Halo's Master Chief Appears in the Buff in New Episode

Halo on Paramount+ released its third episode, "Emergence," today, and while it included the official introduction of Cortana (voiced by Jen Taylor) to the TV series, there was also one slightly surprising reveal: the butt of Pablo Schreiber's Master Chief. Yes, completing what he started by taking off the helmet in the first episode, Master Chief appears naked in the new episode.

Warning: there be spoilers for the Halo TV series below, but especially the most recent episode, "Emergence."

As for the why behind Master Chief getting naked in the episode, the reasoning was actually teased in the previous episode. It was revealed that there are pellets embedded in Spartans suppressing their emotions, which is officially in order to keep them in a battle-ready state but effectively cuts them off from experiencing things as a normal human would.

In the scene where Master Chief appears in the buff, he is attempting to remove the pellet, which is apparently located at the base of his spine on his back. After some initial hesitation, Cortana actually helps him locate and remove it, after which Master Chief goes about feeling new feelings before activating the artifact again -- which, sans pellet, he hopes will show him even more.

Here's what he looks like with some slight censorship on my part:

It's worth noting that while Master Chief absolutely appears naked in the scene, all we really see that wouldn't have been visible if he were wearing a swimsuit is Schreiber's butt with one far-off show and a couple of closely cropped angles. There's no full-frontal nudity here; Halo is rated TV-14, after all.

As noted above, the third episode of the Halo television series, "Emergence," is now available on Paramount+. New episodes in general will release on Thursdays. The series stars Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, Natascha McElhone as Dr. Catherine Halsey, Jen Taylor as the voice of Cortana, Yerin Ha as Kwan Ha, and more. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the Halo TV show right here. And you can catch Halo directly on Paramount+ right here.

How do you feel about catching Master Chief in the buff in the latest Halo episode? And more generally, what do you think about the show so far? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop in order to talk about all things gaming or television!