Before their collapse, Telltale was able to launch the second episode of “The Walking Dead: The Final Season”
Episode 2: Suffer the Children begins where the first episode leaves off. AJ had just shot Marlon after he revealed that he had been giving members of the community to another group for protection. Despite Marlon’s actions the rest of the kids at the school fear AJ for his actions. In the end they decide to exile Clementine and AJ. Shortly after being brought beyond the safe zone, AJ and Clem run are attacked by members of the group Marlon was giving people to. One of the people of this group winds up being Lily, a character from the first season of the game. In their escape AJ ends up being shot. Clem returns to the school, seeking aid for AJ and warning them of an impending raid. That point marks the end of the first act of the episode. It’s a good start that sets up the action for the rest for the episode. Where things fall apart is in the second act. In this act Clem teams up with a few other kids from the school to get barbed wire from the greenhouse. The greenhouse had been overrun previously by walkers, so this would not be as simple a task as it sounds. The problem with this arc is that it is a simplistic approach to show how Clem mends fences after Marlon’s death. One of the people going with Clem to the greenhouse was Mitch. He was one of the kids who hated Clem the most. It gets the job done, but is superficial and could have used more time. The act ends right before a two week time skip and only last around a half an hour. The skip is used as a way to avoid the healing process between the group and Clem. It might have been better to skip this 30 minutes of content and just go straight to the time skip. The second act just slows things down with non-crucial info. It almost seemed as a way to kill time. This chunk could also have been improved by including Louis. Throughout the first half of the episode, Louis seems to be unable to decide how he feels about AJ or Clem. He will go from being kind to hating them all in the same sentence. Maybe giving him more screen time, instead of relegating him as a side character this episode would have been able this out instead of leaving it looking like bad writing. The end of the episode with the siege of the school is the standout of the episode. It fuels the further conflict between the group of raider and the kids and the action is pretty good. The episode ends with a few of the students being kidnapped, setting up the next episode. Episode 2 is the typical middle episode for one of these games. It acts as more of a transition point for a broader narrative. It is enjoyable enough and has its issues, but does its job. Now it is up to Skybound to take this game past the finish line. Score: 7/10
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AuthorI am A.J. Goelz. I'm a gamer first and a writer second. I hope you enjoy the content on this page and check out the rest of my content on YouTube. Archives
April 2019
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