The Walking Dead: Season Two Review

Two further issues compound this. The first is that, in typical Walking Dead fashion, some of them are not around for very long. If you thought the first Walking Dead was brutal, well, it was a cheery fairytale in comparison to the Second Series’ meat grinder. This is an approach which succeeds at times, and fails at others. It's understandable to an extend that the writers feel the need to up the ante, but this has the effect of characters being killed off before they become interesting or, worse, just as they are becoming interesting.


Then there’s the fact that some characters simply aren’t very interesting at all. A good example of this is Luke. Best described as a twentysomething human male, he’s a pleasant enough fellow, but the problem there's nothing to his character aside from that amiability. There’s no wit about him, no spark, nothing to make him intriguing or compelling. Then there are one or two characters who are downright annoying. This is particularly the case with Sarah, the teenage daughter of a doctor in your group. Similarly aged to Clementine, I think she’s supposed to represent the childhood innocence that Clementine has lost as a consequence of her experiences. But there’s a difference between childish naivety and being absolutely bloody useless. I mean, if you struggle to prune the leaves off a plant when your life may very well depend on it, there isn’t much hope for you.


One last point worth mentioning. There isn’t really a central relationship to frame the drama around this time. Clementine seems to be set apart from most of the other character bonds, despite being useful, capable, and often sensible. There is one character who Clementine is closer to than others for reasons that become obvious the moment you meet them, but it isn’t quite the same. I think the writers missed a trick in making Sarah the complete waste of skin that she is. A counterpart of Clementine’s own age, who is willing and able to learn from her and relate to her on her own level, would have given the narrative an axis which the other relationships could revolve around.



The familiar Telltale pluses and problems are still present and correct. The writing is still brilliant, economical and engaging. Non-character interaction is still highly limited, and combat remains an arbitrary sequence of quick-time-events. Choices are not always free as they appear, although broadly speaking Telltale employ significantly less sleight-of-hand than the first time around. Even at those times when Telltale force a character out of your sphere of influence it usually feels sensible, in terms of situation if not character development, anyway. Regardless, these decisions are still extremely difficult to make, and the game is remarkably adept at making you feel genuine guilt and sorrow.

Overall Season Two is less consistent in quality than the previous series. That said, it boasts a stunning final act that does a great deal to clarify a lot of what the writers were doing in the episodes prior to it. I sensed where it was headed very early on, and spent the rest of the time trying to avoid that scenario. But of course, there's no circumventing the hard decisions in this bastard of a game, which made it all the more captivating when crunch time came around. It's just a shame that the series took so long to find that central thrust, and spent so much time messing around with an inflated cast of characters, many of whom lacked personality.


Maybe I'm being overly harsh. Perhaps, like Clementine, I've become hardened to the unyielding bleakness of The Walking Dead's world, and hence less inclined to make the effort to get to know or understand characters better. Then again, I feel like Telltale should have better anticipated that scenario, and therefore doubled down on creating a rich central cast to entice me out of that wearied cynicism, rather than encouraging it. Still, even in its weakest moments, I was happy to stick around for Clementine's sake, and I believe that, in the end, it was worth the trouble.