Halo season 2 episode 5 divides fans with brutal Reach aftermath

Episode 4, hailed as "perfect" by many fans, showed the fall of the planet following a horrific invasion from the Covenant. The episode also saw many losses, including characters like Admiral Jacob Keyes (Danny Sapani), and set up the death of Vannak (Bentley Kalu), which is further explored in episode 5.

Aleria picks up after the events of episode 4, and sees the Spartans barely escape after the battle. Riz (Natasha Culzac) is just about able to retrieve Vannak's body, but is left seriously injured and in no state to continue with her duties as a Spartan.

Throughout the episode, our heroes encounter loss after loss – Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) struggles to come to terms with the loss of Vannak, and Kessler (Tylan Bailey) is stolen away from Laera (Fiona O'Shaughnessy) and Soren (Bokeem Woodbine), possibly indicating another Spartan programme.

Even Cortana has been captured by The Arbiter – a character fans of the game have been waiting to meet - and Riz decides her fight is over as she chooses to stay on Aleria.

The 60-minute episode has been welcomed by some fans, with one viewer saying on X: "Damn this one got me. It was an incredible depiction of loss, failure, and family yet ends with a new found resolve and an epic look into what comes next."

Another said: "Season 2 Episode 5 is some of the best emotional storytelling yet in #HaloTheSeries."

Another praised the development of Kwan-Ha's character, saying that she "finally has a good plot to sink her teeth into besides a side character everyone found annoying. Major turnaround in character development. Bravo to the writing team".

However, others were less impressed.

One said: "Just watched #HaloTheSeries episode 5, it was basically just filler. I disliked the Kwan and Soren story and I am unsure whether they will focus on Reach anymore. However the covenant scenes were amazing and the new Arbiter is definitely worth it."

Another viewer added: "Well we went from one of the best Episodes to one of the worst. #Halo episode 5 was another pointless filler episode that could [have] been 20 minutes long. Frustrating."

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It's no secret that the Halo series has faced criticism, with executive producer Kiki Wolfkill previously opening up to RadioTimes.com about how she and showrunner David Weiner approached season 2 with that in mind.

Wolfkill said: "It is really about execution of vision and so I think a lot of the a lot of the things that created a lot of noise on season 1 were valid execution learnings for us. Some of it was really deliberate creative choices and I think it was really valuable to hear how strongly some parts of the audience felt about some pieces and not others."

She added: "It is tough, you're not going to make everyone happy and it's even harder to know you're making some people unhappy, people who you really care about as fans. But I think that's sort of the line you tread with with big IP."

Halo season 2 is available to stream on Paramount Plus now with new episodes dropping weekly on Thursdays. Get a seven-day free Paramount Plus trial at Amazon Prime Video

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