Halo Episode 4 Reveals a Dark Secret From Master Chief's Past

The Halo TV series on Paramount+ has released its fourth episode, "Homecoming," and as the name, previous episodes, and all of the promotional material thus far have indicated it sees the return of Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) to his childhood home planet of Eridanus II. While looking for the artifact from his memories, however, a dark secret from his past that has been hinted at in some ways previously is finally revealed.

Warning: there be spoilers for the Halo TV series below, including but not limited to the most recent episode, "Homecoming."

Following the events of last week's episode, Master Chief, Dr. Halsey (Natascha McElhone), and her assistant Adun (Ryan McParland) arrive on the planet Eridanus II, where John lived as a child. They are ostensibly there in order to discover the location of a second artifact that John has seen in his childhood memories. Initially, this looks to be a bust as the team discovers only John's childhood drawings of the artifact instead.

While continuing to investigate, John recreates visions of his childhood home with the help of Cortana. This seemingly awakens latent memories in the Spartan as at one point Cortana notes that she is no longer helping recreate what the house once looked like. In one of those memories, John as a child is playing some kind of coin toss game with Dr. Halsey herself.

When confronted about it, Dr. Halsey claims that this is merely a conflated memory of her working with him as a child following the death of his parents, likely brought about by that trauma. When speaking with Adun, however, it is implied that it was a genuine memory and something that is concerning given they have no idea what he might recall next.

In short? It is heavily indicated that Dr. Halsey had involvement with John on Eridanus II before the death of his parents, not after. And given that Halo franchise lore has previously established that Spartan candidates were largely stolen from their homes, it seems like it won't be long until something of the sort comes to light in the live-action series.

As noted above, the fourth episode of the Halo television series, "Homecoming," is now available on Paramount+. New episodes, in general, 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.

Have you had a chance to catch the latest episode of Halo? What do you think about Kai actually saying the name of the thing? 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!