The Best Part of ‘Halo’ Wasn’t Master Chief, It Was Kai-125

The first season of Halo on Paramount+ is finally game over, man, and it’s fair to say whether you were a fan or a detractor, it was a bit of a mess. Certain choices alienated longtime fans of the video game series the show was based on, characters disappeared for significant lengths of time, and it all ended with a battle scene that was more video game than live-action, betraying the whole impetus for the series to begin with.

But if there’s one aspect of the show that worked entirely, it wasn’t Master Chief, the ostensible star, though Pablo Schreiber was certainly giving his all in the role. Nope, it was another Spartan who came out victorious: Kai-125, played by Kate Kennedy.

Spoilers for the Halo Season 1 finale, “Transcendence”, past this point.

Part of the reason Kai worked so well over the course of the show’s first season is that the character had essentially the same arc as Master Chief, but without the weight of being a child of destiny. While Master Chief, aka John-117, was exploring his newfound humanity and connections to strange alien artifacts that may hold key to the fate of the galaxy, Kai was also exploring her newfound humanity, but without all the artifact stuff.

Early in the season, after one of the artifacts activated some of John’s suppressed memories, he revealed his naked butt and removed his emotion suppressing chip (something that was given to him to make him a more focused soldier). Unbeknownst to John, Kai was watching and removed her own emotion chip. From there, while John continued to grapple with the fate of all human life and had sex for the first time while his mom watched, Kai dyed her hair red, flirted with Miranda Keyes (Olive Gray), showed off how much she could lift (a jeep full of soldiers, for example), and generally had a pretty good time. Granted, she also had a panic attack in the middle of a battle, but while the show depicted John’s humanity as concerned staring, Kai actually went through the gamut of human emotions.

And therein lies one of the reasons Kai was the breakout of the season. The whole show is about what makes us human when we have no humanity left (something Miranda Keyes says outright in the pilot), and Kai’s journey from unstoppable killing machine, to unstoppable killing machine with a heart actually captured the entirety of human experience. It also was her choice, unlike John’s, making her decisions hold more weight. He was forced along a path of destiny; she created the path for herself.

It’s also why the highlight of the finale wasn’t watching Master Chief finally battle the evil aliens in The Covenant; it was Kai, early in the episode, taking on Dr. Halsey (Natascha McElhone). Though Kai seemingly nonsensically decides to go after Halsey in the midst of Makee (Charlie Murphy) escaping with one of the all-powerful alien artifacts, it leads to not just a killer action scene, but one of the most emotionally charged moments in the first season.

Having discovered that Halsey kidnapped the Spartans (John, Kai, and two others, currently) as children, leaving rapidly dying clones behind to fool their parents, Kai chases after Halsey’s ship, which is about to escape the UNSC homeworld of Reach. While the regular, human soldiers lag behind, Kai amps up her superhuman speed, runs after the spaceship, and jumps on top of it. Then she blasts through the hull, does a superhero landing inside, and then simply demands to know one thing: what is her real name?

Reader, my jaw-dropped. Partially because Kennedy nails this moment, her voice cracking, her eyes wet with the beginning of tears. But also because it becomes abundantly clear that Kai isn’t chasing after Halsey out of some sense of duty, or for revenge, or any other high-minded “plot” reason. It’s because Kai has found out her whole life has been a lie, and all she wants is to know one thing that’s real.

Halsey, of course, deflects, and manages to escape the ship in an escape pod, leading to one last rad as hell action moment for Kai. The other Spartans watch as the ship crash-lands with a spectacular explosion, and it seems like there’s no way Kai could have escaped. Would the show actually kill her, so close to finding her true self? The answer is no, they wouldn’t, and she crawls out of the wreckage, alive.

Further pushing the idea that Kai is far beyond whatever is happening with Master Chief, while he’s hobbled by the activated artifacts in the final battle, it’s Kai who shoots Makee, killing her and freeing John from its spell. And at the end, when John picks up the artifact and takes it back to his ship, it’s Kai who realizes that isn’t John at all; it’s computer program Cortana (Jen Taylor), running his body. The season ends with a shot of Master Chief’s helmet, but there’s nothing going on there, just a cracked blast shield and some metal. It’s the second to last shot of Kai, a combination of worry for both her friend and the future rippling across her face, that leaves the bigger impression.

Look, am I saying that Halo Season 2 should leave Master Chief “dead,” his reanimated corpse puppeted by Cortana while Kai takes the lead in the show? Not necessarily, and I don’t see that happening. But I do think the show needs to lean into this being a two-hander between Kai and John, versus The Master Chief Show, because the latter isn’t working. Kai is more fun, more exciting, and has a stronger emotional arc than the supposed star of the series. Let her keep shining in Season 2, because if the idea of Halo is to show us what it means to be human, both through Kai’s arc and Kennedy’s acting? It’s working.