"The Walking Dead Season 2" Review

The first season of Telltale Games' episodic game series, "The Walking Dead," holds a special place in my heart. The tale of Lee and Clementine's journey across Georgia was a heartwarming, heartbreaking, and heartcrushing experience whose ending holds the spot for #1 most depressing ending in the gaming world. I have played it more times than I can count on my hands, but it still causes two or three lines of water to run down my face. So, when the trailer for the first episode of a second season came out about a year ago, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I had faith in Telltale's ability to tell a compelling story, but on the other one, I wondered if they could tell as compelling a story with Clementine as the protagonist instead of a supporting character. I mean, part of what made the first season so great was the presence of Clementine as somebody you cared for. The best part of season one was the fact that it was about taking care of her. So, when I heard that instead of keeping Clementine safe, I was going to be playing as Clementine, I was a little bit skeptical. But, while not as strong as the first season, Season 2 of "The Walking Dead" proves to be a potent, emotional experience. As you know, when you have something negative to say, it produces a lot more words than when you have positive things to say, so it is really going to look like I am slamming this season, but know that I do not feel as negatively about this season as it is going to appear. Let's get started.
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Clementine is back, and just as adorable as ever (1).

Now, it is Telltale's "The Walking Dead," so I'm going to talk about the most important aspect first: Clementine. The thing that absolutely blows my mind about this season is the way in which Telltale matures Clementine. The way that they write Clementine, and the way she is acted in this season, makes her seem like she is the same person, but matured. Season 2 starts off a little over a year after the events of the first season, so Clementine is now either 10 or 11. She isn't as little a kid as she was, and it shows. The way she speaks indicates that jump in age, and Melissa Hutchison (her voice actress) does a fantastic job of ever-so-slightly lowering her voice for this season. While I much prefer the cute, innocent Clementine of Season 1, I loved the fact that they made Clementine more of a fleshed out character in this season. Throughout the entirety of the season, we get insights into Clementine's character that we couldn't get if we were still wanting to pinch her cheeks. Another thing I appreciated about this season's approach to Clementine was the "multiple shades of the same color" character branching. What I mean by this is that Clementine would be pretty much the same kind of character no matter what choices you make, but the choices you make would determine which particular kind of that kind of character she would be. Does that make sense? Like, if Clementine is the color gray, then you get to decide whether she is a lighter shade or a darker shade. She will be gray either way, but she will be different within that color. Thats the only way I can think to put it. Clementine has always been a relatable character for me because of the volunteer work that I do. I live in a dormitory at my college campus that revolves around community service, and every week for the past two years I have gone and volunteered at my local children's shelter. Every week, I interact/play with/read to/help children who have escaped or have been rescued from abusive households (of all kinds, as I have had the misfortune of learning). As a result of this, the Clementine character has always struck a particularly strong note in my heart. I have known a few little girls who have seen things nearly as horrible as Clementine has seen, and I knew one particular girl who looked uncannily like her. While I do prefer the cuter, more innocent Clementine of season 1, I definitely related more to the Season 2 Clementine. Why? Because she acts and talks like real girls who have been through this kind of hell. She acts and talks like she is one of the kids I interact with every week. I simply cannot praise Telltale Games enough for the realistic way in which they crafted this more mature Clementine. But, I suppose that is enough ranting and personal anecdote for this review. Simply put, Clementine, as always, is the greatest gift that video gaming has ever given mankind. She still manages to be just about the cutest little thing ever, but she is a more hardened, more mature cutest little thing ever.
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Characters in this season, despite being well-fleshed out, aren't incredibly compelling (2).

Now, part of what made Season 1 such a huge success was the cast of characters. Each of them was strong and well-written, so they all came together to make the story more believable and more relatable. While character development is still at an all-time high in Season 2, I never quite felt attached to any of the characters, save for one who appears in the second episode. Do you understand what I'm saying? The characters were fantastic and well-developed. But despite that, I never even remotely felt attached to them. I never once was sad when any of them died. Seriously, the only characters I ever got attached to were ones introduced after the first episode. Deaths that should have been absolutely devastating were just...meh...and that is a problem. All of the characters introduced (save for one) in the first episode felt like filler characters, like characters who only exist to die so that major characters don't have to die...and given how these were the major characters, you can see where the conflict lies. There was one character in the first episode who I bonded with, but then he was dead by the end of the episode regardless of the choices I made, so until the better characters were brought in, all I was left with were the characters I didn't particularly care about. And that brings me to another qualm I have with this season: choices. A lot of people complained that the choices in the first season had no impact. But that simply isn't the case. In the first season, in the short run, the game could be entirely different based on the choices you made, and new conflicts could arise based on them. But in this season, it legitimately felt like nothing I ever did mattered. Characters would get mad at me and be over it a few lines of dialogue later. Now, I learned a few play throughs later that there are certain choices you can make that will get certain characters killed off quicker. But, here's the thing: the choices required to make these kinds of differences are vague, things you wouldn't think of. And when you do make those choices, not much changes at all. Characters and Choices were my biggest peeves with this season. Characters were strong, but uninteresting. And choices were numerous, but until the final episode (in which choices reeeeaally made a difference), they didn't mean a thing.
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Carver is the kind of villain that the Walking Dead has needed (3).

While we are on the subject of characters, I owe it to y'all to discuss the antagonists of this season. There are two of them. The first one, Carver, is going to earn a high place on the "best villains" list this year. Not only is he just a well fleshed-out character, he is also a crazy villain with no motivation who doesn't seem like a crazy villain with no motivation. The way he acts, you'd think Clementine and the group killed his puppy. If the Governor from the TV show were a strong villain, then this is what he would be like. The other antagonist, who I will not name, is not necessarily a villain. But regardless, I hated him with every fiber of my being, as he constantly shows up to get people killed. Throughout the time he is in the game, people are constantly trying to make life easier on him, but he is just a vile human being. Granted, he does have reason to be a vile human being, but some of the things he does in the season finale are jaw-droppingly vile. These characters along with Clementine and the characters brought in after episode 1 are what saved the Walking Dead Season 2 from flopping in terms of characters.
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Well...you'll read my thoughts on the story (4). 

Now, I've discussed characters, choices, and Clementine, which means I have covered almost everything. But there is still one thing left to discuss, and it is the second most important thing in Telltale's "The Walking Dead", the story. Unfortunately, I do have to point out a few negatives in this category. Yet another thing that contributed to the fact that the first season was such a triumph was the fact that every episode felt complete in and of itself. There may not have been a huge plot starting off, but every episode had its own story, and by the end of each episode, that story felt complete. That is not even remotely the case with Season 2. With Season 2, it is obvious that Telltale was going for a different approach, that they were trying to make it so that there was one overarching plot instead of several smaller ones leading up to a big one. It was an admirable effort, but it wasn't entirely successful for a number of reasons.
The first reason is that not every episode felt complete. Even if Telltale was trying to just have one plot, it is unavoidable that every episode would be viewed as its own section of that one plot. As such, the smart thing to do would have been to make every episode cover a section of the plot that made sense. They could still have left every episode on a cliffhanger, but if they had done this, then every episode would have felt full. The entire time I was playing, I got this overwhelming sense that every episode I was playing was just there so we could get to the end. I felt like every twist and turn was just there so we could get to the ending in a certain way. In Season 1, like in this season, we were headed towards the ending from the very beginning (because the guy who came up with this particular story had the ending figured out before anything else), but it didn't feel like it. That is one of my major qualms with the storytelling in Season 2. It feels like they had the ending figured out first, and while there isn't anything wrong with a story being conceived that way (I do it all the time), the key to good storytelling is to make every second feel like it counts. The key is to make the ending just that: the ending. The ending will oftentimes be the best part, but the key is to keep the rest of the story from feeling like a shadow. Hopefully that wasn't too dense, or too confusing. I just really, really have a hard time not noticing these types of things, being a creative writer myself.
The second reason is that there really didn't seem to be much change within the story. Without spoiling anything, here is a breakdown of season 1: Episode 1: cop car, suburban neighborhood, farm, drugstore, motor inn. Episode 2: Georgia countryside, motor inn, dairy, enemy camp, meat locker, another bit of countryside. Episode 3: drugstore, motor inn, R.V., side of the road, R.V., train, train station. Episode 4: Savannah streets, mansion, riverfront, sewers, morgue, survivor community, mansion. Episode 5: morgue, rooftops, mansion, another mansion, different rooftops, river street, hotel, storefront, countryside. Without spoiling anything, here is a breakdown of season 2: Episode 1: pine forest and log cabin. Episode 2: pine forest and ski lodge (log cabin). Episode 3: enemy camp. Episode 4: Civil war site, trailer park, freezing countryside. And I won't say anything about Episode 5's breakdown, because that would actually spoil some things. But hopefully you can see my point. In season 1, there was tons of variety in every episode, whereas in season 2 every episode has roughly the same scenery and locations. There weren't any huge shocks in the story, so what we have is a story that pretty much just exists, and this existing story takes place in roughly the same area for all but its final chapter. It is a story that doesn't really change at all until the end.
The third and final reason is that the story itself just wasn't very good. Now, the finale is the exception, but I will dig deeper into that in a moment. As I mentioned at the end of the second reason, there aren't very many shocks, not a lot of unpredictable things happen. Normally, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Stories don't need twists and turns to be good. But if your story is basically, "they walked here, they walked there, they met this person, this person died, they walked here," then a twist or two couldn't hurt. If there is no breaking of trust, no true, changing conflict between characters no matter what circumstances arise, then what is the point? Story is conflict. Period. And the characters in this season exist in a perpetual state of "between conflicted and harmonious," which would be a good thing if it meant there was tension. Characters would occasionally argue, but it never quite felt organic. It just felt like the writers said, "we'll put an argument here." Basically, what I'm trying to say is this: as much as it pains me to say it, until the finale, the story for Season 2 was just plain flat and uninteresting. Not even fleshed-out (though not entirely compelling) characters, returns of some characters, fantastic voice acting, fantastic art, fantastic gameplay, and a more relatable Clementine could save this season's story from its own mediocrity. Now, having heard me say that, I bet you're wondering why I would bother to give you a disclaimer about not feeling as negative as I sound at the beginning of this review. Well, let me tell you why. All those fantastic aspects of this game couldn't save the story from mediocrity, but in the end, there is one thing that did end up saving it.
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The finale is truly a masterpiece (5). 

Episode 5: No Going Back, the Season Finale. This is what saves the season, this is what rescues its mediocre story from really getting verbally crucified, this is what makes the formerly non compelling characters into something more, this is what makes the art even more beautiful, this is what makes the voice acting even more masterful, this is what makes even Clementine better than she already is. Episode 5: No Going Back is the defining episode of this season, and it washes this season of nearly every sin it has racked up. I'm going to need a few paragraphs, so I'll break it down by aspect.
Art: The art style in Episode 5 is the same style, but it is handled in such a way that I could feel this huge weight on my shoulders like depression, like the cold that the group was experiencing. There was just this overwhelming sense of sadness and the bleakness of life, and in the one happy segment in this episode, the art made the happiness truly feel like an island in the middle of this ocean of sorrow...it's just something you're going to have to experience yourself, there is just no way for me to describe it in a way that doesn't sound totally fruity.
Voice Acting: Melissa Hutchison is going to win best voice actress on my list this year. I've already decided it. I was simply in awe of her performance as Clementine in this episode. Don't get me wrong, Hutchison has always done a splendid job as Clementine. But never before has an episode of The Walking Dead been more demanding, and Hutchison delivered to all of this episode's demands plus a little extra. But this episode wasn't just demanding for Clementine's voice acting, it was demanding for the voice acting of every surviving character. And literally every character meets these demands. I am insanely proud of the cast of this episode.
Characters: There are only a handful of characters left in this episode, and they all reach new heights. For once, the characters were both compelling and fleshed-out, and some characters take twists that I never saw coming, but these twists didn't seem out of character. They looked like exactly what these characters might do in this situation, but I didn't realize it until it happened. That right there is how you do characters well. You think you know them, and then they show a side of what you already know that you never quite thought about.
Clementine: All throughout this season, we see Clementine faced with decisions harder than she's ever had to make (they never had any effect, whatsoever, but that is beside the point). But in this episode, Clementine is faced with the kinds of decisions that would unquestionably break a lesser mind. But because of the world she is forced to live in, Clementine has no choice but to make these decisions without breaking (she is freaking eleven years old, for crying out loud!), and I for one could see the scars forming. In this episode, we see Clementine faced with the kinds of responsibility that even some adults are afraid of. In this episode, we see Clementine forced to choose what really matters in this completely twisted, dark world. In this episode, we see just how alone Clementine actually is. She is a giant among people, an adult among children, a force of good in a world that doesn't know its meaning anymore. This is the episode where we see this clearly communicated, where we see Clementine just wanting to be a kid again, where we see her just want to be happy for once, where we see her realize that she may never achieve these goals. This is the episode where we see Clementine finally figure out what she wants within the confines of this world. And it is fantastic.
Story: Like I said, the story for this particular episode makes up for the flatness of the other episodes' stories. So much happens within its two hour time frame, and most of the events of the episode made me shiver with fear for little Clementine. The story for the finale does what every other episode should have done. 1) It has variety, 2) It was heartbreaking and occasionally heartwarming as well. I actually did cry at a point 3/4 through the episode, 3) The choices made all the difference in the world, and the end could be entirely different depending on the choices you made, and 4) It felt complete, not just as an episode, but as an end to the season. I walked away from this finale entirely satisfied, though I wished I had made some different choices. A few hours after finishing, I still couldn't get it out of my mind. I loved this finale that much. And that is really what making a good ending is all about: it sits in the consumer's stomach for a long time, making them lose sleep regardless of whether it is sad, happy, or bittersweet.
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Despite my gripes, the second season isn't all that bad (5). 

You have heard me wail on this season, and you have heard me praise it. So, what do I think of Telltale's, "The Walking Dead: Season 2?" In the end, despite all of my many gripes about the journey, the destination was so masterful, so expertly designed, written, and delivered, that I can't help but admit that this season accomplished what it set out to do. It wanted to tell a compelling story, and in the end, it did. It wanted to give us well developed characters, and despite some qualms on that issue, it did. It wanted to tug on our heartstrings, and in the end, it really, really did. It wanted to make us care about Clementine, and, hell, did it even need to try? It didn't need to try, but it did, and as a result, I still care about Clementine more than I have ever cared about any video game character in my entire time as a gamer. In the end, Telltale Games' episodic game series, "The Walking Dead Season 2," accomplished everything it set out to do, but with a few experience-hindering bumps along the way. The finale was an absolute masterpiece, so much so that I am willing to forgive the lesser nature of the prior four episodes. The Walking Dead Season 2 can safely take a place on the shelf for my favorite video game experiences, rough bits and all.
9/10
As always, absolutely fantastic work, Telltale Games, absolutely fantastic work.

Picture Sources:
Cover: www.kitguru.net
(1): www.newenglandgamer.com
(2): www.videogamesblogger.com
(3): www.savecontinue.com
(4): www.operationalrainfall.com
(5): www.pcgamer.com