Simply put, this episode is fantastic. Its loud, chaotic, as well as both terrifying and thrilling. There’s a lot of action and shit goes down. The Covenant are here in full force, the cadets fight for survival, and we finally get to see the Master Chief! If you haven’t watched yet, I’d recommend doing so before reading on.
This episode again starts with another Cortana intro then drops us about where the previous one left off with the cadets thrown right in the middle of the Covenant invasion. They make their way through the deadly battleground and take cover back inside the academy. The remaining cadets band together and are clearly on the edge of panic. They are attempting to make their way through the academy to arm themselves while also dealing with one cloaked Elite that made its way inside. These scenes are fairly terrifying and its not a situation I’d want to end up in. Just when the cadets think they are done for, Master Chief saves the day. Well, for them anyway. It turns out they are the only survivors on the entire planet! Chief radios fellow Spartan Kelly for evac via Pelican. From there the group makes their way to a Warthog to head to the rendezvous point, but not before Chief says my favorite line: “Cadet Lasky, can you drive a Warthog?” An awesome battle takes place and the episode ends with the Chief and cadets speeding away in the Warthog.
So far I’ve really loved the introduction scenes with Cortana alone on the Forward Unto Dawn ship. This one is no exception, but I liked the first 3 better. Everything inside the ship is now frozen with a layer of ice. A pipe breaks sending a perfect shiny metal ring floating. It glistens in a ray of light and in that moment small lines and engravings can be seen on the ring’s surface. It definitely resembles a Halo ring, but beyond that I’m not sure of its significance. Right after this an orange wave flashes through the ship, the same orange wave seen in the live-action launch trailer for Halo 4 as well as the “>live-action trailer shown at E3 that introduces the UNSC Infinity ship. This places this Cortana scene very near the start of Halo 4 and if you’ve paid attention, it has some hints about how the game might begin.
I couldn’t be more pleased with how the Covenant weaponry turned out. There’s Plasma Rifles, Needle Rifles, Carbines, and an energy sword. The sounds are incredible. They sound highly familiar to the Halo games but with extra fidelity. The way the Carbine’s bright green beam flashes then fades in a wavy trail is perfect. What’s really spectacular though are the needle rounds as they zip by and shatter on impact. If you watch closely, Colonel Mehaffey dies in the beginning to a brief supercombine. Its brief and partly off screen, but enough needles hit her to combine and explode in a shower of pink mist and blood. I was hoping for a bigger more clear supercombine, but I’ll take this one.
Master Chief. After 3 weeks of waiting we finally get to see you in action, and it is good. My main impression was that Chief is a badass. I’m quite happy with the way Chief is presented. His actions, voice, and movement are all spot on and I found the scenes featuring him to be really exciting. His suit isn’t perfect, it looks slightly cheap and a bit plasticky, but I think it works and the lighting does a lot to help it. If a Halo movie ever happens (hopefully with Stewart Hendler!) I’d expect a suit like the ones in Iron Man or the latest Batman movies. Daniel Cudmore does a great job playing the role of Master Chief. Check out our interview with Daniel if you haven’t yet and see what it was like for him to be the man in the suit.
This web series has been really exciting and while I’m excited to see how the next episode wraps things up, I’m also bummed it’ll be over. I hope the final episode is closer to 20 minutes long and features more closeups of the Covenant besides the Elites.
Checkout our reviews of the past episodes too:
- Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Episode 1 Review
- Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Episode 2 Review
- Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Episode 3 Review