the last of us with like the clicking and that like sudden cholts kind of movements and stuff. So all of the zombie tropes, all that like this is awful on zombies. Like this is just straight up zombies now. Yeah, I thought that too. I kind of did an eye roll like this feels like a zombie and turning into a zombie show, which I, which was nice about the flood. It kind of never felt like that. It felt different. Like it felt more like a unique take on it. And this is even before last of us, right? Oh yeah. Or like the spores and stuff. So long before so like the fact that they kind of turned this into kind of like a zombie show trope thing kind of, it's kind of made me. Yeah, again, I did an eye roll like I wasn't really into it. It kind of, it didn't feel like they're doing anything new here. We then go back to Lyra, Kesslyn, Akerson, and that infected lady that was kind of just stationary. I guess that's the part where like it's now completely taken over and she can move again. And she's got like this massive brook out of the side of her. It looks like a month. What are those things? Bumps. This is both of us. He's an evil demon who spits fire in my throat. She like tries to phase through the cells. She like squeezes herself through the cell and like it starts distorting her body. And I was like, oh, it's even gross still like it's still gross. And it starts trying to reach out at Kesslyn and Lyra. And it then grows a brick in tentacle. And this is where we're going to talk about it. It grows a tentacle out of that month growth thing out of its neck. And there's like this massive tentacle type thing that grows out. And that's where it becomes very raised at an evil moving on to different genres. So you know, this is where we were talking about this. Is that coming from the games? Because in the games that's where she looks more flood there because of the big growth on the side of her head. Because like the human flood as you see them a lot of times they retain a lot of their lower body features. You can see their legs. You can see their arms. And it's the top portion that turns into this large mass where you can still see like their face. But it's just like growth. And then you get the little bits and bobs growing out of that. So that's where I'm like, okay, this feels more proper flood. You can see where you guys are making the Resident Evil comparison. But again, it still feels a little different. It's of the same genre. Yeah. I mean, like if you like resident evil to like felt like that some of the bosses in that game that felt that moment felt very resident evil to. I don't know what like it just was like, okay, I've seen that boss. The fact that you're in like a. Yeah, the fact that you're in like this dark like basement level prison cell. Like all of them are doing that. Terrifying to think that all the people could eventually turn into this thing and then. No, totally. The flood can amass together and then they get like the pod things that explode and shoot out the parasites. Like, oof, if we start getting those. Yeah, it's going to be crazy. Yeah. But for the rest of the scene. The scene, Aakison, then comes around, I guess begins as a redemption to her and starts saves the day because the God that's like the. Obviously looking after them, he's also frozen in place. And I think they don't know what the frozen in place thing means yet because like Aakison is like saying God, like you need help them. But he then takes the gun out of the God's holster and shoots the lady. And saves Lira and Kessler, which is like, I think this is where starting to redeem himself. He's starting to show that he cares about people. And that's where I was like, come on, Aakison, I'm ready to see you become a good guy. I love him. I think it's cool. The God then kind of goes all crazy. And he turns on Aakison and Aakison's run out of ammo. So he's got no way to defend himself and then Sauron and Kwan. We see Sauron and Kwan, they're looking at security cameras and they find out where they are. And then obviously, Sauron arrives and saves Aakison. Or I think he's at this point, he's only heading down there, but eventually gets down there and saves Aakison. And then Sauron is reunited with his family. So at least there's kind of the happy ending, but now they've got to get out of there. And there's a lot more to that that we'll get to. We then go back to Parangoski and she's actually brought Halsey up to the main bridge or the main area or whatever. I'm wondering if that's where she went at the end of last episode. Remember that you kind of just disappeared. I'm wondering if maybe if she went up there, if maybe someone came to like take her up. It was very kind of strange how she just disappeared. I think it was very convenient though for the writing because she had to not be there when the sport like container thing was open. Because she had to not be infected at that point, at least. Well, but then she ends up back there. So yeah, it was like that whole moment. Like she was like there to talk to chief for two seconds and then and have a redemption moment here. The blocking on the show is a little wonky. It's a little bit weird sometimes. But Parangoski has brought Halsey up there and basically says to Halsey like you need to try and convince chief to go for the halo. Because halo is headed for Mickey's ship. Like this is where he kind of got confusing as well because chief was like, yeah, I leave no man behind. We're going to save all the Spartans. But like he saved like four Spartans and Kai and then I was heading for Mickey's ship again. I was like, oh, you're done with that already? It's just all of a sudden he's in flight like pursuing the ship. He's got straight up. I guess like so the way the way I was going to justify this is because later in that scene. You find it like I'm thinking, why is he going off to Mickey's ship? Like I thought he was going to help the Spartans. But then I started thinking, oh, but he wants to get, he knows Cortana is with Mickey. He wants to get Cortana first and then you know, he can like with Cortana, he can then become like the super soldier he was. He feels like he's at his best with Cortana as soon as he gets so he's going to then head back to the fleet. That's kind of where I think his mind was, or at least what I thought. Yeah. Yeah, they even even Halsey knows this and is like the entrance. She knows what he's doing to get to Cortana. She's like, because even paragraphs, he's like, well, I'll bid you another Cortana. I'll bid you another like don't don't do this. But I'm still mad because like how the fuck does he know she's on still on the ship because he saw the dropship. He knows Mickey's not on the ship because don't they tell him like like the ship's going to like there's. A ship's about to be destroyed. Yeah. Or like there's a moment. Yeah, like there's an escape pot heading down to the block like like so why would why does he think the key wouldn't take Cortana like how does he just know that like she would be put on about it. There's a lot of plot points here right I get really angry because like narratively other characters shouldn't know what's going on or or that that would be the point. That would be the thing to do structurally to make this episode work like it. I feel like they're missing plot plot devices to kind of connect the dots in some ways. They use it. They use a few too many narrative conveniences to say like oh chief could just have assumed that instead of saying well how would it why would you do this why would he make this choice for the running notion that there's too much stuff getting left in the editing room floor because they had to cut this thing down. And like I said before we started recording that I felt like this episode should have been like a bit longer or at least. We needed more time with certain things and like a quick little like shot explainer of like oh okay I understand that this is happening so we know that they know. They could split it into two expanded on stuff. Absolutely. But one thing that I thought was quite interesting is something we kind of joked about earlier in this watching now I think it was episode two of the series we joked about creating another AI. Like I think Tom was like yeah you could just create another AI it's not a difficult thing to do dance like it wasn't like an easy process Tom. And I love in this in this scene how parent gosh he says the whole goes you're like oh you can just make him another one just get into the. And I was like that's really funny because she's underplaying how much of a mission it was to make Cortana. Or maybe she's maybe she's even hinting at the weapon and sort of saying like. That's jumping way too far. We've already gone too far ahead with the flood so let's not go too too far ahead. But that was kind of interesting I thought it was really funny I thought you guys might have a lot of that. Just make another one. And at that point we get back to that mysterious voice that's been talking to chief that we still don't know who it is yet. And he kind of justifies why he went for that one of the big things is that he says she knows me. Which is kind of like that's like there's there's some kind of and I think Drew you said it earlier in the season as well as that there's there's the super powerful bond that we supposed to believe chief and Cortana have. But we haven't seen much of that. I feel like they're that connected and it's also like we've been together the whole season right so it's just it's. This is the following scene. Yeah this following scene is the first time they've actually seen each other like properly sort of seen each other for the entire season. Well we get onto the ship eventually and Cortana has survived anyone who thought that she was actually dead so don't worry guys she's okay she was in the she survived by transferring herself into the ship. I get into the AI systems or whatever and she tells she tells cheat that it's too late for them and now they're both going to be destroyed because this ship is going to crash land on Halo I guess. Again I was confused like why is the wind of the ship take damage. Why is it not able to just land on Halo is very confusing. But it basically was going to crash on on Halo and then chief badass that he has just decides to punch the freaking console. And there's like some visual effects on his arm I guess he's like absorbing Cortana. Yeah. That was pulling Cortana into his suit. It was like a like a punch flash drive. Yeah. I guess the suit has a suit has a computer that can hold Cortana's AI. I guess. I guess so. So now that he had obviously he's absorbed Cortana. How do we think Cortana is with chief now do you think it's like a chip thing or. She's just transferred like she transferred into a at this point. Is there an AI in the suit. Is there like a processing now. Yeah. It's strange. It's strange because later on and we'll get this but he visually sees Cortana as a hologram. So I guess the has a hologram function. I don't know. It's all very it's like they spend a lot of time explaining how they're going to like insert Cortana into chief into his brain in season one. And I was like like two episodes and this one was like less than like two seconds and like chiefs just got Cortana back. Okay. I think that's what I think that's what Dan was saying with them just trying to wreck kind of bunch of stuff to make it feel more like Halo. It has to be inserted. It's like now she's just in the suit now. Yeah. Yeah. We're in a digital age. Yeah. And then like Cortana is like oh no. Yeah. Yeah. They must have a new WPA six Wi-Fi. That's really fast. 100 gigs per second. Sweet. Alright. Yeah. Bonservite. They should have like a little Verizon or 18 and T plug there. Episode one of season three Cortana like like pops out and she says this hologram is brought to you by a team. Yeah. Cool. Fastest uploads possible by. Yeah. And Cortana is like sitting here telling chief like we're not going to make it but I've run the calculations and you know we both died. What does she say? Like not on my watch kind of vibe like you don't know everything or something. I think he says you don't know what I can do. Or you don't know you don't know everything. So you don't know everything. Yeah. And I was kind of well she does. I mean she kind of knows more than you. I don't know. That's the reason why Cortana can't predict what chief will do because chief has always been the most unpredictable person. Which you mentioned like she wouldn't tell me kick out of loyalty. She wouldn't tell me care about chief because like she doesn't know because chief can be like I'm going to do this one thing but love other thing and just like mess up everything for like the better most of the time. That ship does crash into halo I guess. And we don't really see kind of what happens the ship just crashes and then we go back to Sorin. And this is the scene where Sorin kills the god and you know saves everything and Sorin gets his family back he opens up the soul and he gets Kessna and Lyra back and then he kind of sets he sees. And he kind of just eyeballs him and he's like oh I think there's some dialogue where he's just like oh well look we have yeah kind of thing. And then it decides cool he's just going to leave in there. Oh no wait he comes back and opens the cell there's a lot of those moments in the show where they're like build it up and then pull the rug like a cool little punch line. But Sorin is like yeah cool you know what like I'm going to keep my eye on you but I'm going to free you. And the Akosan kind of joins the group. Okay we then hit back to Chief and Chief wakes up and looks around and we did it people we made it. We're on halo we finally made it. Episode 8 of Season 2 took scene episodes later. 17 or 17th episode we finally made it to halo and I mean it's a really dope ass reveal you look around and it's just this beautiful lush. Like background of nature and what I really liked and I wanted to ask you guys if this is an actual thing in the games is that the birds and damaged areas of like the environment they sort of like immediately regrow and heal. Is that something that the halo does in the games. Is that mentioned at all? Maybe in the later ones. I don't remember the original games having that but maybe halo in their halo five. Because everyone's like oh yeah halo is just this weapon that's just going to obliterate everything and the key is like no we're going to use it to be peaceful and blah blah blah blah. But then you see the halo actually like repairs itself and makes things green again and I'm thinking does it have another function. But Cortana survived to obviously Chief was able to you know Wi-Fi her into his suit somehow he wiped and she he wiped her. And she explains that the halo she kind of starts looking around and she says that the halo is like the perfect fusion of artificial intelligence and organic life. Which is kind of cool and she then guides chief to like there's this big structure and Cortana's like I guess we should go there. I don't know everything but I think you should go there. Yeah. And I liked I liked our chief immediately is like it's so nice to have you back. And I was like oh man this is awesome many heads off there. We then see the key in the arbiter also heading towards that big structure. And that's what I was like I was going to tell you guys remember the end of the last episode I thought oh waiting for master chief arbiter rematch on the halo. And I was like oh it's building up it's building up I can't wait to see it. I don't know if it was exactly around those time frame but there's that shot that I cannot not shout out there's that shot the chief holding his helmet by his side and that is one to one. To one to the halo infinite trailer of him holding is it's a wonderful shot. And I was like cool like I had a little geek out moment at that. That's cool. Yeah. I like I like when they do those little nods and things like shot recreations and stuff like that always always really cool. We then get a little bit more detail on the halo which I think is pretty we get a little bit more exposition here which is something we kind of needed throughout the series. But Cortana explains that all of the stuff on the halo was built so so so long ago and it's been waiting all this time potentially it's been waiting for chief. And she says everything has led chief yeah everything's also led McKee here but McKee believes in the halo stuff and all of this as like a prophecy. You know and she's kind of brought her because of fate or whatever and I like how chief responds to that he's because he's like everyone keeps telling him oh you like the chosen one you like have 400 DNA. And like oh you're so super important chiefs like I don't care just show me who to shoot you know show me who to fight. Because even even in this scene chief says he's here because this is where the fight is. And I like that I like the fact that he's like dude I'm here to I'm just here to fuck it up. I can't but your properties and all this other crazy stuff. Anyways we move on from there we go back to Paris and she's alive I kind of thought that maybe she was going to die at some point here but she is alive but she's really really bad you hurt. Kind of reminiscent of how risk was hurt. It's like kind of you know in the mid region in the torso I thought that was I don't think that's supposed to be a comparison but I thought it was kind of interesting. But Kye has not come back with her Kye is still on the bridge of the covenant ship and she still has the spike. And I'm thinking oh crap if she uses the spike now it's going to be bad because it's going to wipe everything out it's probably including the halo. And I thought like what the hell because it looks like she was going to do something what the hell is she going to do. And she kind of like puts the spike away and then she's like unsure about it but she starts highlighting that big ship and she flies it directly into that the big daddy what was it called the super carrier. Like right into his core reactor or like it's big laser cannon the glass cannon or whatever and in our really really really cool looking shot. She pulls an Independence Day exactly. Oh boy. She Independence Day is the super big daddy ship and she destroys it a really cool shot we get to see like this this big destruction and we get to see Perez's reaction to it as well which was a great little scene there. I was going to ask though is this RIP Kye is she dead. No we do later in the episode we see her floating in space but I mean she looked pretty old for me to be honest. I thought I was going to say all the other Spartans they had limbs blown off and shit and that was just from like the the pulse of cannons from the corvettes this was like blowing up one of the super carriers which is like a massive explosion she was literally right in the center of it's I don't know how she would survive it doesn't make any fucking sense I mean yeah the shore intact floating why do that if she's not in halo three. She fell on to a planet from space and survived the fall because of the way is locked up but they have the same armor though it's armor that saved him. Yeah. I suppose so. All right. Isn't it like this? I feel pretty good. Because I'm like frozen in place and then they deactivated and it kind of goes calm. Yeah he's I'm a locked up to save him so it could easily be like Kye's I'm a locked up to save her and then she's just like it's possible. I hope that she like from there she just goes down to a planet. Hello. What's going to happen is like she's going to be floating and then captain case is going to come in the pillar of order. I'm just going to say cool. Right now. He's going to have like an iPad and like a pig leg like a robot leg is like oh yeah I barely survived. Just come and see if you change the hell out of it. If you're not in the writers room for season three fucking make it happen buddy if that's not in season three listen. I'm going to put it right in. He's just playing right now. I need pirate keys. I need pirate keys. But the big explosion from Kye I mean that really gives the humans the upper hand. And this is really that false sense of security like story beats of the episode right is where the humans think okay cool we actually have the upper hand. Yeah some of the fleets of the covenant have been taken out and they kind of have the advantage and you think well the humans are actually going to win this fight. And Miranda's kind of updating Halsey on what's happening and she says that that was the what they got was the sample container. And it has a spore and Halsey immediately immediately understands what's going on like she's like oh. I'm like she's like losing it and she immediately tries to leave. But that's when like it's it's kind of one of those it's again very very zombie cliché where an infection starts in this building somewhere but the people at the top of the building don't know about it. Right like it's all happening here and spreading and it's making its way up. So because like you were saying nobody here knows about it everyone's just continuing you know it's like a normal average workday. Eventually the infection makes it to this room and it's full on zombie styles now right like they just jump in that people they try. Were they trying to bite anyone I don't think they were actually trying to bite anyone. I don't think it's like expect them with. Halsey gets jumped on and then the one like opens its mouth or that comes out of her eye or something like it has little pairs like come out and she's like yeah and then the thing is. And then I don't know if we'll put this on the list of maybe one of the most satisfying shots of the whole of season two but then look over at Peringoski and she's getting mauled by like eight of them ripped apart I was like that's what you get. I don't think she's getting ripped apart it looks like they're holding her down to an sector. Yeah that's what I caught like it looks like they're going to give her the mouth. But that's if they need a. Or they could use Peringoski. The captain case where they will infect her right and because they all just kind of go merge because that was the thought I got to with all them coming together. Our theory earlier we were talking about Peringoski possibly coming a grave mind. Because like everyone else is just like a single flood attacks but then with Peringoski it's like okay everyone jump on. It's a big old big old hug crap. That's really really. Here I was. Here I was celebrating Peringoski's death and now she's going to be the big bad again. Cool. Yeah. You'll probably keep her voice too. Yeah, it should be the voice. You're going to get the grave mind. Oh my gosh. So moving on from there we are in full zombie movie as we are in full zombie movie mode where we head down to the basement tables where it's dark and only illuminated by the flashlights of sorrow in the group. I was like dude. It's a parking garage zombie movie. Totally dude. I mean there's so many zombie quiches in this scene but let's deal with the corn stuff first. So Juan is cornered by a whole bunch of the flood and then the shaman lady appears again. So this is what we were talking about earlier. But the shaman lady here then says I knew you would deliver us. And she's obviously talking about the flood. But that's why I'm like earlier the shaman lady was like run. And then she says I knew you would deliver us and they're all there now. But then the shaman lady is like I will hold them off for you but I can't hold them for long. But I'm like well what then which side are you on? It was definitely very conflicting because it seemed like the shaman lady was guiding Juan to unleash the flood. But then she saves Juan from the flood. And it's very like wait which side are you playing? Are you your own double agent? That's the way it's like saying thanks. But she gives like this whole speech like I was you. I was one of I was a protector. Like you're like I have no fucking idea what you're talking about lady. Even Juan is no idea what you're talking about. Even Juan. It's like it's actually like super meta for the first time. Juan is even like dude I have no idea what's going on. Even she stands there for like a minute and she's like I'm going to hold them back. And she's like I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about. Like it's like a weird. Yeah. All right. This whole thing. It's like they're on like the writer's room. They're on like an acid trip right now. They're like yeah we're just going to have this lady speaking to Juan and in the spirit world. Like what the fuck is happening? This looks like my theory will happen. What's going to happen with Riz. Because if you remember when they were on the space armage planet. When Juan was having her you know trip whatever and she could see. The lady. Riz was the only one who would like you know your cake one. Everyone else was all in red and all just like laser frozen in place. Staring. So maybe now that the main flood has been released it's like sleeper cell activation. It's like the spores. Maybe from like bloodlines or descendants. And that's what activates because that's where the red dots were happening. So it's like hey this cult who's had like flood genes for years upon years upon years. That's just like the mind dormant. Now that the actual police they will activate and that's how the flood spread super quickly. Tom is so freakin attentive. But how does that turn into Kai? Is that she gonna have like a battle like fight herself away from the. Oh, yes. Sorry Riz. Yeah. She was left on space on the planet. So she's going to come back to like oh shit I made a bad call with these crazy people and other flood people. I'm going to become a spark. No she's going to die. She's going to die. She's going to be. She's going to be. Floods. Floods. Spartan. That's crazy. Is that a thing? I'm pretty sure flood Spartans have happened in the games. It's happened. Yeah. Especially in like Halo Wars. I think it's a lot in Halo Wars. Oh dude. Imagine a flood. Spartan version of Riz coming back and fighting against chief. Oh, that's some really fucking shit right there. I think I'll go back to Miranda and Halsey has arrived. And Halsey is right back on board a crazy train and she sees like some of the infected people and you can see her eyes. She's like and she starts like smiling and she's like she's super interesting. She's like it's beautiful. Like she's like she says that she says it's beautiful. She's so interested in studying them and learning from them and she doesn't understand why Miranda isn't just a sight. She's like what the hell? I don't understand why. And then she just freezes. And it's the big reveal. She got bit or infected somewhere and it's on her neck. And she's got and she's at that point where she freezes. And it's like oh that that to me was like through that's crazy. Because at this point there's no way to stop it. We don't know if anywhere to stop it or anywhere to like cure it or anything. So this was like I was like oh that's crazy. Thank God they did this. Only because it felt this whole episode felt like moment after moment of saving our main characters. Like it just felt like a constant like if you're a red shirt, you're dead on this episode. But if your if your if your name is in the title sequence, you're okay. Like I never felt at any moment during the show like any of our main people were ever even the kind moment I get talked about like felt didn't feel earned like so in my mind it wasn't really good. Head fake for death scene right like to make us think that she died. And so the moment that she got stabbed I was like finally feels like someone is this feels like this felt fine almost final like I was like oh shit because everybody else that's in fact is pretty fought right like there doesn't seem to be a way coming up. But then there's that there's the reveal later where she's put in cryo but that so you're kind of set that up for it because there's no way they're getting rid of Natasha McCone for the she's like the biggest star in the show. Yeah yeah yeah I mean literally like she's the face of the show almost. That's something I was going to point out here as well at this point because we obviously we see Halsey it's been infected and at this point I was going to say like it felt very much like yeah cool the flutter yeah. But they don't seem so dangerous because all the main characters seem to be able to get away. You know they don't really it doesn't feel like they've really impacted yet it's kind of just like oh the flutter yeah for season three. My biggest infusion at that point was how is everyone not getting infected at this point when else like especially when the whole CIC is suddenly infected and turning into zombies and like how come everyone isn't infected right now. That was Miranda. Yeah it's narrative convenience I think for a lot of it. But what I liked about this was Halsey one of the main characters got infected and I was like okay now it feels like there's actual stakes. You know like it's an actual threat. We then move on to the next scene where we get back to the group and Kwan eventually catches up with everyone. And then you know Lyra says to Soren here take Kessler and then she lags behind and shuts the door and reveals that she too got infected. And she then I mean it's a heartbreaking see this was I haven't teared up throughout the season maybe a little bit for Vanek but this scene killed me dude where she kind of she walks backwards and fades into the darkness as Soren is like trying to beat that door down. And that was like a huge moment so that's where it felt like okay shit the flood are dangerous and they are a huge spanner in the works. So that's where I feel like the flood actually kind of earned their right to be in this episode because it felt like this is this is just like they really really hurt us at this point. So Soren and Akasen take the group away on a ship and Kessler keeps asking like where's my mom where's my mom and you know Soren then goes up to Kessler and tries to comfort him a little bit. And this is what we're talking about the monster earlier is that he's like yeah there actually is a monster you know. And it's kind of like I feel like yeah it's a really good moment if you're a parent because you're kind of saying you know you want to always tell your kids that's like no the world is beautiful outside but you know it's going to get to a point where your kids are going to see you. The evil that exists kind of thing and you're going to have to tell them like yeah shit I try to shelter you from this. But there's only so much I can do kind of thing so my heart my little heart broke the info Soren. I love Soren is much like one of my favorite characters man that was a tough one to take for sure. So then we head back to Halo and chief catches up to McKee it's so cool actually saying like chiefs on the Halo. Like hey we're heading back to Halo. Anyways Keith catches up to McKee and the arbiter and here it is the big scene. I called it last week where I was like I'm so excited I think we'll see this. And it's the big scene the arbiter versus master chief rematch but now chief has his armor and he's got a plasma sword as well and these two go at it and it is so brutal and it's so well shot. And it's so well shot and it looks great. What did you guys think of this thing because I thought it was freaking amazingly well done. I thought it looked really cool and I think Dan must have liked the use of the book. I would say that was very reminiscent of Halo Infinite where you'd grab dudes and zip in on them and then like punch them in the face or something. Yeah. It was so cool. I was I was waiting for this rematch and I was really excited that we got it and on the halo right at the end it was super dope. The arbiter is kind of like a pretty much like you don't know when to die do you or like you just won't stay dead kind of thing and then she fights back the Swiss starts using the grappling gun as well. And eventually he gets the upper hand and then sort of tackles the arbiter to the ground. It's like a crap out of him fight club style pummeling the crap. And I was thinking like it kind of looked like he broke his jaw because like the the covenant they have like four mandibles mouth. And I was like how do they speak out of that how does it form words and stuff. But I mean clearly they don't form words because I mean the arbiter had one of his completely dislodged. It was pretty gnarly really really. And it was quite a quite a hectic scene here as well because there's some heavy dialogue where the arbiter says the chief in saying he says kill me demon end my shame. Right so that's the whole thing about the arbiters he needs to redeem himself and he's like please honor me by taking my life which it was like quite crazy. And then the key actually gets quite emotional about losing the arbiter and she sort of starts. She's kind of you know arbiters start saying to me like tell him to kill me tell him to kill me and my keys like no she doesn't want to do that. And you know what I thought was cold F was that chief says I knew exactly what you were saying the entire time and then just bam steps in the chest. That was brutal. Kind of bad to the opposite at the end. That was really cool like yeah it was like because there's a moment there I was like oh shit they're going to he's not going to kill him like you know like he's he's obviously defeated and chief doesn't like there's a moment where I'm like okay is there a moment where this the arbiter turns to kind of like or McKee kind of makes. Chief says the chief like he can he can be with us or so I don't know like there was a moment here where I was like I thought they were going to make the arbiter kind of like turn like you know he's to second to save him. Chief's not going to kill him the arbiter is then going to realize okay. Maybe chief's not so bad. Right but then chief just just executes him and I was like okay here we go straight out just like bam. Yeah this is cool yeah. We see the McKee then activates this device on the halo which opens up a big door in front of her and she heads inside this big structure chief then kind of goes for it as well. But before she heads in there she tells chief that you know which is something that's alluded to earlier as well is that she says that war always follows chief right like chief always says he needs to be where the fight is. And McKee kind of says that like well war always follows you around you know and she's trying to convince him to use the halo to destroy everything else out there to create peace. So we obviously you know we hammered in that that's what McKee's motivation is she heads inside and then chief activates this device as well and heads inside. So I guess McKee as well McKee's got a connection back if she was able to activate that door. I mean we know that they both have a connection to the artifacts in the. But she lost her connection I mean she even said last episode that she she is falling as most of us. Fair enough. Or there was just a regular push button. It could have been. Totally. Yeah. We then head inside this big structure and chief talks with that voice again and I like what he talked about here he said that the UNSC took his image and used it. What they own means to like help rally their soldiers and things and that she took it back. So basically saying like he is the master chief now. I think very much like what she was saying down is at the beginning of the first game chief is very much on his own as a soldier I think he's very much going to get back to that season three I don't think he's going to follow anyone. He's just going to do kind of just aiming Cortana ideally. Yeah, which is pretty cool but he then he then tells the voice that he can't trust me key because she is dangerous and this voice is like well hey she said that about you bro. We then see who this voice this mysterious voice is that we've been wondering about all episode and it's weekly from portal to right. I honestly do wish I could take it all back and not just because I'm stranded in space. I know you are mate. Yeah, we're both in space. That's who it is. Yeah. Different franchise. It's not we. Or is it the Guardian from Eyes Up Guardian? Is it that one of the ghosts? Yes, the ghost ghost. He also hangs in the ceiling. He's like attached. Okay, it's clearly not those people. So dad, Tom, tell us who that was 343 guilty spark. The monitor of installation 01. It's basically an AI system that runs and controls the halo. So like he is waiting for someone a human to come there and utilize them to use the halo essentially so that when you learn when you play halo one you learn throughout that you follow guilty spark through the halo as you activate systems essentially. But the guilty spark can't do it himself. He needs master chief in order to actually do that. He needs to follow the containment protocols because the fuck got it. Yeah, all the pressure. Turn this on right now. Otherwise universe is fucked. But I guess that guilty spark is going to be like a guide for chief as he's kind of exploring the inner workings of the halo guide is one word. One of the things he'll be. Right. Well, it is at this point that chief chief then puts his broken helmet back on. See his helmet get broken at any point. But he's missing a whole big chunk of that lens, which is what you see in the opening cinematic. The opening title. It takes some damage during the fight with the arbiter. There was a point where you see it and you can see there's like a damage portion. Yeah, but it wasn't broken through. Yeah, it sort of made you to assume that he'd gone through some battles to get to this point to talk to this guy or something like something has gone down. But again, very weak, very weak connection here. Yeah, I agree. I don't know if they needed the broken visor thing. I don't think so. It just raised more questions than it does solidify continuity. Yeah, just kind of. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about raised questions. There are a bunch of raised questions after that episode. There is a lot that's been set up. There are tons of story threads that have been nicely neatly tied up by a ton more that have been opened up very widely. So here's hoping we get a season three, which is still not been confirmed. Paramount, please confirm it. But that was season two of Halo. So let's jump into our final episode rating. And let's see what our school board looks like for episode eight of season two. Do it. Because then you guys, then you guys just take what everything I say and today the exact opposite. Yeah, but she was wrong. I don't need to say anything wrong. You know what? Just try to send it. Maybe shut up your room instead of time. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, you know what? I didn't, I wasn't jiving with this episode. I really kind of didn't. The pacing felt weird. I thought the action was a bit soft. There were good moments. Don't get me wrong. Like really cool strong moments. But overall, like I thought they just, it was, it felt haphazardly put together. Like they didn't really have a good way of tying things up in a satisfying way. This felt like it should have been more mid season finale than a season finale. It just didn't hit with the impact. And at the end of the day, it still doesn't season one had better action. I'm going to say, it's season one had better action scenes. The scene with the season one episode four, when he's on the Warthog and the other Spartans. And he's talking to Cortana and then the final episode. There's that big battle on that. And it's all one scene. Like there's no cutaways back to like, here's what's happening on this planet and here's what's happening with this. Like it's a whole long like 10 minute action sequence. Here, the action seems to be like broken up in like the mirror in the middle of an action moment and then it cuts to the key or your middle actually cuts to Miranda. And it just like I never felt like I was in it. Like I never felt like there's, it never felt too excited about any moment where season one I would like be watching is like, this is cool, like this is dope. So it just, it just misses it misses the mark here. And it should have been the best episode of the season. And it came in the middle of the road for me. I'm unfortunate. I mean, I'm going to give this like a seven. I just, I wasn't feeling it. And it sets up way too many things. The flood came in the whole episodes about the flood, mostly, and it doesn't really resolve a lot of the core problems and things they brought up throughout the whole season. I don't know. I was a little disappointed by the whole thing. I actually really liked the episode. I liked it for its, its chaoticness. I think it just, it through just everything at the wall. And I think where they are some criticisms is that not everything stuck. I do agree 100%. One thing I was going to say here is I, this is the perfect mid season finale. I think if they said, hey, season two is going to be a part one, part two kind of thing. And the mid season finale is them finding the halo. And then the second part of the season is dealing with the flood and the covenant and whatever. That kind of makes a little bit more sense because the biggest criticism I have on the, on the flood is that we've gone through eight episodes of dealing with the covenant finding the halo. All of a sudden in the last episode, there's a new bad guy that we just don't even get to know. As I said, it would have been cool if the cold open that we got where that first infected lady stabs the guy or does whatever. If that was just one scene right at the end of this episode and they spend more time on the actual story of this season, that I think would have been more impactful and we would have been like, what the hell's going on. Having said, so there's issues with the pacing and the story, the way they handled the story in the plot of this episode. But having said that, I really like the action sequences. I love the space fights and stuff. I love the chief arbiter showdown. I liked all the zombie cliche stuff. I thought it was pretty cool. So I enjoyed the episode. But it does have its flaws. It does have its issues. So for me, I'm going to give this one an eight out of 10. Yeah, I kind of agree a lot with Mick, like. You pay some issues. I feel like they could have split it up into like an episode eight at night with one more focus on flood one more focused on space battles and junk. But I liked how it kept jumping back and forth because I'm like, I really liked how it got really deep into like, oh, so like, now we're doing fun with even to that. And just like all the different theories exactly making. I really enjoyed all that sort of stuff. I don't want to fly anymore because they look gross and creepy and I don't like them. So they can just like go in the bin. I was the one who was saying the entire time, well, yeah, the flood, the flood, but like, no, they look gross. Burn them. And yeah, I said, I'm Kim. Don't know if we'll get a season three, but I think overall this season's done better. So hopefully. I think, yeah, I've probably given it as well, just because yeah, I enjoyed a lot. I enjoyed a lot more than I didn't like, like the present way that comes a lot for me. That's, that's how I feel as well. Yeah. I feel like it's just flashy enough that I can ignore some of the critiques I have. Yeah, I very much agree with everyone so far and like a little bit more of a drew like how there's a lot of continuity errors and one of the things I was saying before we start recording was I felt like this episode need to be launched. This episode need to be longer because I don't mind that it jumped around as much, but I think they needed more time in each one of the jumps to really flush things out or let them breathe a little bit more. Especially like the fight scenes like you said, Drew, like some of the fights weren't as good. We did get like the reach episode, which was like an entire episode of fighting in battles, which was pretty badass. Which is kind of like the highlight of the season and I would have liked a lot more of that. I think one of the things they did really good though with this episode is they're setting themselves up for the next season to be like, okay, we did a lot of retconning. We've moved the story along to where we needed to be. Now with season three, if they get one, they can really kind of like give the show that it's all that they need, especially if they get the budget for it because I know that they had a lot of budget. That's why we didn't get four episodes of reach battles because they just didn't have the budget for it. I've been going back and forth like when I first watched the episode, I was like, it was really high in my mind and I was like, that was really cool, but then thinking back on a lot of the stuff, it's like, yeah, but there was this plot point hole. There was this thing that didn't make sense. I didn't know what was going on with the flood. I'm still annoyed that we even got the flood this season. I've been like saying it from the beginning, I'm like, don't do the flood. I don't do the flood. No flood, no flood. Too soon. I would have been happier for the flood to have been like mid season three reveal to be like, oh, shit, there's something worse than the coefficient because I also feel like we haven't gotten enough of knowing how much of a threat the covenant is. It's like, they're there. They're bad. They're scary, but we haven't really seen it a lot. I think we've felt a lot of it. So yeah, I'm like, there's so many cool things about this episode, but shit, hopefully this is a lot of course correction. So I'm going to give them like a 7.5 on this one because it's still really cool. There was a lot of great action. There's a lot of cool shit that happened. I love the references. I love seeing in chief's helmet and they're trying their best to like tie everything together, but also they're skirting a lot of their logics. Yeah. That is it everybody. That is our scoreboard for the final episode of season two of Halo. We did it guys. We made it to the end of season two. Here we are. And we're all kind of loving it. I hope in first season three, we have not heard yet, but we will be the first one to let you. Or maybe not the first one to let you know, but we'll let you know as soon as we can. But that has been it. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you've watched with us throughout the entire series, thank you so much for joining us on this adventure. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Drew, for being here with us and enduring this fight with us. Once again, big, huge thank you to Paramount Plus for sponsoring this video. We appreciate you guys. Head down to the description, find the link there to Paramount Plus. Become a member there so you can watch cool stuff like Halo. And then you can watch us talk about cool stuff like Halo. So thank you, Paramount Plus. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for the support. And yeah, that about wraps it up, guys. Stay tuned because next week we will be back for one final episode where we are going to recap the season at large talk about our favorite moments of favorite characters should be a fun one. So make sure you join in on that. Maybe we'll talk about our funniest lines or moments like talking about the spot and dad, but osmosis. I like it. My favorite is Mackie. Mackie and Paisley. And what were the other ones? I was just those. We'll get to that next week. We need just a clip of all of the mispronunciations. Oh gosh. Okay. We'll get to that. We'll get to that next week. But as for now, thank you guys for watching. Make sure you head on over to carcios.com, become a member because, hey, why not? We're called a bunch of people trying to support us. And we've got a whole bunch of cool stuff on YouTube. Make sure you catch us next week, Tuesday, 2pm PST over on our YouTube channel. Join the like for me where we can talk shit the whole time. Drew's got some merch as well. There's some cool stuff. There it is. There it is. And yeah, just keep it locked in here for all other cool stuff pop culture related. I'll see you again very soon. Peace out. Hey about Spartan. Bye guys. I was Moses. (laughter) Space Amish. No. One final one. (laughter) (music) (music)
Season 2 of Halo is a wrap! Join us as we break down the finale and discuss what was good and what was not. As a whole, Season 2 was a much better experience than the first season and we theorize where the show will go for Season 3.
