Every time I want to talk about what I love about the Halo show, I keep hearing the ghosts of bad faith take and want to point out how they're wrong.
An apparition of bad.
Maybe I'll break up the topics of it.
"The changes in the Halo show and how I liked and dislike them and the differences in philosophy of Season 1 and 2"
Hint: I prefer Season 2's changes.
In the very first episode in the show. Chief takes off his helmet. Now if you've asked the common Halo fan, they'll say the show did a cardinal sin of showing his face. That if they had to it should be done in an important way that makes sense.
But here's the thing, the show did that.
In the show Chief is currently transporting a girl whose family and ""town"" got killed by a Covenant force; she's the only one left. But her little family were also Insurrectionist. So they try and fail to convince her to record a little propaganda piece.
Chief and his team also killed her mom and others in an peace treaty operation (he was informed they had a bomb or weapons).
During Chief and the kid's (Kwan Ha) discussion Chief gets a HUD update to eliminate her (she demanded independance her native planet like her group wanted, the UNSC didn't agree). Chief double checks to see if Kwan Ha is her name; upon confirmation he immediately goes to work to cut out the feed and gain control of the ship.
The UNSC and ONI (military and CIA counterparts) of course don't like that. And try to remotely kill the oxygen enough to keep Chief alive but kill the girl. Chief fixes that problem, and while he's still working to gain manual control Kwan Ha gets a gun and points it at Chief.
Chief just looks at her and explains that with all the armour he has on, that bullet won't do jack shit. The girl is obviously scared shitless the whole time. She's putting on a brave face but still doesn't trust Chief.
SO what does he do. He takes off his helmet-music swelling and all- and says, "If you want me dead, you'll need to aim up here."
Long winded summary done and you'd think "yea that's a moment that's important. He's trying to gain her trust because he wants to help her. He is putting himself in a vulnerable position."
Yea no.
People were pissed. Granted whose to say who watched it and who just saw a twitter post going, "HIS HELMET IS OFF EW!!!" I'd imagine a lot is the latter. People don't actually watch things; they read the wiki and social media posts.
Now if you'd ask what important moment that it'd be appropriate to show Chief's face, it's usually some variant of, "I want his helmet cracked and to see his eye while he's all pissed and macho and ready to fucking murder whoever hit him that hard."
"You know? Something Badass."
Something macho. A big man action that's cool and epic and awesome. Then they'll post a 2 minute trailer and go "This has better writing than the show." And the trailer is just an action set piece. It's always an action set piece.
And don't ask them about what to do when Chief is on the base. They'd probably just say he should still be in his armour even when off duty, and misinterpret a line from a book they didn't read. Or to just keep his face hidden.
there is an argument to be made about how the show kept removing his helmet post Episode 1 for less important reasons. But that's a different conversation. And the sheer reaction from Episode 1 means it was not because of the later episodes choices.