'HALO' Episode 7: "Inheritance" Recap and Review
WARNING: Contains Minor Spoilers
Inheritance opens with Kwan (Yerin Ha) in a stolen dune buggy driving across the vast stretches of sand on Madrigal. Two episodes ago, she had a gun aimed at Soren (Bokeem Woodbine). It’s unclear whether she pulled the trigger, but she is now alone in the buggy. Kwan is driving through a sandstorm in search of the mystics who know secrets about her family. Shadows appear in front of her and she leaves the car to investigate. An unknown person takes her hostage.
Kwan wakes up in a camp full of women who all have long white braids. These are the mystics that her father told her about. They’re led by a woman named Desiderata (Josette Simon). Kwan demands that Desiderata tell her what was said to her father all those years ago that made him die defending Madrigal. Desiderata says this is something that goes back much further than Kwan’s father, and Kwan is not ready to hear the truth because she is filled with rage. Kwan counters that her entire family is dead, so rage is all she has left.
Desiderata agrees to explain Kwan’s familial ties to the beginning of Madrigal. The story goes back to her forefather’s forefather, who discovered a well of fuel. He was able to use the fuel for electricity and, much later, for spaceships. At the well, he met a being who bestowed a responsibility upon Kwan’s family.
Desiderata gives Kwan a liquid that causes her to hallucinate that she’s back on the ship with Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber). He won’t speak to her, but she keeps following him around the ship. He lowers the landing pad and walks outside to the mystics’ camp. Kwan is pulled into the main tent where Desiderata and the rest of the mystics are watching. They form a circle and tell her to prepare for a fight. Her opponent? Master Chief.
In the fight, Master Chief is able to easily defeat Kwan, but she doesn’t die. The fight just gets reset in this hallucination. Her rage eventually disappears and Kwan falls to her knees before Master Chief. It’s in this moment of humility that Master Chief takes off his helmet and holds out his hand.
Master Chief silently guides Kwan to the well from Desiderata’s story. At the well, Kwan’s ancestors tell her that Master Chief will come back one day. It is her duty to take him to the well. It’s a portal that runs on the fuel that’s in Madrigal’s soil. The true power of the portal will not be known until Madrigal is safe. It’s why her father fought so hard to defend his planet. They are a family of Protectors.
Vinsher (Burn Gorman) is also in search of the mystics’ camp because he wants to quash Kwan’s rebellious desires. He is desperate for someone to catch her and has tripled the bounty on her head. He has captured General Agatha (Nila Aalia) as a means of gaining information about Kwan’s whereabouts. She refuses to tell him anything, and Vinsher shoots her in the head.
Kwan leaves the mystics’ camp to return to her family home. She finds old letters of family members discussing the portal, but is disturbed by the sound of footsteps. Soren has stolen a cargo ship and gone home to The Rubble. Upon hearing that Kwan’s bounty is tripled, he knows he has to uphold his promise to Master Chief to keep Kwan safe and returns to Madrigal.
Their reunion is short-lived, as Vinsher and his brutal soldiers surround the two. Kwan’s plan is to divert all of the hydrogen to the main sky tower unit and then create an explosion. If Soren and Kwan make it to the safe bunker nearby, they’ll be okay. Of course, they have to fight their way through Vinsher’s men to get there.
After an all-out brawl with the army, their plan is successful. Kwan takes the shot that makes the sky tower explode. The city that she grew up in is engulfed in flames, but the rebellion is reborn.
The past few episodes of HALO prove that the show doesn’t need to cover the vastness of space to be interesting. In fact, the wider it tries to reach, the more muddled it becomes. By finally giving Kwan and Madrigal an entire episode to themselves, the audience finally understands their purpose in the greater story of Master Chief. It’s a payoff that could have happened sooner, but the way it panned out was worth the wait.
In one of the most exciting action sequences, the audience sees Soren take on an entire army of highly trained soldiers. He's a full-on roguish pirate as he blasts and fights his way through the army. If nothing else, HALO’s fight sequences are always exhilarating. It seems that Vinsher perished in the explosion, but if that’s the case, it feels like far too neat an ending to his story.
Despite the fact that it’s missing Master Chief, Cortana (Jen Taylor), and Doctor Halsey (Natascha McElhone), Inheritance is extremely important to the plot of the series. As the season begins to wind down, the writers are running out of time to tie up loose ends. Hopefully, that means more episodes like this one, where the action is quick and the answers become a little clearer.