We knew it was coming, and season 2 episode 4 of Halo on Paramount+ finally delivered the fall of Reach. The story was compelling and pretty good TV.

The show clearly deviates from the game canon, and that’s totally 100% okay!

I’ve seen some complaints that Master Chief (John) wasn’t in his armor for the fall of Reach. I’m going to disagree, because him not being in the armor for the battle told a far more compelling story.  Seeing John and Corporal Perez surviving while helping civilians was awesome.

However, we can’t go any further here without talking about the excellent acting of Danny Sapani as Admiral Jacob Keyes. His speech to the USC Marines prior to their last stand against the Covenant invasion was something else. Goosebumps. Watch that speech and tell me you don’t feel the same way.

“You show those scaly bastards that they fucked with the wrong planet!”

I would run through a wall for that man.

They talked a lot about the handheld camera being used a lot this season in fights, and they nailed it in this episode. When John sans-armor killed that one Covenant soldier, I hollered. What a moment! Pablo Schreiber was really good in this episode.

I didn’t even talk about the Soren and Halsey stuff, but that got a little more interesting finally!

So far, I’ve enjoyed season two. The changes that have been made in actually shooting the show have made it a more compelling product, and the studio deserves credit for making the changes for the better.