Back on the Rubble, Soren has left Madrigal somehow and is telling stories about his adventures at a party. His business partner, Squirrel, attempts to humiliate him publicly by pointing out that he left the Rubble with a girl worth a huge bounty, and returned with neither. However, his alcohol-fueled courage doesn't extend to standing toe-to-toe with a trained SPARTAN Super-Soldier, and he backs down. Soren buries the hatchet with Squirrel by offering to help him on his next heist — robbing a UNSC freighter carrying "military-grade slipspace drivers" — but reasserts the pecking order by lowering a crate onto Squirrel's foot. Later, with his wife, he admits he regrets abandoning Kwan to the desert and almost certain death. Laera points out that Kwan is, in fact, alive: Vinsher has tripled the bounty on her head.
In the desert, Kwan makes her way to the mystics in the desert who gave her father his mission. In a drug-induced trance, she fights a vision of Master Chief (his only appearance, and indeed the only appearance of any UNSC-affiliated personnel, in the episode), who takes her out to the desert. There, she talks with the ghost of her father, who reveals that he, like she, is a Protector, tasked to watch over a Portal Door of unknown provenance and destination, fueled by the planet's deuterium reserves.
Seeking further guidance, Kwan returns to the desert compound where her father made his stand, fortifying the area around the Sky Pipe which feeds deuterium to the fuel depot in space. Here, Soren finds her, pointing out that, if he can do so, Vinsher cannot be far behind. He is proven right almost immediately when Vinsher arrives with some thirty armed enforcers. Kwan hashes out the plan: she's going to engage the fuel pumps and fill the Sky Pipe with deuteriumnote , at which point a bullet in the right place will blow it all up, taking out everyone in the vicinity. To save themselves, Soren and Kwan will need to take refuge in the Vault that was used to hide the rebellion's children in the first episode. However, the pump is jammed, and Kwan needs to get to the base of the Sky Pipe to open it up. Soren fights a fierce delaying action while Kwan makes the necessary adjustments, eventually having to improvise by using a Covenant sticky grenade to kill one guard and a standard MA5B to take the shot, as Vinsher has managed to catch Soren with a stray round. Nonetheless, the two hustle themselves into the vault just in time. After that, it's all over but the fireworks.
Kwan pays Soren with a massive tin of money, which they found in the Sky Pipe's control room, and gives him a ship, declaring them even. Soren, for one, shows some regret at leaving her behind, though by now she's proved to him that she can handle anything — having emerged unscathed, after all, from a firefight that wounded even a SPARTAN. (That, of course, may be part of why he's regretful to leave her.) As his ship takes off, Kwan turns around, the MA5B slung over her back, turning to face her planet — ready to liberate it once and for all.
Tropes:
- Agony of the Feet: Soren drops a pallet of crates with heavy machinery on Squirrel's foot, to put the guy in his place after he challenged him earlier in the episode.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: No small amount of liquid courage convinces Squirrel to try to stand up to Soren, and he is quick to realize his mistake, doubly so after he's had time to sober up.
- As the Good Book Says...: Vinsher is waxing poetic about what a hell Madrigal is when his Dragon quotes Lucifer as saying it's better to reign in Hell (than serve in Heaven). Vinsher approves.
- Bait-and-Switch: Vinsher and his men detect Kwan at the compound. Kwan hears someone and goes out with her gun ready and runs into...Soren, whom we last saw still on Rubble.
- Bag of Kidnapping: Kwan being snatched by the Mystics in the sandstorm.
- Bullying a Dragon: Squirrel thinks it's a good idea to antagonize a former Spartan. He's lucky his toes are the only thing that get crushed.
- Chekhov's Gun: In the first episode, there was notable attention given to Master Chief discarding his assault rifle before grabbing a truck-mount gatling gun. Kwan ends up finding the same rifle under a truck in this episode, taking it as her weapon.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Though Soren decided to cut his losses and return to the Rubble after Kwan ambushed him, he does feel bad about leaving Kwan to her likely death and returns as soon as he learns she's still alive.
- A Day in the Limelight: This episode avoids anything regarding the main UNSC characters and focuses on two plotlines involving Kwan and Soren that converge at the end. Master Chief only shows up as a hallucination.
- Karmic Jackpot: Soren goes back for Kwan and helps save her life. He not only gets the money she promised him, but his ship as well.
- Lower-Deck Episode: This episode focuses entirely on Soren and Kwan Ha, after a minimal presence two episodes ago and being absent in the previous one.
- Out Run The Fire Ball: Vinsher gives it a solid try, but he's not nearly close enough to the Vault to make it before he gets fried.
- Mook Horror Show: In a vision Kwan is expected to fight Master Chief, where all her attempts to deal any sort of harm bounces off his armor and he silently, methodically defeats her when he decides to attack. While Spartans killing Covenant enemies feels heroic, here he comes across as an inhuman, mythological monster.
- No-Sell: When Kwan fights John in her vision while he's in full armor, everything attack she tries simply bounces off his armor harmlessly, and each time he lays her out with a single punch.
- One-Man Army: Befitting a former Spartan, Soren vs a small army of goons results in at least a dozen of them being killed before they finally get the upper hand.
- Plot-Demanded Manual Mode: Soren has to keep everyone busy while Kwan goes to open the valves manually to start the deuterium flowing. Naturally this makes her simple plan a lot more dangerous.
- The Reveal: Jin Ha was guarding a portal of alien origin, implicitly Forerunner based on the presence of a Monitor, fueled by Madrigal's deuterium supply.
- Sheathe Your Sword: Kwan tries to fight a vision of John but is knocked down every time. It's only when she stops and asks what he wants that she's able to progress.
- Shirtless Scene: Soren goes shirtless while changing clothes talking to Laera. It shows he is still in fairly good shape befitting a former Spartan, but is also one of the clearest shots given of his deformed arm.
- Space Pirates: Soren's gang are no longer The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything as we see them raiding a UNSC freighter for the FTL drives it's carrying.
- Starter Villain: Vinsher turns out to be one of these, getting blown up after his failed attempt to overpower Soren and Kwan with an army of mooks, thus ending his short tenure as Governor of Madrigal. Notably, he barely lives long enough to see any of the Covenant warriors (albeit long-deceased) before he gets killed.
- Sticky Bomb: One of Vinsher's men learns first-hand how a Covenant sticky plasma grenade works.
- Tall Tale: The stories Soren is regaling his guests with on what happened on Madrigal don't seem to match what the audience saw, most notably on how he lost his ship.
- Time Skip: The last time Kwan and Soren were seen, Kwan had gotten Soren by surprise with a taser and was aiming his gun at his head. This episode starts with Kwan driving deeper in the desert while Soren has since returned to the Rubble on his own.
- Vision Quest: Kwan is given some deuterium water that is supposed to give her answers to what her family has been guarding on the planet. In a vision she is first pitted against Master Chief in combat, where she loses no matter what trick she tries, presumably as a lesson that her goal is not try and defeat the UNSC. She then sees that her ancestors have been protecting some sort of portal in a well, to keep it secret from all other parties.
- Wham Shot: Kwan is told of an ancestor meeting a spiritual guide "from another time or reality." When she sees this in a vision, this guide is a Forerunner Monitor.
- Where It All Began: Invoked Trope. The climax involves returning to the same refinery of the first episode, with most, if not all, of the bodies and equipment still there, human and Covenant alike. Evidently, the Chief's rebellion derailed the usual cleanup operations that the UNSC normally engages in.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Said verbatim by Soren when he finds a huge chest of coins in the control room. Kwan just notes how "I told you I was rich."
