‘Halo’ Season 2 Will Bring Out Fan-Favorite Covenant Characters

The Big Picture

• Master Chief and Silver Team continue their fight against the Covenant in Halo Season 2 to save humanity’s greatest stronghold.
• The show will introduce new Covenant artillery and fan-favorite characters, including expanding the Covenant’s arsenal with the Covenant corvette.
• Season 2 will delve into the Covenant mindset and explore their motives, relationships, and allegiances, making them more understandable and compelling.

Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) and Silver Team still have a fight to finish in Season 2 of Paramount+’s Halo series adaptation. They’re set to return early next year to continue the war with the Covenant, though things are about to take a dark turn. John is out to prove that the alien forces are preparing to wipe out humanity’s greatest stronghold and hopes to find the storied Halo to save the galaxy. As the fighting escalates and the stakes get higher, the show is also preparing to introduce new Covenant artillery and fan-favorite characters to change the face of the fight.

While on the set for Halo Season 2, Collider’s Steve Weintraub and some other reporters got the chance to sit down with stars Schreiber and Kate Kennedy to discuss how the show will further flesh out the Covenant in the upcoming episodes. Part of that involves expanding their arsenal with new vehicles like the corvette, a class of ships used in the Halo canon by the Covenant for reconnaissance, stealth, and much more. Kennedy placed it among her favorite Season 2 set designs, saying, “Yeah, most recently, actually, again in the second half of the season, the Covenant corvette.” She continued with plenty of praise for the art department, adding, “There’s a Covenant corvette, and it is quite amazing. It’s huge, and what the set guys did for it, and the art department, is really, really impressive. They turned it around so quickly, and it’s, like, awe-inspiring, it’s huge.”

Aside from making the Covenant more formidable, Season 2 will also focus on making them more understandable. Part of that involves diving into the thought process of key players within the alien faction, including two that Schreiber could tease. “Yeah, we definitely go into the Covenant mind-state, mentality,” he said. “Through one particular character, you explore it… two characters together, you explore it a little further, and a little deeper.” In future seasons, Schreiber believes Halo will only continue to develop the Covenant, their motives, and the relationships and allegiances within the coalition as the story of intergalactic war unfolds:

“It’s one of my favorite things about the games, too, is how you’re constantly learning both sides. I wouldn’t say your allegiance is ever with the Covenant, but at least their opinion is expressed, and you learn that story. I believe that the opportunity for that, 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 2 Will Feature a More Compelling Covenant

Schreiber and Kennedy weren’t the only ones teasing how the Covenant evolves in Season 2. Weintraub also spoke to series director Otto Bathurst who assured that Halo will start delving into the world of its alien threat rather than simply letting them be more fodder for epic action sequences with Master Chief and the Spartans. “That’s one of the things that’s really exciting about this season is, we’re gonna go more into the Covenant world,” he added. “In the first season, the Covenant were these sort of slightly abstract baddies. We mainly just had the Prophets and then these sort of faceless elites who just kind of go around blowing people up.”

Like Schreiber, Bathurst also hinted at a couple of fan-favorite Covenant characters entering the fray in Season 2. One such figure sure to get a big reaction from fans would be The Arbiter, aka Thel ‘Vadam, a Sangheili or Elite who eventually turns against the Covenant and becomes a close ally to John. Introducing Thel ‘Vadam now would make sense considering Season 2 appears to be heading toward the fall of Reach where the Arbiter led Covenant forces as Supreme Commander. Whoever is introduced, Bathurst hopes they give a much-needed face to the Covenant:

“This time, we’ve got two main characters from the Covenant, which you’re really going to actually get to meet and get to understand, and spend time with and understand what their motives are and what they want. And so, I think that’s going to be really fun because the enemy will be much more characterized and much more accessible. Whereas in the first season, it was a little hard to understand what they wanted or what their agenda was. I think that all slightly affected the season and your ability to really connect with it as to what the stakes were. But now, hopefully in this season, you’re going to feel a lot more of a connection to the Covenant, and a couple of the characters we’re bringing out are fan-favorites. So that’s going to go well.”

Halo Season 2 premieres on February 8. Season 1 can currently be streamed on Paramount+. Check out our full guide here for everything we know about the upcoming season.

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