Halo Infinite Battle Royale: Breaking Down The Rumors And Possibilities

Thanks to a viral tweet, there has been a lot of renewed discussion and interest in the possibility of Halo adopting a battle royale mode of its own at some point in the future. 343 Industries has commented on the possibility of Halo battle royale before, but the studio has never given a definitive answer, and even if it did, plans can always change. In this feature, we’re looking at what’s been said so far and diving into what a Halo battle royale could look like and offer.

How We Got Here

With games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, PUBG, Call of Duty: Warzone, and others dominating the headlines and sparking conversations about battle royale, it was only logical that attention would eventually turn to Halo. In July 2018, Halo franchise writer Jeff Easterling poured cold water on the idea of Halo Infinite featuring a battle royale mode by saying, “I’ll tell you right now, the only BR we’re interested in is Battle Rifle.”

In April 2019, noted Microsoft insider Brad Sams reported that 343 was considering the possibility of adding a battle royale mode to Halo Infinite in some form. Sams reported that Halo Infinite’s take on battle royale would offer something different compared to Fortnite and Apex, but we never learned any specifics.

Halo Infinite is looking gooooooood
Halo Infinite is looking gooooooood

Responding to this, Halo franchise manager Frank O’Connor said 343 will not discuss the launch content for Halo Infinite “until we’re ready.” That being said, O’Connor confirmed that Halo Infinite will not release with a battle royale mode. O’Connor reminded players that they can basically create their own version of battle royale using the Forge tools. A quick search inside Halo 5 yields a number of results, but these fan-made modes are a far cry from something more substantial for Halo.

O’Connor did say that 343 wants to develop “big social modes with lots of organic shenanigans” for the next Halo game. However, again, O’Connor said there were no plans to bring battle royale to Halo. Though these comments were made in April 2019–so 343’s plans for Halo Infinite could have changed since then.

More recently, community director Brian Jarrard shut down rumors of Halo Infinite adding a battle royale mode. He said the ongoing rumors are “unfounded.”

So there you have it. The official word is that Halo Infinite may not have a battle royale mode, at least not at launch, or potentially ever. But Halo Infinite is a live service game with plans to exist and live on for 10 years into the future as a platform that grows and evolves.

Could a battle royale experience ever be a part of that?

The Viral Tweet

Famous streamer and content creator Jack “CouRage” Dunlop tweeted recently that Halo Infinite ought to include a battle royale mode to keep up with the times.

He said, “I’ve played Halo since 2005. It’s my favorite game series of all time. If Halo Infinite doesn’t release with a robust and well-made battle royale game mode, then it will be one of the greatest gaming failures in history.”

Dunlop is intentionally being hyperbolic. His tweet went viral, with responses pouring in, both positive and negative. The tweet getting a reaction like that is evidence that people care a lot about whether or not Halo Infinite has a battle royale mode.

Microsoft is no doubt aware of this ongoing conversation. It’s likely that many developers making a shooter game in the years since PUBG’s rise to popularity in 2017 have probably given some thought to the idea of making a battle royale. For example, Respawn cited PUBG as the reason for making Apex Legends instead of Titanfall 3. It’s presumed that other developers have at least considered the possibility of adding a battle royale mode to their games, as was the case with Battlefield V’s Firestorm mode, or creating a brand-new game, like Ubisoft did with Hyper Scape.

Chasing Trends

An issue people bring up is that 343 as a studio of developers is only so big, and directing efforts to a battle royale experience could come at the expense of the traditional multiplayer experience. Fans have pointed to the example of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, which ditched its entire single-player campaign in the same year that it launched Call of Duty’s first battle royale experience, Blackout. Developer Treyarch never said the campaign was cut to work on the battle royale mode, but people themselves made that connection.

More recently, however, Activision has provided a template for a big FPS series having its cake and eating it too. Before Call of Duty: Warzone was released, some wondered if the Call of Duty community could sustain two major console/PC releases at the same time with Warzone and Modern Warfare. As it turned out, both games thrived. They did not cannibalize each other.

In fact, Activision management has said the success of the free-to-play Warzone encouraged players to pick up the premium Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and now Black Ops Cold War. Activision has created a behemoth that feeds itself in a cycle, and the company is reaping the benefits. One would have to imagine that the executives at Microsoft have been keeping an eye on Warzone (and other FPS games in the market) to plan out their own strategy for Halo Infinite.

There is also the matter that Microsoft may not be interested in chasing a trend but instead creating something new. Making a splash in the battle royale space isn’t easy, after all. Chasing a trend like battle royale is antithetical to what Halo is all about in the eyes of many, and it’s led the franchise down some challenging paths before. Halo 4’s multiplayer was widely criticized for chasing trends by adding things like sprint and loadouts, mechanics that were borrowed from other popular franchises. People seem to want to see 343 blaze a new trail instead of follow a path.

Halo Infinite design lead Jerry Hook recently said in a video that 343 is trying to strike a balance between respecting Halo’s rich legacy and taking steps to make sure the franchise “doesn’t become an amalgamation of what the market is currently doing. But that what makes Halo unique remains unique for our players, our community, and for the industry.”

What Else Might Halo Infinite Have?

If Halo Infinite doesn’t include a battle royale mode, the possibilities are potentially even more exciting. With Halo 5, 343 ushered in the MOBA-style mode called, of all things, Warzone, and it was a breath of fresh air for the series that stagnated with Halo 4’s multiplayer. No one saw Warzone coming. New ideas are the lifeblood of any creative endeavor, and it should be expected for a franchise like Halo to deliver something meaningful and exciting for multiplayer beyond the tried-and-true (and very fun and important!) head-to-head Slayer mode.

The counterargument to be made is that Halo Infinite would not be chasing a trend by adding a battle royale mode but instead reacting to the market as it stands today. Fortnite reacted to the success of PUBG and others, and it became a juggernaut. Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends also did not break new ground completely, instead opting to take what makes their own franchises excellent and apply them to battle royale to appeal to a new set of users.

For the team at 343 to not even consider a Halo battle royale mode–or potentially a separate standalone game, however–would be surprising to me, and that’s because Halo already has an excellent formula that is seemingly tailor-made for battle royale.

Grand Possibilities

The Halo franchise has a rich and esteemed legacy when it comes to the recipe for a good battle royale game: a huge variety of weapons, locations, and vehicles, as well as tight controls and shooting mechanics that feel good and fair. Thinking about it that way, Halo as a franchise has the opportunity to excel and thrive in a battle royale context if executed properly.

It’s exciting to think about dropping onto a massive Halo map with distinct areas from across the Halo universe, stomping around the battlefield in a Wraith, or zipping by at high speed in a Mongoose with a gunner on the back, firing at enemies as they pass by.

Some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing Halo has come in Big Team Battles, where 16 players square off on giant maps with vehicles and powerful vehicles. The high-octane, white-knuckle action of these modes could be a template for a Halo Infinite battle royale. Halo’s large-scale modes consistently deliver the kind of epic watercooler moments because there are so many possibilities for what can happen.

A scene from Halo 5
A scene from Halo 5

Layered on to that could be some form of a battle pass–which Halo: MCC already has–where you can unlock new cosmetics and other content to customize your character. I would be shocked if Halo Infinite’s standard multiplayer doesn’t have some kind of battle pass-style progression system when it releases this fall–as its multiplayer component will exist as a seperate free-to-play game that generates revenue in part from microtransactions.

Wrapping Up

Even though Halo has some of the best shooting mechanics, most unique map layouts, and excellent weapons and vehicles, I personally don’t believe Halo Infinite needs to have a battle royale mode to succeed in 2021. I’m more excited to see 343 branch out and try something new and unexpected with a large-scale multiplayer mode in Halo Infinite, and I hope 343 delivers.

Dave Filoni Was Already The Executive Creative Director For Lucasfilm, The Studio Says

The internet lost its collective mind when the Lucasfilm updated its website, listing Dave Filoni–one of the masterminds behind Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian–as executive creative director at the studio. Lucasfilm has some good news and some bad news for us, though. The title is real, but Filoni stepped into it months ago, Lucasfilm told IGN.

“Dave has been serving as Executive Producer / Executive Creative Director at Lucasfilm for quite some time now,” a Lucasfilm spokesperson told the site. “We simply updated our website. Nothing has changed with his current and future projects. He is busier than ever in a galaxy far, far away!”

Now Playing: The Evolution Of Star Wars Games

Even if the move happened months ago, fans are excited with good reason, and they’re not alone. Actors like Katee Sackhoff (Bo-Katan Kryze on The Clone Wars and the Mandalorian) and Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand on the Mandalorian and the Book of Boba Fett) both expressed excitement on Twitter following the news.

What’s all the hubbub about? Reception of the latest trilogy of Star Wars films, helmed primarily by JJ Abrams, was financially successful but largely disappointing for fans. Filoni, meanwhile, has helped bring some of the galaxy’s best moments in recent memory to life. He’s acted as creator, producer, writer, and director on many episodes of The Bad Batch, The Clone Wars, Rebels, and the Mandalorian, as well as on upcoming shows like Ahsoka and the Book of Boba Fett.

For many fans, the cinematic side of Star Wars feels like a bit of a mess between what appears to be a generally unplanned trilogy and a couple of side-story films that landed to mixed reviews. Works with Filoni’s name on them, meanwhile, have been received warmly by the community, giving him a reputation with many fans as the Kevin Feige of Star Wars–an executive-level creator who understands the material well enough to make sure that it comes out feeling like Star Wars.

The 20 Best Anime Shows And Movies To Watch On Hulu Right Now (May 2021)

While anime has been popular in the US for a long time, the explosion in streaming services has really helped push the genre even further into the mainstream. Specialist platforms such as Crunchyroll and Funimation host many of the best new and classic titles, while Netflix is increasingly becoming a destination for exciting original series. The anime content on Hulu has also grown hugely over the last few years too, and there’s now a huge number of series on movies available to subscribers.

But with so much anime available on Hulu, it’s hard to know where to start. Anime can be a daunting genre for newcomers, and even for fans, it’s sometimes hard to keep up with the sheer quantity of titles available. So we’ve looked through Hulu’s current library of anime titles and picked some of the must-see classics and underrated gems that are worthy of your time.

So check the best anime shows and movies on Hulu below. All of these titles are included with the basic Hulu subscription, which starts at just $6 a month. You can check out our full breakdown of Hulu plans and pricing for 2021 (including the Disney Plus bundle with Hulu) for more details if you’re considering signing up. There’s also a 30-day free trial if you just want to try it out or watch a specific show.

5 seasons

All five seasons of one of the ’90s most beloved anime shows can be found on Hulu. Based on Naoko Takeuchi’s long-running manga, the show follows the adventures of teenage student Usagi Tsukino, who under the superpowered alias Sailor Moon, helps protect Earth from a variety of strange creatures and dangerous beings.

4 seasons

The manga Attack on Titan is one of the biggest selling of all time, and the anime adaptation has rightly become one of the most acclaimed in recent years. The tale of the gigantic man-eating Titans and heroic Eren Yeager is both horrifying and thrilling, and brings something genuinely new to the post-apocalyptic sub-genre.

6 seasons

The hugely popular One Piece follows the bizarre and very funny adventures of rubber-bodied Luffy and his crazy crew, the Straw Hat Pirates. The series has been running since 1999 and will soon hit its 1000th episode. The first six seasons are available on Hulu, and it’s never too late to find out why it’s one of the most watched animated shows ever made.

Movie

The international success of Katsuhiro Otomo’s dazzling 1989 adaptation of his classic cyberpunk manga did much to introduce Western viewers to anime and is now considered one of the finest sci-fi films ever made. Akira is essential viewing for new anime viewers, and endlessly rewatchable for longtime fans.

2 seasons

Netflix’s highly anticipated live-action Cowboy Bebop show is on the way, so now is a great time to revisit the original series. Shinichirō Watanabe’s epic story about a team of intergalactic bounty hunters is a genre-bending masterpiece that puts as much emphasis on the characters as the exciting space action. And who can forget that amazing, eclectic musical score?

5 seasons

Yu-Gi-Oh is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, comprising manga, movies, video games, trading cards, and two anime series. The second of these shows is available on Hulu. It focuses on Yugi, a schoolkid who becomes the host for a mysterious gambling spirit and uses the card-battling game Duel Monsters to solve problems with his friends and defeat evil.

Movie

Ninja Scroll was one of several anime movies that helped the genre gain popularity in the West in the early ’90s, as well as establishing Madhouse as one of Japan’s most important animation studios. It’s a bloody and exciting film set in feudal Japan, that mixes gory action and supernatural horror.

5 seasons

The ever-popular My Hero Academia returned in May with Season 5, and each new episode is currently Hulu every week. But if you’re yet to see any of the show, then you can catch the previous four seasons, and follow Izuku Midoriya, a boy born without powers in a world filled with superheroes, as he trains to fulfill his dream of becoming one.

1 season

Based on Koyoharu Gotouge’s hugely popular manga series, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba is set in Taishō-era Japan and focuses on the war between humans and demons. This stylishly animated and exciting show has become a cultural phenomenon, with the recent Demon Slayer movie, Mugen Train, scoring the biggest foreign language opening weekend in US box office history.

2 seasons

One-Punch Man tells the story of Saitama, a superpowered man who can defeat his opponents with–you guessed it–a single punch. While a change of animation studios resulting in a very disappointing second season, the inventive and funny Season 1 is highly recommended.

1 season

Takashi Okazaki’s love of hip-hop and soul music led him to create the iconic hero Afro Samurai, a Black samurai based party on the legend of Yasuke, who has also inspired the recent Netflix show of that title. Afro Samurai was developed primarily for the American market, with Samuel L. Jackson, voicing the main character.

4 seasons

Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is the fourth best-selling manga series in history, and there have been an incredible 720 episodes of the anime version, spread across two separate shows. The first series is available on Hulu–it’s the shorter of the two, but there’s still over 200 episodes of the funny and enthralling adventures of young ninja Naruto Uzumaki to dive into.

Movie

Without question one of the most powerful war films ever made, Grave of the Fireflies was written and directed by Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata. It follows two orphaned siblings as they struggle to survive towards the end of World War II. It’s a beautiful and devastating masterpiece that remains an absolute highpoint of the genre.

3 seasons

Bizarre is the right word for this endlessly inventive, beautifully illustrated series that follows the heroic Joestar family across the generations, with superpowered adventures, supernatural horror, comedy, drama, and philosophical concepts thrown into the mix. It’s a hard show to describe, but an easy one to love.

2 seasons

The very surreal and funny Assassination Classroom has the sort of plot you’d only find in anime or manga. A powerful and dangerous octopus-like being gives mankind a year to stop him from destroying the Earth, and in the meantime, takes a job as a high school teacher. A group of kids in another class take it upon themselves to destroy the creature.

1 season

In a world where demons occupy a dimension parallel to our own, twin brothers discover that their dad is Satan, and start training to become demon-fighting exorcists to stop him. Blue Exorcist is a mix of horror and dark fantasy, and fans of both genres should check out its excellent single season. A follow-up series, Blue Exorcist Kyoto Saga, is also available on Hulu.

1 season

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s acclaimed manga has spawned a variety of adaptations and spin-offs across TV and movies, but the initial anime show is still the best. A young man finds a book that causes the death of anyone whose name is written in it, so sets about ridding the world of evil. Death Note asks questions about fate and morality as well being a dark and gripping supernatural thriller.

1 season

While most of the shows on this list are adapted from manga, Eden of the East is an entirely original series. It’s a mystery conspiracy drama about a young man and woman who finds themselves involved in a strange game to “save” Japan. The unpredictable plot and likeable characters make it addictive viewing, even when it’s not entirely clear what is going on.

2 seasons

This gripping cyberpunk series takes its influence from movies such as Minority Report, Brazil, and Blade Runner; but it still delivers its own intelligent and original spin on the genre. It’s set in a dystopian future where public sensors continually scan its citizens to determine their inclination to commit crimes.

1 season

Samurai Champloo was Shinichirō Watanabe’s first anime series since his classic Cowboy Bebop. This show is a period tale set an alternate version of Edo-era Japan, and follows a trio of heroic misfits as they set out to find the “samurai who smells of sunflowers.” Like Cowboy Bebop, it combines genres in an inventive and hugely entertaining way–it’s not as renowned as that earlier classic, but well worth watching.

CW’s The Flash Shares First Look at Jordan Fisher’s Impulse

Two original cast members are on their way out at CW’s The Flash, but a new speedster will soon join the ranks, growing the Allen family by one. The CW has revealed the first official photo of Impulse, who will be played by Jordan Fisher for the second half of the show’s seventh season.

The image shows Fisher in Impulse’s white-and-red suit with his yellow goggles. Bart Allen in the comics was a distant relative of Barry’s, born in the 30th century, while this Bart will be Barry and Iris’ son. Fisher will also be playing an older version of the character, who has typically been portrayed as a teenager in the comic pages.

Fisher is set to join The Flash for the show’s 150th episode, for which actress Jessica Parker Kennedy will also return as Nora West-Allen/XS. Fisher will also be a recurring character throughout the remainder of the season. The show’s 144th episode, Family Matters, Part 1, aired this week, so it seems likely that this episode will air sometime in July.

The Flash is currently wrapping up the seventh season’s first storyline with next week’s episode, Family Matters, Part 2. Beginning with season 6, the show runners began to break the show up into two shorter storylines rather than depending on one villain or Crisis to keep the full season running. The Flash has been renewed for Season 8, but there’s no word yet on whether Impulse will become a regular for the show.

Solos Season 1 Review

All seven episodes of Solos are currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

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Watching Solos, the seven-part anthology from creator David Weil, is like hearing your most interesting friends recap the least interesting episodes of Black Mirror. The show brings together eight well-known actors — Anne Hathaway, Anthony Mackie, Helen Mirren, Uzo Aduba, Constance Wu, Nicole Beharie, Dan Stevens, and Morgan Freeman — for sci-fi stories set somewhere in the future. With mild exceptions, these stories take the shape of monologues delivered right down the lens. It’s a night of black box theatre with some tremendous performers, so it’s not exactly boring, but it lacks the spark, the curiosity, and the visual flair that usually makes this genre captivating.

The episodes range from 20 to 30 minutes in length, but they play less like self-contained short films, and more like scenes carved out from seven larger features, each with their own unique concepts that are left largely unexplored. Some shorts are nominally connected to one another, while others share specific themes — from dealing with loss to the fragility of human memory — but the show doesn’t quite have a complete thematic through-line. Its threads are often left to dangle, as if waiting to be tied together by subsequent stories. The conceptual storyline is hazy too; initial episodes playfully pit actors against themselves, or against disembodied A.I. voices, lending credence to the title. However, this one-actor-per-story premise is soon discarded.

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Weil directs three of the seven episodes, but the first, titled “Leah,” is helmed by Zach Braff. Anne Hathaway plays Leah, a scientist a few years in the future who hopes to crack time travel to prove herself to her superiors and escape her surroundings. Her life is a bit of a mess, between an ailing mother and a stuffy workplace basement she can’t seem to organize, illuminated by dozens of overhead bulbs powered by her equipment, which glow and fade as she gets closer to or further away from her goal. The production design is commendable, making Leah feel like a twee mad scientist of sorts, though it’s one of the only episodes where the environment tells a story. A mild breakthrough results in Leah being able to video chat with different versions of herself, and Anne Hathaway is delightful opposite Anne Hathaway, capturing a mix of excitement and desperation. Braff even uses the limited space to tell a kinetic story, but unfortunately, it ends up playing out strangely counter to its own weighty themes about dealing with the present.

The second episode, “Tom,” sees a terminally ill Anthony Mackie speaking to a mysterious, memory-less new version of himself. It largely comprises static shots of Mackie’s original Tom relaying his memories and his feelings about his family to this strange new doppelganger; visually, this Weil-directed entry feels like a bare-bones experiment completely at odds with Braff’s, wherein no cut, camera movement, or design element has anything to say. There’s nothing challenging about the episode — it doesn’t have much resembling dramatic conflict — but at the very least, it allows Mackie to dig into some decent emotional meat between the words, despite his philosophically sophomoric story that feels like a hasty first draft.

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The show brings out its big thespian guns for episode 3, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “Peg,” in which Hellen Mirren explains her lonely backstory to a spaceship’s computer, en route to the far reaches of the solar system. What is the purpose of her journey? It’s unclear, beyond a vague mention of some nondescript “experiment” that never comes to light. Like the previous entry, “Peg” features a monologue that doesn’t really need a sci-fi setting to unfold the way it does. A mere three episodes in, the show’s own concept feels perfunctory — although, only a fool would deny Mirren’s enthralling talent. Not much happens in “Peg,” but Mirren makes a meal out of it regardless, injecting innumerable layers of charm, doubt, and longing into what otherwise feels like a Google search result for “audition monologues.”

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In episode 4, the Uzo Aduba-led “Sasha,” is where the show’s central thematic paradox begins to emerge. Prior episodes feature brief mentions of contemporary technology, like Tik Tok, Alexa, and the advent of driverless cars, but none of these references amount to much by way of commentary on the present. “Sasha,” also directed by Weil, could not feel more rooted in the current moment — it features a woman still self-isolating twenty years on from a viral pandemic — and yet, it could not feel more confused about what it actually wants to say. As the A.I. controlling Sasha’s smart-home urges her to go outside, she runs through the rote exposition of the events that led her to this moment. “Sasha,” it turns out, is less about an actual pandemic and more of a confused screed against the omnipresent role of technology in our lives, though it can’t seem to decide on what that role actually is. Aduba, however, is a treat to watch, as she chews the scenery with reckless abandon.

While few ideas carry over from episode to episode — despite the show’s best efforts — this haphazard approach to technology as some all-consuming monolith rears its head once again, in a later episode. However, the theme that begins to feel most potent, especially once it’s made explicit by “Sasha,” is perhaps unintentional: the effects of pandemic-era isolation.

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To be clear, each episode is fully aware that its characters are isolated people, but the way isolation takes root in the show’s aesthetics is as maddening as a lengthy quarantine. In October-November of 2020, Solos was filmed when Hollywood was only just getting back on its feet, and productions still had to enforce stringent safety measures. A show featuring one actor at a time is a perfect reflection of this era, but the problem permeating Solos is that it doesn’t properly adjust to capturing one person alone with their thoughts (which is essentially the case even when they’re speaking to an A.I. or a different version of themselves). The show’s inability to get used to isolation is frustrating, and ironically, all too familiar to those of us who lived through similar frustrations over the last year.

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Episode 5, the Weil-directed “Jenny,” discards any pretense of even trying to tell a visually enticing story. It simply has Constance Wu drunkenly monologue into the camera, without much by way of actual science fiction (barring an idea that feels tacked on at the last minute). Wu does an incredible job, perhaps the best of anyone in the series. She’s an absolute powerhouse, and there’s something disarming about her honesty as she narrates a story about her boring husband, her attractive neighbor, her thoughts on having children, and the ways in which she feels invisible.

However, the show’s honesty about its visual approach is a little more disconcerting. It plays like it isn’t even trying to adjust its storytelling to the constraints around it — it’s quite naked in its lack of effort too, often resembling webcam confessions more than visual explorations of thoughts, feelings, or ideas. Luckily, it has the wherewithal to cast stellar performers, without whom it would have practically nothing (at least Malcolm & Marie, an average film made under similar conditions, relied on more than just its actors to tell its story).

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Episode 6 is a merciful exception. “Nera,” directed by Tiffany Johnson, stars Nicole Beharie as a pregnant woman trapped in a snowstorm, whose worst fears come true when she goes into labor unexpectedly, with no one around to help. It’s a riveting and largely wordless sequence, followed by a few more twists and turns: her baby was meant to have been genetically altered and “improved,” but things don’t seem quite right. For once, the show not only unfolds in isolation, but captures the fears of isolation as well, with a frame that feels constantly off-kilter. It’s the only episode that uses its visual palette to convey any kind of mood. The only one with any relevant commentary about the present is between the specter of gene-editing and a social dimension that eventually comes to light in a moment of quiet intensity. It’s also the only episode that has anything resembling an actual ending, with something poignant to say (in this case, about the anxieties of parenthood in general, and of Black parenthood in specific). It puts the other six episodes to shame, despite being the shortest among them.

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Sadly, the show falls back on its worst habits in episode 7, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “Stuart,” which feels thematically at odds with its predecessors in several ways (for one thing, it unfolds out in the open). It does, at the very least, feature a similar sense of loneliness, as Morgan Freeman’s Stuart battles dementia, while Dan Stevens’ Otto tries to restore Stuart’s memories for his own mysterious reasons. The episode also tries to tie the whole series together, but its attempt feels half-hearted. Freeman and Stevens are incredible in their roles, but the episode puts far too much on their shoulders; there’s only so much life they can breathe into a scene that feels dead on arrival. The characters sit on a bench and recall various events from their past, revealing their painful connection, but the episode chooses not to express its musings on love and loss as anything but exposition — despite this being a story about how actually experiencing emotions is central to one’s memory. As its actors describe powerful images, the episode keeps the viewer at arm’s length, mechanically cutting between dialogue rather than trying to portray those images, or evoke them in some way.

The close-up is one of the most powerful tools in visual storytelling, but Solos treats it as if it were the only tool. The result is a blinkered approach to science fiction, a genre often used to capture the breadth and scope of human possibility. Without first journeying outward, the show is unable to meaningfully delve inward, and so it amounts to little more than a series of speeches hinting at more interesting ideas, somewhere off-screen.

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