Hunting the Enemy
In HALO Season 2 Episode 3, “Visegrád”, Silver Team makes its way through the woods in the Visegrád Sector of Reach. They are getting no response from Cobalt Team or the relay station.
Kai (Kate Kennedy) asks where their backup is. John (Pablo Schreiber) tells her they’re on their own because FLEETCOM doesn’t believe the Covenant’s on Reach. Silver Team’s mission is search and rescue.
John heads out. Kai expresses some concern to Vannak (Bentley Kalu).
Perez (Cristina Rodlo) has her head down on her desk, seemingly asleep except for a finger that continues to tap a slow beat. She wears a headset, listening to static.
Silver Team bursts into the relay station. The power is out, the only light comes from their suit torches.
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Riz (Natasha Culzac) gets the power back up. Immediately, an alarm blares. A loud static noise with garbled voices plays over the sound system. John mutes the playback. Kai asks what it is. Riz says she’s never heard anything like it.
John says he heard it on Sanctuary. There is a pounding noise heard from down below. John gestures that he’s going to investigate. The pounding continues to the same rhythm as Perez’s tapping on her desk.
Silver Team approaches the door Makee (Charlie Murphy) entered in HALO‘s “The Sword” as Perez continues to tap out the same rhythm as the door banging. The tablet on her desk analyzes the waveform of her taps. As Silver Team nears the door, back in her room, Perez bolts upright, awake, and grabs her tablet to look at the waveform analysis.
Caught in the Act
On Reach, Briggs (Anna Koval) orders Silver Team to stand down. She leads a unit of FLEETCOM soldiers down to surround Silver Team. She tells them they’re in a lot of trouble for stealing a Condor, falsifying a flight plan, and donning combat suits without clearance. Kai and Vannak are shocked but ready to fight on John’s orders.
John calls Briggs’ bluff and pushes past her to walk through the door. On the other side, the chamber is empty. He states that the Covenant was there and he can prove it. Kai waits a beat and advises him not to do it there and then.
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Ackerson
In a sunlit room, Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) is carefully shaving his father (Bill Paterson), who is regaling him with a story of climbing a mountain and needing to pee so badly that he ends up peeing on his brother, Arthur.
When Ackerson doesn’t laugh, he asks what’s wrong, wondering if it has to do with the thing Ackerson wasn’t supposed to tell him. Ackerson tells him he wasn’t supposed to remember, and then that he may have to go away and he can’t take his father with him.
His father grows somber. Ackerson tries to explain that he wants to take him but he can’t. His father changes the topic to a bridge he and Arthur built that he can see through his window. He tells Ackerson that he walked across the bridge with Ackerson’s mother and sister the day the bridge was finished. Ackerson’s sister insisted on walking on her own the whole way across the bridge.
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Ackerson prepares to leave and his father asks when his sister is coming to visit. Ackerson reminds him that Julia’s gone, as is his mother. His father grows serious again and snaps at Ackerson.
He apologizes for getting confused. Ackerson says it’s okay and that he’ll see him tomorrow. Before Ackerson leaves, his father asks him to promise him that he won’t let them take him alive. Ackerson is silent.
Consequences
At FLEETCOM, Admiral Keyes (Danny Sapani) tears a strip off of Silver Team for fifteen infractions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. John tries to defend his actions. Keyes calls him delusional.
Keyes suspends Silver Team from combat missions until further notice. When John protests that Cobalt Team was at Visegrád, Keyes brings up a flight plan that shows that Cobalt was deployed to Aktis IV. John claims the flight plan was changed because he saw the one to Visegrád. The team looks skeptical.
Keyes orders John barred from active duty and confined to barracks until he clears a psychiatric evaluation. When John accuses him of rolling over for ONI, Keyes tells him he’s the only reason John isn’t being court-martialed.
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The other team members confront John about lying about their clearance for Reach. Riz and Vannak walk away. Kai tells him she’s trying to be a friend. He retorts that he needs a Spartan, not a friend. She walks away too.
The Rubble
At The Rubble, 23 Librae System, Laera (Fiona O’Shaughnessy) is grabbed as she walks through a rough district. She fights back but has the wind knocked out of her. Her attacker reveals herself to be Kwan (Yerin Ha). Kwan warns her that Ruby Ann (Franc Ashman) bought off her crew to get rid of Soren (Bokeem Woodbine), and now, they’re after her. Kwan tells her to get Kessler (Tylan Bailey) and escape.
Kessler’s at home, playing battle with Antares (Ivanno Jeremiah). Carina’s (Juliette Motamed) walking around the room. Laera enters and asks what they’re doing there.
Antares tells her the ship’s ready. Laera insists they go ahead and she and Kessler will meet them at the ship.
Although Carina wants to wait, Antares makes her leave with him. Laera tells Kessler to get his things and pours herself a drink. Kessler calls for Kwan to come out of hiding.
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Silver Team
John’s guarded by two ONI security goons as he clears out his locker, activating the tracking chip Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) gave him in the process. As they ride the elevator to his psych eval, John apologizes before knocking both men out.
Riz knocks on Louis’ (Marvin Jones III) door. He brings her inside where Danilo (Christian Ochoa Lavernia) is preparing dinner. Danilo pours drinks for all of them. Riz just looks at her glass. Louis tells her to talk to him. She asks him about being something other than a Spartan.
Kai goes to see Ackerson. She asks him to deploy Silver Team with her in command temporarily until John is cleared. Ackerson informs her that John incapacitated his guards and escaped 20 minutes previously.
Kai tells him she can’t stay and watch John deteriorate. She asks him for orders.
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Escaping The Rubble
Kwan and Laera watch the shipyards from a hiding place high above the floor of the yard. An alarm sounds, and Kwan tells Laera and Kessler to come with her, and they’ll blend in with other incoming refugees.
They make it to Soren’s ship and fire up the engines, but Antares runs ahead and shuts the bay doors, trapping them in the yard. Laera gives Kwan a valuable necklace and makes her promise to protect Kessler and get him on the transport leaving The Rubble.
She walks out of the ship and starts a fight with Antares and Carina so Kwan and Kessler can get away.
Keyes Pushes Back
The bodies of Cobalt Team are on slabs. Keyes looks at them and learns the team was found in the trees eighty meters from the relay station. Briggs is briefing Ackerson.
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Keyes confronts Ackerson and demands to know if and when he knew he was sending Cobalt Team into a confrontation with the Covenant. He wants them to activate the Winter Contingency and evacuate the civilian population from the planet.
Ackerson tells him an evacuation order will cause panic. He shares that there’s a plan in place but it’s going to require some hard choices. Keyes assumes he’s saying they won’t fight for Reach. Ackerson counters that they’ll fight, they just won’t win.
Keyes refuses to give up Reach. Ackerson encourages him to fight another day when a win is possible. He asks Keyes if he can count on him. Keyes responds, “Go f*ck yourself.”
Captured
On Soren’s ship, Antares cuffs Laera to a bulkhead. She tries to convince him it’s not too late to help her. He disagrees and leaves. She looks out a porthole to watch Kwan and Kessler boarding the transport. At the transport loading, a guard calls a halt. Kessler asks Kwan where his mom is and if he’ll see her soon. Kwan tells him he will.
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Hard Truths
Parangosky savors the smell of a bowl of ramen soup. She insists John try it. He tells her about the Covenant on Reach. She reminds him that ONI protects itself and if he makes them his enemy, he will cease to be useful. She tries to order him back to FLEETCOM to bury his suspicions and play the game. He realizes that she never left ONI and has been playing him the whole time. When he stands up, several ONI security agents reveal themselves by reacting. Parangosky indicates that they can let him go and he walks away.
Ackerson visits Halsey (Natascha McElhone) in her cell. He tells her that he’s leaving and that her Spartans, as fragile as they are, will be the foundation for something extraordinary. He tells her she won’t get to witness it, but she should be comforted by that.
As he’s about to leave, Halsey asks if he’d like to know how his sister, Julia (Bronte Carmichael), died. Her cloned attendants have all been based on Julia, and she recognized her immediately as one of her failed augmented soldiers. She says that Julia was confused when she began to die after augmentation. She was scared. Halsey tells Ackerson that his sister loved him very much and he should be comforted by that.
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He gives a short laugh and leaves. She sighs dramatically and looks at her backgammon set. Ackerson returns. She asks why he’s back and he says he wouldn’t leave her all alone. The guards bring Soren in.
The Rescue
On Soren’s ship, Antares questions Laera about the Madrigal treasure. When Laera tells him there was no treasure, Carina pulls a gun on her. He tells Carina to calm down.
There’s a metallic clanking somewhere on the ship that’s annoying Antares. He sends one, then another crew member to see what’s causing it and fix it.
Laera sticks to her story, and Antares turns his back while Carina throws her in the airlock. He gives her one minute to tell him where the treasure is. As she passes out, there’s a splatter of blood on the porthole.
Laera awakens to see a blood-splattered Kwan standing over her. She asks where Kessler is. Kwan says she put him on the transport and came back to save her. Carina appears, and Kwan kills her too.
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The Devil Follows Him
John knocks on Perez’s door. Her grandmother (Maria Luisa Costa) answers and tells him she’s not there. When he asks where she is, she states that Perez is a good girl but the devil follows John.
Ackerson sits next to his sleeping father. His father awakens and asks what’s happening. Ackerson reminds him that he asked not to let them take him alive. Ackerson gives him a pill and helps him take it.
As his father starts to fade out, Ackerson brings a Julia clone in to give his father a moment of joy before he dies.
John enters a church where Perez is praying. She finishes her prayer and talks to him about churches and why people come to them.
He asks her about something he saw in the fog before the Covenant came. She confirms she saw a woman in the fog as well. John is hugely relieved.
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Perez tells him that she doesn’t sleep, she’s haunted by the sound she heard in the comms. She gives him a headset and a recording from Sanctuary. The playback has Sangheili being spoken. John asks what it is. Perez identifies it as a prayer.
The Covenant’s Pledge
She translates it as, “I bring you blessings, people of Reach. Know that I’ve come without mercy. Without pity. Know that I am the instrument of your extinction. I bring this planet forth as a burnt offering. Upon this altar, I place the head of the Demon. May his blood mark the way to the Sacred Ring and consecrate the Great Journey of my people. Know that I am Var ‘Gatanai. Know that I am … Death.”
As the recording plays and Perez translates, scenes show the crowded food market stalls, Danilo clearing the dishes as Louis and Riz relax, Vanak in the barracks, Kwan and Laera in their ship, Ackerson flying away from Reach in a Condor and the Julia clone lying dead next to Ackerson’s father.
Back in the church, Perez says, “They’re already here, aren’t they?” just as a massive explosion detonates outside the church.
HALO streams on Thursdays exclusively on Paramount+.
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