First off, I want to commend Telltale and the team there to come up with such an engrossing game series within a pre-established IP. This might be more to its detriment due to working within the limits of established canon, but regardless, the game stands on its own as a quality piece of work that is a great example of good storytelling within the video game medium.
However, I have noticed throughout the series, each later episode does more to characters that irritates me. For example, so many characters have been introduced only to have them leave. Glenn and Lilly are major examples of this. I know they're from the comics, but to me it seems like a wasted opportunity if you aren't going to use more comic or show characters in an ideal way, other than fan service, then it should have just been its own IP about zombies so they can do whatever the hell they wanted with it.
Glenn, Lilly, Molly, the doctor, it just seems like everyone you meet in that game leaves you without you have any real choice in the matter to get them to stay. I know you can save Ben's life or let him die, but you should have had some sort of similar way to keep the other characters around without going back to illusions of choice much like the Doug and Carley situation played out.
The narrative of it just seems sloppy. Everyone you meet has to leave to do something else, even when you have a decent group and lucked out on some good locations (motel, RV, the house). It just irks me that I really like some of these characters but they have basically no hope to stay at your side because the game says they have to go off for some reason (then probably come back to save your life later or do nothing at all).
Another flaw I had was the issue with leaving Clementine at the house with you when you and Kenny come out to search for the boats. How did she show up? You ask but it's never explained, and it's just really a little cliche to have Clementine show up there, somehow finding and following them, staying safe the whole time, when she is usually caught in danger when she's left alone.
Great episode with some awesome choices, but I'm getting a little tired of being introduced to characters that come and go within an episode. I know we kept on to Omid and Christa, but that's by the game's design. I want choices we make and dialogue we choose to exactly influence whether or not we want people like Glenn, Lilly, and Molly to stay. Ben is the one exemption to this, because you could very well have him die as far as I've seen, but there needs to be more emphasis on our choices when it comes to characters.
Oh yeah, and Lee getting bit how he did, I'm unsure how I feel about it. Seems like another case of illusion of choice because I investigated the board before the radio, it seemed too suspicious. But yet, he still ends up bit.
I just hope he wises up and tries to cut off the arm over accepting an inevitable death. Season 2 won't be the same without him, and I don't just mean that out of a likeness for good things to happen. The actor who plays him is superb and his character relationship with Clementine is a huge reason why I play the game.
The chart at the end of the episode showing who was going to look for Clementine with you is hopeful, but I am willing to bet it's not reflecting on what actually happens to those characters. If so, then that would be amazing and I suspend a lot of my complaints.
Episode 2 in my opinion was the highest high of this series all things considered, with episode 3 being fairly low in comparison. Episode 4 is great and in a lot of ways my favorite to date, but I hope that our choices we make actually do more than they seem to lead us to believe for the finale, and hopefully some loose-ends are tightened up regarding to characters going "hey I'll help, wait, seeya, I gotta go!"
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