The Halo TV series wasted a fan-favorite character from the games

The Halo TV present has all the time held the online game series’ lore at arm’s size. From its early announcement of the “Silver Timeline” (a wholly separate however loosely related canon that the TV present can be sticking to) to the first season, which provides Master Chief a barely completely different origin story, the Paramount Plus series has by no means been involved with the issues longtime Halo followers maintain close to and expensive. But as the present’s second season will get into extra recognizable territory, like the Fall of Reach, it’s nonetheless shocking to see how wildly it diverged from the recreation’s in its fourth episode.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for the first four episodes of Halo season 2, as well as the entire Halo video game series.]

The Fall of Reach is one in every of the most vital occasions in Halo’s online game canon. A war-defining victory for the Covenant, Reach’s destruction can also be the catalyst for sending Master Chief on the Pillar of Autumn, the UNSC ship that will finally crash-land on the very first Halo ring that humanity would uncover. It’s additionally the foundation for the recreation Halo: Reach, a explicit fan favourite.

The Halo TV present’s model of the Covenant’s assault on Reach occurs — nearly fully out of nowhere — in the second season’s fourth episode. The UNSC (who appear to be extra the present’s villains than the precise Covenant) had seemingly identified that an assault was doable for weeks, however did nothing about it. This leaves Master Chief and his fellow Marines and Spartans fully blindsided, preventing by the streets with out their armor. In all, it’s a deeply foolish setup for a better-than-average episode of Halo — actually, perhaps the most enjoyable episode the series has had to date.

But in spite of everything the mud settles and the battle for Reach is clearly doomed, the strangest a part of the episode stays the way it handles Captain Jacob Keyes: by killing him off in a pretty foolish “forgot to unplug the ship” incident.

Photo: Adrienn Szabo/Paramount Plus

If you’re a longtime fan of the Halo games, there’s a good likelihood you keep in mind Captain Keyes as one in every of the series’ earliest fascinating characters. His solely main function is in the first recreation, and he clearly wasn’t constructed for the difficult lore and mythology the series would finally make use of. But for the story the authentic Halo was telling again in 2001, Captain Keyes was fairly neat: A grizzled chief in a doomed military, Keyes holds the crew of the Pillar of Autumn collectively once they crash-land on the Halo ring. But much more importantly, when the Flood reveal themselves, he sacrifices himself in hopes of saving humanity from the horrors of this parasitic, universe-killing race. It’s a basic ’80s and ’90s motion film archetype, however for the frothy sci-fi alien-shooting story that Halo instructed, it felt pitch-perfect.

The TV present model is a lot extra difficult, and a lot much less fascinating. In an effort to give attention to the backstory of Master Chief, the present’s first season flattens Keyes into a largely utilitarian antagonist, one other cog in the bureaucratic machine that kidnapped kids to be troopers for causes the present by no means fairly addresses. By the time all these plotlines occur in the online game lore, Keyes is remorseful for his actions, however too deep in the Covenant warfare to do something however press on. In the present, he doesn’t appear exceptionally remorseful and the Covenant, as all the time, feels extra like an afterthought than a real risk.

None of that is technically a large drawback, particularly contemplating it’s a great distance down the present’s laundry listing of points, however it’s one more approach for Paramount Plus’ present to disappoint followers of the games. Captain Keyes is a difficult determine in Halo lore, notably as soon as the books give him a backstory, however in the context of the first Halo recreation, it’s nonetheless a significantly better story than the present has managed to inform throughout its 12-ish hours to date. He was a neat aspect character and a beacon of humanity’s selflessness in the face of the Flood’s overwhelming terror.

In the present, all that disappears so he can die unplugging the gas line to a spaceship that he may have readied weeks in the past, all to avoid wasting a random Marine that Master Chief might or might not have the hots for. Man, this present remains to be such a catastrophe.