Paramount Plus’ Halo series has finally achieved what the games never could: Letting Master Chief have sex. Halo has included plenty of scenes of John getting in touch with his humanity after his UNSC brainwashing, and the latest episode is the most vulnerable and emotional yet. Unfortunately, it does seem like him having sex may indirectly lead to untold death and destruction.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Halo up to episode 8 of season 1.]
In case you haven’t been keeping track of Halo so far, it’s mostly been about strange Forerunner artifacts and the connection that Master Chief has to them as a “Blessed One.” The series includes a human member of the Covenant named Makee, who is also a Blessed One. Makee makes up almost all of the Covenant’s presence on screen in the series, possibly because CGI aliens are expensive, and was sent to act as the group’s double agent among humans.
Shortly after she arrives in humanity’s care, however, Makee’s loyalty to the Covenant falters, largely because of the kindness shown to her by Master Chief. On the other side of the relationship, Makee proves to be an important part of Master Chief regaining his humanity as he learns about being kidnapped by the UNSC as a child and the years of brainwashing Dr. Halsey subjected him to.
At the end of the show’s sixth episode, the pair’s connection is solidified when it’s revealed that their Blessed One status connects them. During an interaction with one of the Forerunner artifacts, they’re both momentarily given a shared vision of a Halo ring — the first we’ve seen in the series so far — and they share a brief charged moment before the episode ends.
This week, in episode 8, with the bond of Halo-visions between them, Makee and John finally hook up — while Cortana watches and makes a somewhat creepy, supposed-to-be-sweet face. Makee even removes her Covenant-installed fingernail sword (yes, really) because she’s so moved by her rediscovered love of humanity. As weird as the whole thing is, it actually fits pretty neatly within the show’s weird off-kilter sentimentality and the odd story it’s telling about Master Chief.
Unfortunately, Halo immediately returns to its worst tendencies after as everyone in the show starts to make strange out-of-character decisions to jump-start the plot once again. There’s a big Spartan versus Spartan fight, Miranda Keyes makes an extremely rash decision for no reason, and that one guard who keeps calling the Covenant “squid heads” — despite that making no sense at all — shocks Makee with a stun baton, just like in her flashback from earlier this season.
By the end of the episode, Makee is once again out on humanity as a concept and might be teaming up with Dr. Halsey to take over the universe using Halo.
So Master Chief doesn’t get to enjoy having a girlfriend for very long. On the plus side, Chief and Cortana are finally friends in the series, so at least he’s got that going for him.
Source: Polygon
