TWDS205 Review

Welcome back to my review of The Walking Dead: Season 2. Well, here we are, the final episode of the season. Ever since I started this series I've dreaded over talking about this episode because of how long it could potentially take for me to make this video. I'm jumping the gun a bit here but The Walking Dead Season 2 has multiple endings, and for all intents and purposes, the multiple endings are what I'm going to be talking about for most of the video. There are other things wrong with this episode, but I won't be talking about them for anywhere near as long as the multiple endings. And by the way, I'm not going to spend any time trying to argue who was right or wrong or anything like that. This video is about the episode, it's endings and how massively fucked up they are in every aspect I can think of. I'll try to be as neutral as possible, but forgive me if I sound like I favor one character over another, given how this episode is written and the nature of the endings and the ending choice, sounding biased is pretty much unavoidable.

In the last episode the group used a walker herd to escape from a compound where they were being held prisoner, but not without Sarita as a casualty. As Kenny griefs the rest of the group is worried about Rebecca having to give birth to the baby soon and the others. Clem and Jane recover Luke and potentially Sarah, and after talking with Clementine, Kenny rejoins the group and tells them what they need for the baby birth. The group secures what's needed and the baby is born. Oh, and Sarah dies if you saved her earlier, but who cares about that? The group heads for a nearby town but are stopped by a guy Clementine met earlier, and he has his group ambush and try to rob Clem's group. The two groups go into a standoff and Rebecca is too exhausted from child birth, so she dies and becomes a zombie that needs to be shot and this causes the Russians to start shooting at Clem's group.

So after an episode ends like that, how can the season possibly continue? Easy, by not having anyone in Clementine's group die from the standoff. Okay, I have to calm down, this is the plot summery, I'll save my criticisms for later. In the shootout, Luke gets shot in leg and Mike in the arm, and the Russians die except for Arvo and one other who's suddenly killed, and it turns out to be Jane who literally backstabbed him. The group takes a moment to mourn Rebecca and Kenny wants to kill Arvo for what he did, but for some inexplicable reason the rest of the group doesn't want him killed. Arvo tries to save his own hide by telling them that he has a place they can stay which has food, Kenny wants to just kill him but the group decides to check the place that Arvo's talking about out instead. So wait, what about that town that you guys were headed to in the last episode? You're just going to forget about that now? Arvo gets tied up and he leads them to wherever this place is. Seriously, you're just going to forget about that town you were headed to? I mean, really?

The group takes a break along the way during which time Kenny decides to name the baby Alvin Jr. or AJ, and by nightfall they come across this fenced structure which is not the place Arvo is talking about, but the group decides to spend the night here. A part where the group actually sits down and relaxes for once? This is kinda nice. The next day the group reaches the place Arvo was talking about, and it's a half-built shack. They don't want to walk across the ice but Arvo insists it's safe, so of course they trust him and walk across the ice. Walkers start to follow behind and then Arvo makes a run for it, then Luke falls into the ice and Clementine can try to save him but he dies underwater anyway. Kenny's even more pissed off at Arvo now and starts to beat the shit out him which of course causes him to catch shit from the rest of the group. At nighttime Kenny tries getting a truck working and despite people's doubts, he actually does manage to get it working. But the group doesn't agree with what he wants to do which leads to another argument and when Clementine goes back to sleep she's woken up and finds Mike, Bonnie and Arvo attempting to leave by stealing the truck and all of their supplies. [Clementine gets shot] You fucking piece of shit. Oh how I wish I could kill this motherfucker. Ooohhhh! Okay, I must calm myself. After Clementine gets shot we get a flashback scene of her with Lee. They have a bit of a conversation about Duck and Lilly, then she goes back to sleep and we cut back to current events. Clementine wakes up in the back of the truck with Kenny driving it. Jane wants to discuss a plan of what to do but her plan is to go back to Howe's, Carver's place, and Kenny wants to go to Wellington. Of course they argue about this but Jane takes it further and starts antagonizing Kenny about his family and Sarita and Clementine. The truck almost crashes and Kenny asks Jane and Clem to stay in the truck while he goes to get more fuel. He also tells them where they should meet up in case something goes wrong. Jane on the other hand wants to abandon Kenny and tells Clementine to drive away instead. Jesus Christ, anyway zombies approach the car and Clementine does drive away causing the truck to crash, and while Jane leaves the truck on her own, Clementine has to help herself out and walks through the blizzard alone. Eventually she finds the reststop Kenny talked about, and finds him there. Jane then shows up and doesn't have AJ with her. She tells Clementine not to interfere with what happens next, then Kenny starts to attack Jane thinking she killed AJ. During the fight Clementine is given an option to shoot Kenny, and for the first time in this season, what you do here radically changes what happens next.

If you shoot Kenny then he's fatally wounded and he and Clementine have a little moment before he dies, but then we hear a baby crying in the distance, and it turns out to be AJ, found alive and well inside of a broken car. It turns out Jane lied about the baby being dead, and the whole fight was a situation fabricated by her to "prove" to Clementine that Kenny was dangerous and that she was better off with her. Clementine is understandably angry with Jane over this since Kenny essentially died for no reason, but Clementine can choose to forgive Jane which leads to them going back to Howe's and finding the place somehow not overrun with zombies and after checking out the place, Clem spots some people approaching and they ask her to let them stay with her and Jane. Clementine can choose to let them in which leads to the woman thanking you and then we see that the guy actually has a gun in his back pocket, then the kid comments on Clementine's hat and then the episode ends. If you turn the family away then it results in one of the most corny and stupidest moments in the entire game and then the game just ends.

If you don't shoot Kenny then you can, ugh, kill him anyway for no fucking reason. Or if you don't then AJ is heard crying in the distance, and Clementine soon finds him in the car. If Kenny's alive then Clementine questions why Jane would lie about AJ being dead, with Kenny basically saying that she was crazy and that if she didn't want a fight then she could've stopped it at anytime by saying he was alive. After they leave we jump ahead to nine days later and Kenny and Clementine have a fun little race up a hill and then they see a giant metal wall with smoke coming from the other side of it. They make a run for it, but are stopped by a gunshot and a woman telling them to drop their weapons. Of course it turns out to be Wellington but they're greeted with bad news as they are currently overpopulated, Clementine and Kenny can't stay there but she gives each of them a bag of supplies and tries to send them on their way, but then Kenny starts to plead for them to just take the kids. The woman tells them that they can take the kids and we're given a choice to either stay at Wellington, or leave with Kenny. If you stay at Wellington then Kenny gives a sentimental goodbye and gives Clementine his hat for AJ to wear when he grows up, and Clementine watches Kenny walk away into the horizon as the Wellington gates close. If you choose to stay with Kenny then he pleads for you to stay inside Wellington but Clementine insists she stay with him instead and he lets her for some reason, and the woman mentions that in three months time, there could be more room for people to stay and that they could all come back and stay together. The game then ends with Clementine and Kenny walking away happily together into the horizon. But wait, there's one more ending you can get, Clementine can end up alone with AJ by her side and after coming across a herd of walkers, she cuts open a nearby walker corpse and rubs herself and AJ with walker guts to try to walk through the herd and then the game just ends. This is the ending you get if you saved Jane but choose not to forgive her, let Kenny live but then tell him he's too dangerous and choose to leave him or, ugh, let Kenny kill Jane then kill him for no fucking reason.

Jesus Christ. Okay, let's not get too ahead of ourselves here, let's take things slow and let's take things in order. Before I critique the story, I want to talk about the gameplay first because there's almost nothing to discuss. Okay so episode 3 had the least amount of gameplay in the season so far and was considered to be the best, and episode 4 had the most gameplay since episode 1 and was considered to be the worst. So what did they do for episode 5? Go back to the way things were in episode 3, once again it feels like I'm watching a movie most of the time rather than playing a game. There's very few action sequences and barely any hubs with next to nothing to do in them. This episode's "plot" is bad enough but the fact that I'm barely doing anything more than just making dialogue choices only makes matters worse.

Okay, the "gameplay" is out of the way, let's talk about this horribly contrived mess of a plot. Right off the bat we have a serious problem as nobody in Clementine's group dies in the shootout, despite the fact that everyone was in a position to get shot. Instead they all simply teleport behind cover, and the only injuries anyone suffers is Mike who gets shot in the arm, but acts like he got shot with a paintball or BB gun, and Luke who gets shot in the leg, and it's actually treated like an actual injury. How stupid do the writers think we are? I'm really supposed to believe that noone in Clem's got killed or fatally wounded in this standoff? Really? Just how? How is this even possible? It's not, the entire group survives because the writers didn't how they could continue the story without the other characters. What was even the point of ending the last episode the way it did? One of the biggest topics of episode 4 among fans was, who was going to come out of the shootout alive? Well I doubt anyone guessed correctly because everyone came out of it alive. The worst part of this is with Luke and Kenny, Luke doesn't even have his weapon drawn on anybody, and neither does Kenny if he shot Rebecca, making them the most obvious victims out of everyone in Clementine's group. I honestly would've felt better about Kenny being determinant in this scene rather than at the end of the game, but that's another topic for later.

Jane's return is completely forced and makes no sense whatsoever. Regardless of if you chose in the previous episode to leave the next morning, or wait a few days, Jane comes back despite the fact that there's way in hell Jane would still be close enough to where the gunshots are, to hear them and get there fast enough to help stop the fight, and it makes even less sense if you waited a few days, because she'd be even further away than that. And her help wasn't even all that needed, by the time she shows up all the Russians were pretty much dead already anyway. I'm not sure how five people were not able to out flank just one guy.

After the group mourns Rebecca, Kenny is understandably angry with Arvo and wants to kill him because of what he did, and this is the part where the whole episode basically becomes "Kenny going crazy! Arvo's a good boy, he dindu nuffin wrong." People say episode 4 was all about Kenny, no, episode 5 is all about Kenny, specifically trying to get you to hate him for the purpose of making you side against him in the final choice. We'll get to that later but for now, let's talk about how stupid of an idiot plot this is, with the entire group going against Kenny, and defending the guy who literally just tried to rob and then kill them all. Even Jane who's all about leaving the weak behind and survival of the fittest is defending Arvo from Kenny. What the fuck. I don't understand why everyone is not only not angry with Arvo, but also willing to trust him about this place he says he has when, as I already said and will probably say again many times throughout this video, he just tried to have his group rob them and almost got them all killed. Not only that, but they were also on their way to a nearby town in the previous episode, but as soon as Arvo mentions that he has a place nearby that supposedly has food, everybody completely forgets about it and decides to follow Arvo to this place as if going to the town was never the original plan.

The scene around the campfire is nice. Season 2 never really had any moments where the characters sat down and actually relaxed and just talked until now. We even learn somethings about Luke finally, apparently he's been keeping track of the days and we learn that it's his birthday and what he majored in in college. But that this point it feels like they only included this because fans complained about a lack of character development and moments like this. Especially since Luke dies like 10 minutes later. The hub here as barely anything to do in it, but you're given a task here, namely trying to convince Kenny and Jane to join the group by the fire. Of course Jane rejoins no matter what you say to her, so it's really about trying to get Kenny to rejoin. I like how there's a determinant scene if you don't get him to rejoin however. Bonnie has a bottle of wine that she snuck out of Carver's that she shares for Luke's birthday, and it's what you try to use to get Kenny and Jane to rejoin, but after you talk to both of them, Mike wants to offer some of it to Arvo who starts yelling at Mike to leave him alone, and if Kenny didn't rejoin, he knocks Arvo the fuck out to shut him up. I know I should probably have Kenny rejoin since he's holding the baby and the baby needs warmth more than anyone, but considering what Arvo has done, and will do later, it's cathartic watching Arvo get his lights punch out. Not to mention that his screaming will attract walkers if they're any nearby so Kenny's basically doing the group a favor by shutting him up. Though it doesn't make much sense how quickly he punches him since he's holding the baby and he's behind the construct that's further away. How the hell did he get up, hand the baby to someone and get to Arvo that fast? The baby basically teleports into someone else's arms while Kenny teleports to Arvo. There's also something else that I dislike about this part of the game, but I'll save that for later.

The way Luke dies is really stupid. Actually before I talk about that, I'd like to point something first. When walking across ice, it's a bad idea for a group to walk single file. They should always spread out to avoid causing too much weight in one area. But of course the group walks single file across the ice, and even though there's an option to tell them to spread out, and it even gives a "they will remember that" response, they still don't spread out and walk across the ice single file and when the ice starts to break underneath Luke, he doesn't try to move away from it right away, he just keeps standing there. Yeah that's right Luke just keep standing there while the ice continues to break, you dumb motherfucker. Bonnie can die here too actually, if you choose not to help Luke yourself and don't break the ice to get her out, she'll drown with him, which I think is preferable to what happens if you save her. I'll get to that in a minute. Clementine falling into ice water and staying submerged in it for a prolonged period of time is scary, but considering she's the protagonist and we're not at the end of the episode when it happens, it just comes across as a shock value thing. It also really shows how plot armored she is because really, an 11 year old girl surviving this? And then she's not even dried off properly. Even if she was properly dried off there's no way she could get warm in the half-built house they were staying in, it's far too exposed to the cold and the wind for her to actually get warm.

After Clementine tries to help Kenny get the truck started she can talk to Bonnie before she goes inside, you know, if Bonnie is still alive. If you tried to save Luke yourself then Bonnie is nicer to Clem and even offers her a smoke of her cigarette, but again, saving that for later. If you didn't try to save Luke and rescued Bonnie then she very mean and hostile towards Clem, blaming her for Luke's death and being completely ungrateful that Clementine saved her life. But even when she's nice to Clem, she talks about how because she's a little girl, nobody ever expects her to do anything for them. Umm, hello?! Have you been paying attention at all Bonnie?! Clementine is the one who's been doing almost everything this entire season! We just not too long ago had a situation where you yourself asked Clementine to risk her life to save Luke. With all of this in mind, in addition to what she does later, I think it's safe to say, fuck Bonnie. I don't hate her exactly, but I sure as hell don't like her. Going along with how oblivious Bonnie is to what she's saying, Jane does the same thing by warning Clementine about Kenny, talking about how he's just like Carver. I mean, really Jane? You're the one who said we should abandon Sarah, didn't want Rebecca to give birth to the baby, tried to convince Clementine to leave the group and even left your own sister to die. You're the one who's like Carver here. I understand that just because a character or characters are unaware of what they're saying, that it doesn't mean that the writers are unaware of it, but when you're unable to call them out on it, it sure as hell feels that way. Sure you can disagree with Jane about Kenny being like Carver, but you can't specifically point out to her that she's the one who's like Carver, given how she shares Carver's Darwinist mentality. I should mention real quick that Bonnie and Kenny both mention things you did in episode 2 when you talk to them here, but again, it feels like they only included this in response to fans complaining about how your choices don't matter.

The part where Arvo, Mike and Bonnie if she's alive rob the group is probably one of the most angering scenes in the game, and for good reason. Mike wants to earn acceptance in the group but decides to defenestrate that by betraying Clementine to help the piece of shit that tried to rob and kill them earlier. And Bonnie decides to ruin her chance at redemption for the same reason, making this the second time she's lied to and betrayed Clementine. How can they possibly have any moral high ground in doing this? If all they wanted to do was get Arvo away from Kenny, then why didn't they ask Jane and Clementine to come with them? The fact that they're willing to essentially kill a baby and a child by leaving them with no supplies completely contracts the supposedly good intentions of wanting to get Arvo away from Kenny. Originally the option to ask Mike to leave, which is a bullshit choice 'cause the same thing happens no matter what, was an option of whether or not to shoot Mike instead. It was actually left in the Playstation 3 version of the game on accident, but Telltale quickly patched it out the next day. It's possible to restore the option and it's related scenes in the PC version by modding it. I have to wonder why they decided to take this out because... Well I'll get to that later.

Okay, now I think it's time I talk about this fucking piece of shit right here. I didn't bother talking about Arvo in the last video because really, there was nothing to talk about. He shows up, tries to hide his medicine, we're given and option to rob him, and then we never see him again until the ass end of the episode where he has his group try to rob you regardless of your choice. Based on that alone I think it's safe to say that Arvo's a piece of shit, but this episode cements it because he continues to be a piece of shit, and an irredeemable one as well. He hates Clementine for killing his sister but he doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that she was a zombie. How the fuck did this guy survive two years into the apocalypse, and still doesn't know that people come back to life as zombies unless you destroy the brain? Not only that, but how can he not tell that she become a zombie just by looking at her? The only way him being angry at Clem for this makes sense is that it didn't matter to him whether or not if she was a zombie, but there's no indication of this because Arvo barely speaks and almost all interaction with Arvo is between him and Kenny. And besides, everybody else understands that once somebody becomes a zombie, it's best to just kill them because they're already dead anyway, so why doesn't Arvo? It seems like they just wanted a reason for Arvo to hate Clementine so him shooting her makes sense, but it turns out to be completely unneeded because the circumstances in which she gets shot has nothing to do with Arvo's dead sister. Some people might say that he didn't mean to shoot her, like he was nervous so he shot her on accident, but I don't see how this can be possible because, if you call for help then of course Arvo going to shoot, he's trying to silence her to avoid getting caught, which happens anyway because the gunshot is louder than Clementine calling for help, but that's another issue entirely. And if you comply with Mike and hand over your gun, there's nothing for Arvo to be nervous about so how can he shoot her accidentally? Some people might say this action might be justified depending on how Clementine treated Arvo and whether or not she chose to rob him, but here's the thing: In a game where most of what a character does is dependent on what the player does, the best way to judge what kind of character they are, is to go by what they always do regardless of player choice. Seeing as how even if you don't steal his medicine, defend him from Kenny at every opportunity, and comply with Mike, he still shoots Clementine anyway, player choice has nothing to do with what he does. So, because he always does the things he does no matter what, Arvo is irrefutably a piece of shit with no remediable qualities. I don't understand why the group is not even angry with this guy for what he does or why I'm supposed to agree with them about Kenny's treatment of him. Apparently it's because he "lost everything" that I'm supposed to feel sorry for him, but that's entirely his own fault. If he didn't have his group come after Clementine's group in the first place, nothing bad that happens to him would've ever happened to begin with. I'm sure everybody defending Arvo is all part of Telltale's contrived writing of the group going against Kenny for the sake of trying to get the player to be against him as well. But if Arvo was actually a serious attempt at making a sympathetic villain, I don't see it. And it also doesn't help that Arvo gets away with shooting Clementine.

Okay, wow, that was probably the longest rant I've gone on so far. And I'm pretty sure I'll be going on a longer one before this is over. Anyway, let's talk about the Lee dream sequence for a bit. Honestly I expected something like this to happen in this episode because what better time to have a Lee flashback? I also expected Clementine to get shot, but at the beginning of the episode not now. But hey, what better way to transition to a Lee scene than by having Clementine get shot for shock value then have her pass out? Ahem, sorry. The Lee scene was emotional for me, but not as much as I thought it'd be, I didn't cry during it like I expected to. I guess you could say it acts as a foreshadowing of what's coming next, with Clementine talking about how she doesn't want to hurt anyone. But I didn't really feel that way after playing the episode and I'm still not entirely convinced of it now. I gotta say it feels weird having Lee be a character you interact with rather than play as, but I'm happy to say that none of the dialogue choices here feel out of character for Clementine, it manages to take place during season 1 without contracting anything from it. Though you can tell from listening to Clementine's voice here that Melissa Hutchison, Clementine's voice actress, can't do the season 1 Clem voice as well as she used to. She kind of sounds like season 2 Clem if you listen carefully, and I'm sure that's because she got so used to doing season 2 Clem's voice. It's a fanservice scene, but I don't think the game suffers from it. It's still an emotional scene for me nowadays, but not as much as before, more than anything it just makes me wish I was playing season 1 instead.

And yeah, Clementine getting shot was just for shock value and to give us a Lee flashback, so we can jump ahead what's coming up next. Just to show, once again, how much plot armor Clementine has, the fact that she got shot means absolutely nothing. After Clementine wakes up from getting shot, it's almost completely forgotten about. Kenny and Jane mention it as soon as she wakes up, and Jane mentions that they couldn't find the bullet so it must've gone straight through, but after that, there's absolutely no mention of it again. Hey say what you want about The Walking Dead TV show, at least when Carl got shot, with the way it was treated and the way the other characters acted, it felt like his life was in danger. It doesn't feel that way at all when Clementine gets shot, she wakes up from it, and it's like nothing happened, she doesn't even appear to be physically impaired from getting shot.

There are so many things wrong with everything happens from this point on, I'm not only not sure where to begin, I'm not even sure if I can cover everything that's wrong with everything that happens next. I'll certainly try to, but forgive me if there's anything I overlook or forget to mention, this is an absolute clusterfuck of bad decisions made by the developers. First of all, why did Jane suddenly start making such unwarranted attacks on Kenny and his family? Where did all of this hatred for Kenny come from all of the sudden? There's no build up or foreshadowing to it, she didn't show this much hatred for him earlier, this doesn't make any sense. I know she's just riling him up for later, but still, this abrupt hatred for Kenny comes so out of nowhere it's out of character for her. Not to mention that antagonizing and distracting someone who's driving is a really stupid thing to do. I mean look, they almost crash because of this shit. I'll admit that Clementine walking through the blizzard on her own made me anxious, I was a bit worried about what was going to happen next, but oh boy was I not expecting what happened next. God, where do I even begin with this shit?

I don't know if Telltale meant for the player to know or figure out that Jane fabricated the situation, but Jane telling Clementine not to interfere is a subtle hint that she's up to something. Of course this plan is retarded for a number of different reasons and there are so many conflicting things about all of this. Obviously the whole reason why Jane lied about the baby being dead is so she can provoke Kenny into a fight, and kill him in what seems like self-defense so she can be Clementine's new care taker. Jesus Christ, okay so the first thing Kenny does when Jane shows up without the baby is ask her where he is, and he goes out to look for him. He comes back after not having found anything and accuses her of killing him. But what if Kenny had found AJ? What if AJ started to cry and lead Kenny right to him? What if instead of trying to kill her, Kenny started questioning Jane about happened or asked her to take him to his body? What if AJ cried during the fight revealing he's still alive? All of these things would've completely unraveled Jane's stupid plan and given Kenny a good reason to take the kids and leave Jane alone in the blizzard. And that's just one way in which this plan is stupid and ill-conceived. If you save Jane then she says that she just wanted to prove that Kenny was dangerous to Clementine, but this is complete horseshit because if that's really all she wanted to do, then she would've admitted that the baby was still alive after Kenny took the first swing at her, and her point would've still been proven. Nobody had to die, but because she really wanted to kill Kenny, she kept up the lie to the point where she was willing to die to keep it up, which I'll get into in a minute. She even outright admits this is what she wants to do if you pick a certain dialogue choice during the fight. She had full killing intent despite what she says later, and not only that, but if Kenny really was such a danger to Clementine that he needed to be put down, then why didn't Jane just kill him outright when he had his guard down? If Kenny really was as much as a danger to Clem as she claims, then surely Clementine would've been okay with her killing him unprovoked, especially since this idea that Kenny's losing it is something that Clementine can agree with. There was no need to provoke him or "prove" he was dangerous if he really was. Jane just wanted to kill him to have Clementine to herself because... Well the reason why is never made clear. Fans theorize that it's because Jane feels bad about what happened to her sister that she wants to make up for it by taking care of Clementine, but what was her fucking problem with doing so with Kenny around? Not to mention that it's creepy that she thinks of an 11 year old girl that isn't related to her in any way, and that she met only a few days ago, as a replacement for her dead sister, holy shit on top of being like Carver and Molly she's now also like the stranger from season 1. Look, it doesn't matter why Jane wants Clementine to herself. The real problem here is that her motive doesn't mesh with her stupid plan.

If she really wanted to create a situation where she could kill Kenny "in self-defense" then why didn't she prepare better for actually killing Kenny? Like, she's just cocky enough to think that she can just kill him with her knife and that would be the end of it? And then Clementine is just supposed to accept that? She obviously doesn't want Clementine to get in her way so she tells her not to interfere, but what if Clem decided to end the fight by shooting Jane instead of Kenny? And again, what if Kenny didn't attack her? Then what was she going to do? Even worse, what if Clem went against Jane's wishes and tried to intervene in the fight and got killed as a result? Yeah it sure was worth starting this fight wasn't it Jane? We also have the problem with the fact that even when she's about to be killed, she doesn't tell Kenny that the baby is still alive. If you let Kenny live, then he tells you that she could've ended the fight at any point by telling him AJ was alive, but even when she's about to die she doesn't do so. It doesn't make sense for someone with supposedly strong survival instincts like Jane to be willing to die to keep up a lie, and her stupid plan obviously can't work if she's dead so why doesn't she just tell Kenny that AJ is alive? Is she relying on Clem to end the fight so much at this point that she doesn't want to fess up? Oh, so she goes from "stay out of it Clem" to "Clementine help!" rather than admit to Kenny that AJ was alive along. If I were to try to rationalize this, I'd say that Jane doesn't say the baby's still alive because she'd know that Clementine and Kenny wouldn't let her stay with them if they found out. So Jane's entire plan hinges on her killing Kenny and neither Clementine or Kenny finding out that the baby's still alive. But again, she can't be with Clementine if she's dead. Even if it meant that Clementine wouldn't want to be with her, at the very least she could've saved her own life, maybe even find another little girl she can imprint her sister's image on. Hey Jane, is the loyalty of an emotionless 11 year old girl you barely even know and met only a few days ago really worth more than your life you dumb bitch? The only reason I can think of for why she doesn't admit that the baby's alive when she's about to be killed that makes sense, is that she wants to be Clementine's segregate sister so much, that she doesn't want to live if she can't have her. I mean if you decide to walk away from her after finding out the baby's alive, she begs and pleads for you to stay with her, even saying "I can't do this without you". Implying that she cares about Clementine more as a tool for survival than an actual person, or at the very least meaning that she doesn't want to live without Clementine. She would rather die than not be with an unrelated 11 year old girl she barely knows and only met a few days ago. That is creepy as fuck!

Another reason why Jane trying to prove to Clementine that Kenny was dangerous doesn't make sense is because given how earlier in the episode Jane was already talking to Clementine about Kenny and trying to warn her about him, and how it happens after he beats up Arvo, it should already be apparent to Clementine that Kenny is dangerous, and shit she could've already watched him kill Carver in episode 3. So what point needed to be proven? Especially since again, this is something that Clementine can already agree with? And going back to season 1, being dangerous isn't exactly a bad thing in a world where the zombie apocalypse has happened, Carley says as much to Lee when talking about him being a killer. It's not about whether or not you're dangerous, it's a matter of who you're a danger to, and Kenny was clearly not a danger to Clementine, no matter how much Jane wants Clem to believe it, even though she never specifically says he was a danger to Clem, just that he was dangerous. The biggest irony of all of this is that Jane doesn't actually prove that Kenny was dangerous. Again, Clementine has already witnessed how dangerous he can be before, and the whole reason why Kenny even attacks Jane in the first place is because he thinks Jane killed AJ. That would anger anyone with parental feelings. Lee would've done the same thing if he thought someone had killed Clementine. When Andy St. John simply grabs her he can say "I'll kill you" to him. And you actually can kill him later on. Hell the stranger didn't even hurt Clementine, and Lee can kill him. So Kenny reacting this way really doesn't prove a god damn thing.

Now being fair here, Kenny could've most definitely could've handled the situation in a smarter way. Like I already said if he had questioned Jane about AJ instead of immediately trying to kill her, it would've completely ruined Jane's plan. She tells him that it was an accident and he doesn't believe that because come on, this is Jane we're talking about here. Of course she's going to say that it was an accident, she wouldn't admit to outright killing the baby if that's what she actually did. But Kenny doesn't question her, not even saying "Oh yeah? Well if it was an accident, then tell me how it happened!" not even during the fight. He didn't find AJ obviously or anything else that confirmed he was dead, as far as we know, so he should've tried to find out what happened instead of jumping straight to killing her. I mean saying that it was an accident pretty much confirms that he's dead, and Jane is trying to come up with an excuse for how or why it happened, but Kenny should've still asked for specifics to make sure she wasn't lying. Really though, none of this matters, when you get right down to it, the real reason why Jane never tells Kenny the baby is alive and why Kenny never asks Jane about what happened to him is because that would've caused this terrible climax that the writers spent multiple rewrites bullshitting into existence to completely fall apart. No amount of trying to provide "logical" explanations for any of this is going to make it any less nonsensical.

But you know what, despite all of that, I still think it's possible that this could've been a good climax. It's just that the execution is fucking horrible. I think what Telltale might have wanted to do here was create a situation where it was ambiguous as to who was in the wrong here, if either of them were. But the problem is that instead what they did was characterize Kenny as some sort of villain here when it turns out he was completely in the right all along. The entire episode is spent trying to get you to hate him, or at the very least doubt him, by saying that he's losing it, going crazy, etc. The problem is that Kenny never really does anything that actually shows him to be crazy. He gets way more angry than he usually does in this episode, but getting angry is not the same thing as going insane, otherwise by that logic everyone who gets mad is a psychopath. If they really wanted us to doubt Kenny then they should've had him talking to himself, seeing hallucinations, twitching, erratic body language, have him behave like an actual crazy person would. Instead Telltale's method of getting people to believe Kenny's crazy is simply repeating it until people believed it. And needless to say, it actually worked. I'll be talking more about that soon.

Now I believe that it would've been actually heartbreaking if it was really true that Kenny was going crazy and needed to be put down. Gunning a good friend down never feels good at all, it hurts just to think about it. If Kenny had really gotten to the point where he was a danger to Clem, or if the fight had been his fault then it would've resulted in Kenny's death being truly emotional and heartbreaking. Instead Kenny turns out to have died for nothing and he was right all along. It ruins any emotional impact Kenny's death can have because unlike Lee, Kenny doesn't die for a good reason. Lee died fulfilling his purpose of protecting Clementine. Kenny dies thinking he failed to protect AJ and only because Clem was manipulated into killing him. He wasn't infected, dying and about to become a zombie, or actually became a zombie, he was killed because Clementine was manipulated into killing him. There's no logical reason for him to die.

Which brings me to the choice to shoot Kenny itself. Like I already said Telltale characterizes Kenny as the bad guy in this situation so it feels like shooting him is something that you have to do. They didn't even make it a shoot Kenny or shoot Jane choice, it's literally shoot Kenny or do nothing. That's the biggest problem with this choice, there's absolutely no ambiguity to it. I don't see how this was supposed to be a hard choice, because most people's immediate reaction to seeing someone about to killed is to save them. So even if you like Kenny you're most likely going to shoot him. If you hate Kenny then you don't even need a reason to kill him and of course you're going to shoot him. And if you realize what's going on or know that despite everything that's happened in this episode that Kenny's not the bad guy, you're not going to shoot him in which case the choice is just as easy. My first time playing this episode I thought it was bullshit that the option was to shoot Kenny or do nothing, hell I still do, but I chose to not do anything because I knew from episode 3 that Kenny would be the best choice in the end, and this episode didn't do anything to change that. The moment he decided to take a beating to protect Clementine, it showed me that he was willing to go as far as Lee would've to keep her safe, and he does have some tender moments with Clem during episode 5. But now the game suddenly wants me to forget about things like that and kill him just because he's about to kill Jane. That's another problem with this choice, it wants you to provide a permanent solution to a temporary problem without considering anything else that could happen as a result of what you do here. Obviously you can't make it to Wellington if Kenny's dead but who the fuck is going to be thinking about that when the option to shoot Kenny comes up? Kenny and Jane are arguing about what they want to do in the truck before the fight happens, but the option to kill Kenny is so heavily biased against him, and there's such a huge disconnect between the choice and what happens in the endings, that I cannot for a second believe that Wellington is something Telltale wanted us to consider when making the choice. What does this [show Wellington scene] have anything to do with this? [show Kenny on Jane with knife] The answer, is nothing. These two events have nothing to do with eachother.

And another thing, why is shooting Kenny or doing nothing the only actions I can take here? Why can't I fire a warning shot, or threaten them with the gun and tell them both to stop fighting? Hell even using the gun to threaten shooting yourself if they don't stop fighting would be a better option than just shooting one or doing nothing. But I apparently can't choose to do any of these things because according to Telltale, Clementine is too stupid to think about doing any of those things.

I want to go back to something I brought up before. Like I mentioned earlier the game paints Kenny as the bad guy during this scene, and I think it would've been genuinely heartbreaking if that were actually true and he needed to be stopped. Instead it turns out that the baby is alive, Kenny died for nothing, and instead of Kenny's death being tragic, it ends up being pointless and pathetic. It also makes Kenny's death speech feel contrively written to make the player feel good about doing something bad. I understand that Kenny wouldn't guilt trip Clementine for killing him, he'd try to reassure her that she was doing the right thing, especially after realizing that he fucked up by blaming her for Sarita's death. But given the circumstances, it feels less reassuring and more like Kenny is saying "Aw damn, the only person I care about left alive just shot me and now I'm gonna die, and I assume the baby I was caring for is also dead. You did a good job player, oops, I mean Clementine. I'm certainly not disappointed in you or anything like that. You made the right choice. Wink wink." Oh fuck this shit. But really the baby being alive is just one way which the fight scene making Kenny the bad guy fails, there's another factor that makes it obvious that he's not in the wrong even before the reveal. Really, it all has to do with the fact that Jane started the fight. Forget about the fact that she could've stopped it at any point, I already covered that, she's the whole reason why the situation happens in the first place. If Jane had shown up with the baby in her arms alive and well, then the four of them would've made it to Wellington and nobody would've died. But because she's the one who purposefully lied about AJ being dead just to get into a fight with Kenny, it means that Kenny really can't be faulted for what he does here because it literally would've never happened if it wasn't for what Jane did. She was already trying to get him going while they were in the truck, but the way Jane comes up with this plan, also makes her the obvious aggressor here. Earlier when Kenny volunteered to get gas for the truck, and told Clementine and Jane to stay put where they'd be safe, he told them to meet him at the nearby reststop if anything goes wrong. Jane couldn't have predicted what happens after this, so she needed to have come up with this plan after the truck crashed and she separated from Clementine. So, either Jane ditched the baby, found the reststop and used it as an excuse to fight Kenny, or she found the reststop and then came up with the idea to leave the baby in a car and start the fight. Also, the option to stay with Jane has Clementine say "I forgive you Jane". This means that Jane wronged Clementine to such a degree that she needs to be forgiven for it. No such option exists when she stays with Kenny, so that means Kenny didn't do anything wrong to Clementine by killing Jane. Finally, Jane doesn't admit to Clementine that the baby is alive after Kenny dies if you save her. It's only because Clementine hears him crying that she ever finds out. Seeing as how Jane came up with the situation to kill Kenny in self-defense so she can have Clementine to herself, knowing that Clementine wouldn't be okay with killing him outright, and how she immediately starts defending herself and begins pleading with Clem to not abandon her, it's pretty clear that she was never going tell Clementine that the baby was still alive. And without Clementine knowing that the baby is alive it means they would've moved on without him, which means that AJ would've been left all alone in the car to either freeze and/or starve to death, which means that Kenny wouldn't have killed Jane for no reason because she actually did cause him to die. And this goes for if you let Kenny live too, his assumption that AJ is dead would've been true if they didn't hear him crying after the end of the fight, and by the way, how convenient that he starts to cry just as soon as the fighting stops. I know it might sound like I'm trying to argue who was right or wrong like I said I wouldn't, but honestly, this is just how the game was written. Kenny being made out to be the bad guy here just doesn't match up with what actually happens, some might say that it was done to make it a hard choice since you've known Kenny longer than you've known Jane, but I really don't want to give Telltale credit for actually having put that much thought into it. And again it fails to be a hard choice if you hate Kenny because you want him dead anyway so why would killing him be difficult for you? From the way the situation is set up, it's very clear that Telltale wanted players to kill Kenny here. This isn't tailoring the story based on your choices, this is Telltale tailoring the story for you to make the choices they want you to make.

The question is, why would they do this? Why would they go so far out of their way to deceive players into getting the bad endings? This isn't the first time that Telltale has done a deceptive choice. In The Wolf Among Us, and I'm sorry for spoiling this little bit for those who haven't played it yet, there's a choice to either go to Mr. Toad's apartment first or investigate Prince Lawrence's apartment. Mr. Toad had just called Bigby to tell him that someone's in his apartment building going through The Woodsman's things before getting the call cut off, which makes you think that it's more urgent to see Mr. Toad first. But if you go to Toad's apartment first then Prince Lawrence dies and there's no way to save him. You can only save him if you go to his apartment first. To give a more relevant example, in 400 Days, a DLC for season 1 of The Walking Dead, a man is found sneaking around outside one of the protagonist's group's settlement. The leader of the group wants to kill him because this man could be part of another group and he would tell them where this group's settlement is which could lead to an attack, but other members don't want to kill him because they don't know if that is the case, and they don't want to kill an innocent man. Because this game typically wants you to be merciful to everyone, you'd think that letting him go would be the better choice, but it turns out that he did in fact belong to a group, and one of your own group members gets killed if you let him live. I have a problem with deceptive choices already, I can understand why they're done, but I think making a choice ambiguous is best done with the presentation of the choice itself, making the player unsure of what they should do, rather than giving the choice an unexpected, and in this case, contradictory result. This is a particularly egregious example however, because it's a deceptive choice that determines what ending of the game you get.

Why would they want to deceive players into getting the bad endings? The only reason why I can think that they would do this is because of favoritism towards Jane. They wanted players to pick Jane over Kenny but couldn't come up with any good reason for why Clementine should pick her over Kenny, so they came up with this forced contrived bullshit fight that's completely stacked against Kenny, to make players choose her over him. Because seriously, there's no reason for Clementine to support Jane with what she does here. You don't lie about a baby being dead just to provoke someone into a fight, and you certainly don't use it as an excuse to kill that person. What Jane does here is completely unforgivable, and the only reason why you'd want to forgive Jane for this is because you hated Kenny or because you don't think Clementine should be on her own because let's face it, despite the plot of this game hinging on the adults relying on Clementine doing things for them, Clementine can't take care of herself. She was as good as dead in episode 1, and being a child she is physically weak, she could've died multiple times if it wasn't for her plot armor completely destroying any sense of realism this game is supposed to have. Again the Jane endings could've been okay, if Kenny had turned out to be a bad guy, but since the baby is still alive and Jane's the cause of the fight, it makes Jane the villain and Kenny's endings are the only viable ones. Kenny's voice actor, Gavin Hammon, said that most playtesters didn't shoot Kenny, so the choice was changed, and there's unused animation files still in the game that shows Jane getting the upper hand in the fight rather than Kenny, and Kenny and Jane literally at eachother's throats. It would seem that originally the option was shoot Kenny or shoot Jane, but did they change it because they actually thought that it would make the choice more difficult, or because they wanted to get as many people shot Kenny as possible? With how much the situation is unfairly biased against him, I have to believe it's the latter.

Before I move on to finally talk about the endings themselves, I have one last complaint about the fight scene. Why the fuck is there a second option to shoot Kenny? When I played this episode for the first time, I seriously thought this was a glitch. Why the fuck would I want to shoot Kenny at this point? The whole reason for shooting him was to stop him from killing Jane so why would I want to kill him if she's already dead? It's already possible to get the alone ending by leaving Kenny after he survives the fight, granted it's hidden behind another dialogue option, but why do we need an option to kill him after he kills Jane when we already have this? This is the biggest problem I have not just with episode 5, but with the game as a whole. I mean, wow, what a way to completely ruin what was left Clementine's character. Don't get me wrong, season 2 already did a lot to ruin what made Clementine a good and likeable character in season 1. But this, along with another moment push her character beyond redemption. It's part of a problem with episode 5 overall, this is easily the most out of character Clementine can behave in the entire season. She's given more options to swear than in any other episode, including her first f-bomb, she's given an option to smoke, and she's given an option to drink alcohol again. All for the sake of fanservice. That's the best way to sum up episode 5, until the Kenny vs. Jane fight, nothing much happens in this episode except for Clementine potentially acting out of character, for the sake of pandering to fans who like her because she's a "badass" little girl. This is the most obvious example of that, and I don't even know where to begin with explaining why this is out of character for Clem.

I already mentioned that there's no reason to kill him here because the original reason for doing so was to save Jane. But now that Jane's dead, why kill him? Clementine wouldn't kill Kenny here because she cares about him. Clementine has no real character in season 2, she's mostly just a sock puppet for the player to project their personality onto, but one thing that is consistent about her is that she cares about Kenny. She's always happy to see him when they meet at the ski-lodge regardless of Lee's relationship with Kenny, she's always upset by Carver beating him, she's always happy to see that he's okay after he wakes up from the beating, out of all of the games endings she's happiest when she stays with Kenny, and if she kills him in the first option to shoot him she's heartbroken and cries over him. Even though there are options to go against Kenny, it doesn't make her happy to do it, and unless you make those choices, Clementine likes Kenny, or at the very least is okay with him. And besides that, he's the last connection to Lee that she has, why would she want to take this away from herself? Even ignoring the fact that it's Kenny, Clementine doesn't execute people. It's just not who she is. She didn't enjoy killing the stranger or Lee if she did that, and she didn't get enjoyment out of killing Sam the dog. Granted it's not murder in those cases, but the point stands that Clementine is not a murderer, and she doesn't enjoy killing people. This is why the timeskip in episode one is such a big problem, it's just a lazy way for the writers to make Clementine act out of character "because she's different now". Really the only reason why this choice exists, aside from being part of allowing the player to project their personality onto Clementine, is to pander to people who hate Kenny, because really, who else would want to do this? And just to further add to that, I've seen plenty of people complain about how you can't shoot Jane after killing Kenny, despite the fact that there's two options to kill Kenny. Now I don't think that Clementine should have an option to kill Jane after killing Kenny, because like I said it'd be out of character for her, but I'd have less of a problem with her doing it because it would make a greater deal of sense for her to do so. The fact that there are two options to kill Kenny but none to kill Jane is part of the character bias I mentioned earlier. The developers very clearly wanted you to pick Jane, or at the very least, not pick Kenny. And lastly, if there was no option to kill Kenny after he kills Jane, can you honestly tell me that anyone besides people who hate Kenny would want that option? Especially after finding out that the baby was still alive? I can't imagine. Another reason why this option shouldn't exist is because it's completely contradictory to how events play out in the other options. Going back to my point about how Clementine cares about Kenny, she's heartbroken, sad, and crying in the first option to shoot him. She didn't mean to kill him, she was just trying to stop him from killing Jane. And if you let him live but decide to walk away from him, or stay at Wellington, she's sad and crying over the fact that she's leaving him. She wants to be with Kenny because she clearly cares about him. Why would she want to kill someone that she cares about for no reason? On the flip side, Clementine clearly doesn't care about Jane. No tears are shed for her when she dies, even in this option. And why would she? Who the fuck is Jane to Clementine? She's known her for about three days at most, and now I'm supposed to believe that she cares more about Jane than Kenny? No, I don't believe that, that's literally unbelievable. Remember how I mentioned earlier that Telltale removed an option to shoot Mike? This second choice to shoot Kenny is the reason why I wonder why they removed it. It couldn't have been because it would be out of character for Clementine because otherwise they would've removed this as well. So it's out of character for her to kill someone she met only a few days ago who's robbing her, but it's perfectly in her character to outright murder an unarmed man she cares about and has known for a long time? I can't even find the words to describe how utterly stupid and non-nonsensical this is. By the way, this choice is completely hypocritical. "Kenny just killed someone, so I'm going to kill him because killing is wrong!" WHAT?! Clementine doesn't even have a moment of horrible realization like "Oh my god, what have I just done?" after she finds AJ. I mean, really? You don't see anything wrong with what you just did? Look, it's pretty clear at this point that Telltale doesn't give a flying fuck about Clementine's character anymore. They want to make the fans happy, so they'll have her behave any way they want her to to accomplish that. It doesn't matter it if it doesn't make any sense or if it's out of character for her, they'll use timeskips and any other flimsy justifications they can come up with to make it happen. If they really cared about Clementine's character, then they would've written the choices you can make with her to actually be in line with what's been previously established about her, not to mention what's actually appropriate for the situation. Either that, or you give me a damn good reason for why I should believe that Clementine is suddenly capable of something like murder. Let me put it this way, call me a bad influence if you want, but my little brother who's 11 years old, played this game and when he got to this point, he actually asked me "why would you want to shoot Kenny here?" An actual real 11 year old, same age as Clementine, knows that killing Kenny here makes no sense. That should sum up why this choice is stupid and unnecessary. You know, in case everything else I just said, didn't explain it well enough. Fuck this scene, fuck everything about it, and fuck Telltale for even thinking of including it in the first place. Okay, maybe that was a little out of line.

I don't really know where else to mention this, but Kenny dying when you choose to shoot him in the first option, doesn't make any sense because he seems to get shot in the same area as he did in season 1, when Andy St. John shot him. It's a non-fatal area so why does it kill him? I'm not a gun expert but I doubt getting shot in the same non-fatal spot twice causes death. Not to mention that in season 1 he was shot at close range with a rifle, and here it's a greater distance away with a pistol. So yeah, this shot killing Kenny, it's stupid, makes no sense, par for the course for season 2.

Holy shit, finally I get to talk about the endings themselves. I already covered how the game tries to trick you into getting the bad endings, and how I can't understand why they would want to do this. Telltale wants the choices in their games to be ambiguous, like there is no good or bad choice, but they often fail to do this because of how the outcomes of these choices are written. That's especially apparent here, not only is there no ambiguity in the option to shoot Kenny, there's no ambiguity in the endings themselves. Clementine is clearly happier in the Kenny endings, particularly when she stays with Kenny, whereas she isn't happy at all in the Jane or alone endings. She's either stuck with some crazy woman who abandoned a baby and manipulated her into killing the only friend she had left, ends up alone, or is with someone who has always looked out for her well-being. How can this be considered ambiguous? The differences between the endings are night and day. The Jane ending is ominous and foreboding with the family that approaches the compound, and if you let them in it gets even worse with the reveal that the man has a gun and the kid commenting on Clementine's hat. Though the man having a gun is not that much of a reveal as it's very obviously what he's reaching for when he first approaches the gate. If you decide to turn them away instead it results in one of the worst scenes in the entire game, I mean, look at this shit. Oh god, this is such a fucking cringeworthy, stupid, Hollywood movie scene and more obvious fan pandering to the "Clementine is badass" memers. And she even fucking quotes Lee in this ending too-- Oh god, I think I'm gonna be sick. I said that Clementine executing Kenny along with another moment put Clem's character beyond redemption, this is that other moment I was talking about. Clementine choosing to do this is her forgetting about everything she was taught by the people who care about her, and fully embracing Carver and Jane's Darwinist mentality. Again Season 2 already did irreparable damage to Clementine's character, but this scene along with killing Kenny for no fucking reason, are moments where Clementine transcends into becoming something that is completely unrecognizable to me. She might as well be a completely different character at this point because this is most definitely not the character I fell in love with in season 1. Oh but that's just a few of the many problems with the Jane ending, there's a lot of plot holes here. First of all, Jane's plan of coming back here is fucking retarded. Why would you want to come back to a place that you tried so hard to desperately escape from? Especially when it was swarmed with zombies the last time we saw it, and we were the cause of that? Which raises even more questions, how is the greenhouse still in good condition? Where are all the zombie corpses? There must've been hundreds of them swarming the place, so where are all the dead bodies? You also mean to tell me that there aren't just a few live ones still walking around? It took nine days for every zombie out of the hundreds that were here to already completely leave? If the nine day timeskip is supposed to explain why the place isn't still overrun, well there's a nine day timeskip regardless of which ending you get so I don't think it does, but are we seriously supposed to believe that there wouldn't be even a few zombies still walking around? What could've possibly driven them away? Especially if they were drawn to Howe's with sound, and, if Alvin died in episode 2, Clementine blocks the door to Carver's office meaning there would be no way to get inside and shut off the speakers, so they should still be playing when Clem and Jane return? Not to mention that if Howe's was empty for so long, how come bandits haven't occupied it yet? Really, Jane's endings could've easily resulted in Clementine and Jane getting overwhelmed by zombies, attacked by bandits who had found and taken over the place, or attacked by followers of Carver who survived the zombie herd and would be angry with them for what they did and would want to kill them as a result. The fact that Jane's ending doesn't have any of these things happen to them just screams ass pull, I think it might be an even be a bigger ass pull than Kenny coming back for this season. I think the reason why the Jane ending is so unrealistic in how it's not completely hopeless for Clem, is because Telltale didn't want people who got the Jane ending to feel completely screwed over, especially since they purposefully designed the choice to shoot Kenny so that the majority of people would do so. But if they were going to make the endings so obviously good or bad anyway, then why didn't they just go all out with the idea?

And when I say good or bad endings, I don't just mean in terms of what they mean for Clementine, I'm also talking about in terms of actual quality. The Jane and alone endings are very obviously rushed with the family that shows up in the Jane ending being Frankenstein monster mish-mashes of other characters. The man is a white Carlos with glasses, the woman is a brunette Molly, and the kid is a black Duck wearing the exact same jacket as Clementine, it's like they didn't even try to make these character look original. The Jane ending is anti-climatic, lacks emotion and doesn't even feel like an ending either, it feels like another scene is supposed to happen, but instead the game just ends. I'll admit that the man asking Clementine if the baby is hers got a laugh out of me, but that's really the only "positive" quality the Jane endings have in my opinion. I know I haven't talked about the alone ending yet but, what is there to talk about? It's just as anti-climatic, emotionless and inconclusive as the Jane ending, and there isn't even any dialogue in the alone ending. The alone ending might even be worse than the Jane endings, both in terms of quality and what it means for Clementine. The alone ending being shorter than all the others is a contributing factor towards it being worse than the others, and do I really have to explain why an 11 year old girl having to take care of a baby by herself in a zombie apocalypse is a bad outcome? Just from how the scene ends alone should be a good enough indicator. All that baby has to do is cry, and they're both dead. I'm sorry for not giving this ending more attention, but there's nothing else to say about it.

Okay, I saved the best for last. I've been pretty negative throughout this video so I decided to end it on a positive note. The Kenny ending is easily the best part of the episode, dare I say, the best part of the whole game. This ending is pretty much the only part of the whole game that made me emotional on a level comparable to the first season of The Walking Dead. With Kenny begging Clementine to stay in Wellington and her not wanting to leave him, it's heartbreaking in a good way. The Kenny ending is pretty much the antithesis to the other endings, it's emotional, satisfying and offers far more closure than the other endings. Well the stay at Wellington ending feels like an actual ending anyway, I think the stay with Kenny ending, despite being happier, has a feeling of the story still continuing, but it still manages to offer more closure than the other endings, even if only because the other endings offer no closure whatsoever. The Wellington ending to me, is the best ending. Aside from giving the best closure it's a perfect end to both Clementine and Kenny's story arcs. Except you know, for the fact that they're making season 3. Ugh, well it's a perfect end for Kenny's story arc anyway, he finds redemption in it, making a sacrifice that's almost comparable to Lee's, and it gives him a far better and more respectable send off than in the other endings. Actually, there's something I neglected to mention earlier. If you let Kenny live but decide to leave him he gives you the same speech as when you stay in Wellington. Obviously this isn't a good thing to do as it leads to the alone ending, but it's related to my only real problem with the Kenny endings, namely the choice to either stay at Wellington or stay with Kenny. I understand they wanted to give the player one last "difficult" choice at the end of the game, but it's not really viable to stay with Kenny. It makes everything she went through to get this far meaningless as she decides to follow Kenny out in the wild with the baby, completely defeating the entire purpose of finding Wellington. It's really stupid and selfish of her to do, I mean come on Clem, at least leave AJ at Wellington. A lot of people died to keep Clementine safe, and I doubt any of them would want her to give up this opportunity she has for the sake of her happiness. And worst of all, Kenny let's her stay with him for some reason. Kenny should ignore Clementine's plea to stay with him and make her go with AJ into Wellington anyway. It would be lot more selfless, and less stupid, for him to do so. But that's really the only major problem I have with the Kenny ending. Some people have said  Kenny's plan was stupid and risky too, and to be fair, he in fact didn't know where Wellington was other than it being near Michigan. He also wasn't even sure if it actually existed, but I call bullshit on that as part of the developers trying to get you to side against him as he didn't doubt it's existence before episode 5, and the game didn't really do anything to make us doubt it's existence before episode 5 either. Yeah, this is something else I forgot to mention. Part of the reason why people are against Kenny's plan to go to Wellington is because they believe it doesn't really exist, but nobody was opposed to this plan when Kenny said it's what they should do when he said it back in episode 4, so why are they all suddenly opposed to it now? But even if he didn't know where Wellington was, Kenny's plan is still better than Jane's because, even if they never found Wellington, it wouldn't have been any different from what Clementine and Christa were doing when they were trying to find it, so there's really nothing to lose and something to be gained from trying to find it, whereas with Howe's, it might've made for a good settlement before, but after the condition it was left in, they would just have to leave it again eventually with what little food is left. Not really a good long term plan. And I don't think Telltale would want the Kenny ending to be just Clementine and Kenny trying to find their way to Wellington because then the ending would be hopeless no matter which ending you got, and speaking of Christa, I doubt she would want to try to find Wellington unless she thought it was worth the risk. I mean this is Christa we're talking about here. She might not be a cold, pragmatic survivalist like Jane, but she's still very cautious and untrusting of others so I seriously doubt going to Wellington is a bad idea if it's something she wants to do, and she certainly sounded certain about it's existence. Kenny actually finding Wellington might be considered just as big of an asspull as Howe's suddenly being zombie free and undamaged, and I would agree with that, if finding Wellington was an idea Kenny came up with out of the blue, and he just happened to be right, rather than something that's established by the game at the very beginning. I haven't said everything I wanted to about the endings yet, but I want to cover those things in the next video and honestly this video is long enough as it is.

Holy shit, finally it's over! Christ I thought that was going to go on forever. Like I said, this is pretty much Fanservice: The Episode. Nothing much happens until the fight with Kenny and Jane, and the game strongly encourages you to side against Kenny, which leads to an unsatisfying ending. I haven't played every Telltale game just yet, but I think I can safely say that this is the worst episode of any game Telltale has ever made. There's just no way anything else they've done is this overly flawed and nonsensical. I'm not quite done talking about this game yet though, I still have one more video to do on this game since there's still a lot of stuff I haven't talked about yet, either because it's not specific to any one episode, or because I couldn't find a place to talk about it in any of my other videos. So, with that said I'll see you guys next time for the finale to my review of The Walking Dead Season 2. Thank you guys for watching, see you in the next video.