Halo Season 2, Episode 8, ‘Halo’ Recap

Warning: The following recap contains major spoilers for Halo Season 2, Episode 8, “Halo.”

Halo Season 2, Episode 8, “Halo” opens with John-117/The Master Chief in a darkened facility, talking to an off-screen party. The Master Chief demands to know what happened “down there,” and “death” (of people other than him, natch) is the answer. For his next question, the Chief enquires about the nature of “that thing” and is told that “dark places contain dark things.” The Master Chief’s unseen companion then asks him what he found “down there,” but we don’t hear the answer. It’s all very cryptic.

The action then shifts to Commander Mirinda Keyes’ (Olive Gray) lab in ONI’s secret headquarters on Onyx. Mirinda is looking at a spore sample through a microscope and discusses how the spores recently woke up with another scientist, Janine (Audrey Brisson). Janine – exposed to the spores off-screen, despite denying this – then rambles at Miranda until the latter asks to be left alone. A short montage follows, during which Janine’s increasingly erratic behavior culminates in her stabbing a co-worker.

The Master Chief Is Forced to Choose Between Honor and Halo

From here, Halo Season 2, Episode 8 cuts to the space battle between UNSC and Covenant forces that kicked off in Episode 7, “Thermopylae.” An explosion rips open a UNSC ship, sending its crew – including Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy) and Corporal Perez (Cristina Rodlo) – hurtling into the void. Kai, Perez, and the surviving Spartan-IIIs jetpack onto the hull of a Covenant corvette, and make their way to an improvised breach point.

Meanwhile, the Master Chief watches the carnage unfold from the cockpit of his shuttle. Admiral Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) contacts him from the ONI headquarters’ war room. Parangosky informs the Master Chief that a lone Covenant ship has broken away from the battle and is headed for Halo, and orders him to beat it there. A tense exchange follows, during which the Chief expresses disgust at Parangosky’s Machiavellian attitude before cutting comms.

Related: Halo Season 2: Who Is the Dead Scientist?

Back on Onyx, Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha) has a vision of the Mother (Olwen Fouéré) telling her to flee. She runs to Soren-066 (Bokeem Woodbine), warning the ex-Spartan that the “monster” she’s been experiencing visions of has finally arrived. Soren is unmoved, however, and insists on returning to the ONI base to rescue Laera (Fiona O’Shaughnessy) and Kessler (Tylan Bailey). The pair are currently locked up in ONI jail, with James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) and Janine in cells on either side of them. Unnoticed by Laera, Kessler, or Ackerson, a slug-like creature crawls out of the vacant-looking Janine’s mouth. The Flood is officially here.

Cut to: the Covenant corvette. Kai, Perez, and the Spartan-IIIs stalk through the ship’s interior. They discover the dead bodies of another Spartan-III unit, Dagger Team, and then wind up in a firefight with the Covenant troops who killed them. Kai, Perez, and co. fall back to the corvette’s hanger, where they see the UNSC fleet arriving. They issue a call for backup, but it’s slow in coming. Fortunately, after flipping a coin in a callback to earlier in Halo Season 2, the Master Chief defies Parangosky and heads their way.

An Ancient Horrors Flood ONI Headquarters

The Master Chief’s detour doesn’t necessarily mean he’s lost the race to Halo, though. Aboard the Covenant craft streaking towards the space ring, Cortana (Jen Taylor) warns Makee (Charlie Murphy) that their ship won’t survive the journey. Makee is unphased and asks Cortana if the Master Chief will meet them on Halo. When Cortana refuses to answer out of loyalty to the Chief, Makee smashes the AI program’s storage unit/projector.

Cortana’s not the only one to suffer a potentially life-ending blow, either. Perez is badly wounded on the Covenant corvette while fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Kai. The downed corporal implores Kai to use her spike to detonate a shockwave big enough to wipe out both fleets and possibly even Halo itself, and Kai reluctantly agrees. But before she can act, the Master Chief single-handedly takes down the Covenant troops.

Related: Halo Season 2: What Is the Covenant’s Great Journey, Explained

During the brief downtime that follows, Kai admits she doesn’t see how humanity can win the war against the Covenant. The Master Chief makes it clear he hasn’t given up yet, however, even after he clocks an escape pod rocketing out of Makee’s ship toward Halo. He orders Kai, Perez, and the surviving Spartan-IIIs to get to the UNSC’s ships, then exits. The Spartan-IIIs comply, but Kai remains behind on the corvette’s bridge – the spike still in her hand.

Back on Onyx, Soren and Kwan encounter ONI operatives who are inexplicably standing completely still, not even breathing. Understandably disturbed, the duo moves on, failing to notice as the rigid ONI ranks suddenly snap back to life. But Ackerson, Laera, and Kessler do notice when the same thing happens to Janine – now grotesquely disfigured and sprouting a tentacle – elsewhere in the facility. Ackerson kills Janine with a gun lifted from a prison guard, however, he’s out of bullets when said guard (visibly infected by the spores) likewise attacks. Witnessing this via security camera, Soren and Kwan race to the jail cells.

Halo’s Most Iconic Location Finally Makes Its Proper Live-Action Debut

Elsewhere in the ONI headquarters, Parangosky commands the captive Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey (Natascha McElhone) to convince the Master Chief to make tracks for Halo. Halsey makes contact with the Master Chief, who reveals that he intends to retrieve Cortana from Makee’s ship. Sympathetic to the Chief’s goal, Halsey instead coaches him on the best way of achieving it. Cortana’s rescue is then intercut with an interrogation of the Master Chief’s motives in the same facility as the opening scene.

The whole sequence ends with the Master Chief and Cortana (who took refuge in the Covenant ship’s systems) crash-landing on Halo. Just before impact, the Chief pounds the control panel with his fist, causing a surge of glowing energy to ripple up his arm. At the same time, Soren and Kwan take out the infected guard in the ONI base’s jail cells, before leaving with Laera, Kessler, and Ackerson in tow.

On Halo, the Master Chief and Cortana head for a Forerunner structure in search of Makee. Along the way, Cortana ponders whether finding the structure was the Chief’s destiny. Meanwhile, aboard a UNSC ship, a patched-up Perez wakes up and asks after Kai. It turns out Kai is still on the corvette, which she pilots into the main Covenant assault carrier. Parangosky and the ONI personnel in the Onyx war room celebrate, only for Flood-infected ghouls to launch a surprise attack, killing everyone but Halsey.

Related: Halo Season 2: Onyx, Explained

There’s a similar assault going on in Soren and Co.’s neck of the woods, too. Ackerson leads Laera and Kessler to safety while Soren fights the Flood forces off, as Kwan experiences another vision of the Mother. The Mother confirms that she is a “protector” like Kwan and resides with all Kwan’s ancestors. The shaman warns Kwan of the Flood’s desire to control her and tells her to leave while she holds the Flood at bay.

In Miranda’s lab, Miranda implores Halsey to leave, however, her mother is fixated on the Flood’s ties to the Forerunners. They argue, only for Halsey to suddenly freeze – the Flood bite she suffered earlier “Halo” finally kicking in. Halsey is actually one of two mothers chomped by the parasitic swarm; Laera also got nibbled on, so she locks herself behind a thick steel blast door before sharing a final heartfelt goodbye with Soren.

On Halo, the Master Chief confronts Makee and the Arbiter (Viktor Åkerblom). A brutal duel between the Master Chief and the Arbiter ensues, with the Chief emerging victorious. At the Arbiter’s urging, the Master Chief kills him, ending his shame. Distraught, Makee opens the Forerunner structure’s doorway. At the same time, Soren, Kwan, Ackerson, and Kessler leave Onyx, while Miranda puts Halsey into cryo-sleep to halt her transformation. The Master Chief then follows Makee into the Forerunner structure as other, similar complexes sprout up across Halo’s surface.

Halo Season 2, Episode 8 then comes full circle to its opening scene. We learn that the Master Chief’s unseen companion is 343 Guilty Spark, who has apparently interrogated both the Chief and Makee. Guilty Spark teases something waiting beneath Halo’s surface, then ominously states he’ll be watching the Chief.

And that’s our recap of Halo Season 2, Episode 8. Check out additional episode recaps here.

Halo Season 2 is currently streaming on Paramount+.