'HALO' Episode 3: "Emergence" Recap and Review
WARNING: Contains Minor Spoilers
‘Emergence,’ the third episode of Paramount’s HALO builds on the universe by first introducing the waste salvage planet Oban. It’s a desolate world of garbage oppressively ruled by United Nations Space Command (UNSC) soldiers, and it’s where Covenant leader Makee (Charlie Murphy) grew up. We see her as a young girl as she learned to read from worn books found among mountains of trash. She was spared during the Covenant aliens’ relentless attack on Oban. They were in search of what they thought was an object, but it turned out that it was actually Makee they were looking for.
Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) is back under the supervision of Doctor Halsey (Natascha McElhone), who is moving full steam ahead with the controversial Cortana project. If she’s successful, Cortana will replace Spartan consciousness with artificial intelligence. The controversy arises from the way Cortana was created: through the illegal process of flash-cloning humans. Admiral Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) fears that Halsey is more interested in her own scientific pursuits than the goals of UNSC, and gives Miranda Keyes (Olive Gray), Halsey’s daughter, access to the Madrigal artifact.
Halsey’s flash-cloning of herself has yielded a viable specimen, an identical copy of Halsey, to be placed into Master Chief. The consciousness of Cortana is removed by placing a needle into her eye, downloading data from her brain, and injecting it into Master Chief. When the process is complete, Halsey is able to call out to Cortana (similar to the way one would say “Hey, Google”) and she will manifest herself as a hologram.
Kwan (Yerin Ha) is still on The Rubble under the care of Soren (Bokeem Woodbine), an ex-Spartan and Master Chief’s only friend outside UNSC. More news reports come in about how Vinsher (Burn Gorman) is running Madrigal, and Kwan grows frustrated that she cannot be on her home planet to fight alongside the resistance. She tries to hotwire a ship, but Soren stops her. Kwan tells him that she comes from a wealthy family, and if he helps her get to Madrigal he can have her family’s fortune. Soren agrees because he knows that either Kwan will make good on her promise or he will sell her out for the bounty that’s on her head.
Makee’s plan to track down the keystone gets underway as she pretends to be a stowaway on a Covenant ship. A UNSC ship intercepts her distress call and allows her onboard. Of course this was all part of her plan, and she unleashes worm-like aliens to massacre the UNSC soldiers. Not only is she after the Madrigal artifact, Makee also keeps asking about the “Demon.” It seems that Master Chief could be the Demon she’s after.
The introduction of the holographic Cortana is clunky at best. Her character seems like an odd addition because she’s serving a role similar to that of Kwan - a foil to Master Chief’s no-nonsense stiffness. He can’t stand Cortana’s voice constantly rattling around in his head, but it seems like a begrudging partnership may come out of this. This style of relationship feels repetitive because the audience saw many of these beats in the last two episodes as part of his relationship with Kwan.
In the recaps for episodes one and two, the tangled web of interpersonal relationships was mentioned as the reason to stick around. However, Emergence separates almost every potential intriguing relationship. Kwan is still on The Rubble without Master Chief, Halsey and Miranda don’t speak, and Master Chief and Soren are on different planets. The only relationship with a complicated history that’s featured in this episode is Halsey’s relationship with Master Chief. Even then, this episode is more focused on Halsey’s science projects than on people and emotions.
It feels too early in the series for HALO to be treading water, and yet, that is apparently the state the show already finds itself in. All the momentum the first two episodes built was extinguished almost immediately as Master Chief went back to UNSC command. Even Master Chief’s rebellion and removal of the Spartan suppression pellet don’t feel as monumental as they should. It’s a change that comes almost too easily and too quickly for Master Chief. It felt much more rewarding when he was experiencing life fully and realizing the cracks in the Spartan programming because of his relationship with Quan. That growth was earned.
HALO has lost sight of its humanity, the very thing Master Chief is trying to find. Unfortunately, the way things are left at the end of Emergence makes it seem that the paths for these characters have forked for the time being.