@reticulate: My guess is that they expected most people to "get it" and choose to sacrifice Chloe since that's what the game was pointing to all season long, but they still wanted to make the player choose to do so.
Obviously, this meant they had to shoehorn in that Arcadia Bay in order to make a "final decision" and, since it makes little sense to pick that (narratively speaking), they didn't put much effort into it.
Also, I think Austin is standing on some pretty weak points by saying "this is what Max would do," because, like Vinny said, she's already sacrificed one person for another (William for Chloe) and clearly feels some guilt about using her powers to make everything work for her (talking to herself in the diner) so Max is definitely of the mindset that the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few.
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