Even though the Covenant are the other side of Halo’s ongoing conflict, the first season of Paramount+’s TV series largely represented them through a human proxy named Makee. With the upcoming second season, the coalition of alien races is set to become a more prominent threat, and that means they’ll be getting more proper screentime.
Talking to Collider, series director Otto Bathurst revealed there’d be a pair of main characters on the Covenant side of the war. Season one made them hard to understand—literally, as they had their own language—and connect with. His hope is that the new perspectives will provide a deeper connection and understand their religious fervor for the titular ringworld. And through this unnamed duo, we’ll “spend time and understand their motives are and what they want. [...] The enemy will be much more characterized and accessible.”
Pablo Schreiber, who plays Master Chief, backed up Bathurst’s words, promising the show “definitely [goes] into the Covenant mentality.” As someone who’s played the games, he’s glad the Covenant will get a more proper showing this time around. The season won’t make them sympathetic, he said, but their “opinion is expressed, and you learn that story. While we do flesh it out more than we did the first season, I believe the real fleshing out and the real Covenant perspective will come in subsequent seasons.”
Halo season two is set during the Fall of Reach, which itself was adapted into a game by original creator Bungie in 2010, but what Bathurst is talking about is right out of Halo 2. The 2004 game put players in the boots of Thel ‘Vadam, a Sangheili (aka Elite) warrior who was on the Halo ring and failed to stop Master Chief from destroying it. As punishment, Thel’s is conscripted to become the Arbiter, a Covenant holy warrior and eventually becomes one of Chief’s key allies in the series. Thel’s a fan favorite character throughout the franchise (partially because he’s voiced by Keith David), and he was involved in Reach’s end, so it makes sense for him to pop up. As for the second character...it’s anyone’s guess, but it’d be funny if it were a Grunt.
Halo’s second season premieres February 8 on Paramount+.
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