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The Walking Dead: The last season Telltale's talented storytellers created a compelling new storyline for Clementine. After the closure of the company, the fate of the season seemed fragile, and Skybound Games took over. In the end, the final marks the landing, closing the book on one of the best gaming stories.
In The last seasonClementine still protects AJ, a child she has been caring for since the death of her parents in 2013, season two. In previous episodes, the two founders of the child-led Ericson Academy were dragged into a terrible plot by returning Lily's character, who stole Ericson's children to fight a war against another colony. The first two episodes were strong and introspective, while the most recent episode suffered from a frantic pace. At the end of this episode, Clementine and her friends were left on a boat exploding. The last episode, "Take Us Back", resumes from that moment, but quickly moves on to something else.
"Take Us Back" first solves the problem with Lily, who could have died if the player had asked AJ to shoot him at the end of the last episode. As I had left Lily alive, the episode began with the consequences of the ship's explosion, after which Clementine had one last conversation with her. It was a little anti-climatic, but the real season has always been the relationship between Clem and AJ, which takes center stage when Lily leaves her post.
Clem and AJ need to fight their way up to Ericson, stopping to deal with zombies and other threats. In a memorable scene, AJ claims to have concluded that there is nothing after death. This conversation leads to a discussion between AJ and Clementine about the type of person he wants to be. He wants to be a firefighter, he says, but in the post-apocalyptic future, he thinks it means killing bad guys when necessary. As Clementine, you can agree or disagree, either by trusting AJ's growth, or by asking if he's ready or not. The last season I worked hard to show that AJ was changing and growing more dynamically and openly than Clémentine in her first season in 2012. As a result, even though I made the choice to trust AJ, I wondered always if I would regret it later.
The truth was more complicated. After Clementine and the others head for a bridge, they are confronted by one of Lily's survivors: a former student of Ericson, Minerva. While Minerva attracts the marchers to the group, another conflict arises with the brother of Minerva, Tennessee, who will not leave. In my game, he held Clementine's love interest, Violet. In a different season, I might have made a decision here. Instead, AJ did it. He shot Tennessee, allowing Violet to escape. Clementine is hurt in the process, however, and she and AJ soon find themselves separated from Violet. In trying to escape more zombies, Clementine is bitten.
I thought it would be the end. The last season followed similar beats to The dead who walkFirst season, which implies that Clem will eventually end up as the protagonist of the first season, Lee Everett. This seems to be the case, and even though at first I was frustrated by the predictability, what made this moment work for me is the way it expresses the relationship between Clem and AJ. The couple are hiding in a barn and fighting the zombies in a prolonged action sequence. Clem is weak, so there are times when the player controls AJ instead. Slowly but surely, you play more like him than Clementine. The torch went on each new beat of action. You make one last call as Clementine. For me, that meant telling AJ to kill me. He raised an ax and slid down. The screen is cut black.
I would have agreed with the last season ending there. The action sequence was one of the best I've ever played in a Telltale story, and Melissa Hutchison's performance as Clementine breaks my heart. But there was more, and I ended up being happy for that. After a backtracking sequence as a Clem in which you record a child AJ, the action returns to the present. Now the player totally controls AJ while he's fishing on an Ericson's bank and interacts with characters. His dialogues and his actions are different from those of Clementine. Clem's prompts, like Lee's before her, were simple. They gave paraphrased versions of what she said and clearly defined actions. AJ's gestures are cerebral, entirely engraved in his thoughts. Someone is talking to him and instead of choosing a prompt saying "Do not worry", you may need to choose something like "She did her best" instead.
It's a wise choice. why would not AJ work differently from Clem? He is his own person, raised in a different world. He sees everything through another lens. During some scenes, I explored the world through AJ's lens, but over time, it seemed to me that the game was going even further. The final revelation is not surprising but it is welcome: Clementine has survived. She is at Ericson's on your return, less part of her leg. AJ did not kill her.
In these scenes with Clementine, The dead who walkThe last season chooses the type of story she wants to be. Is it a story of repeated tragedy or something else? Will Clem die like Lee or can we find a different path? This different path is where Clementine finishes. Injured but alive, leader of a community and adoptive mother of the next generation. In his later scenes, Clem alternated between giving confident orders, flirting with Violet, and opening up to AJ in a way she had never seen before.
The dead who walk often focuses on loss. Cities fall, heroes die and nothing really lasts. This last season ends with as much hope as ever, convinced that even the end of the world is not the end of the world.
The dead who walkThe last moments are given to AJ, who walks through Ericson's hallways to his room. Signatures of developers illuminate the walls, reminder of the people who ended this story. I imagined how full the walls could be if everyone's name was there, starting in 2012. I was thinking of the Telltale employees who had not managed to organize the Clementine finale and I wondered how they felt what Skybound and their colleagues have done.
As a committed player in this story, I know that I am satisfied. There is room for more stories if anyone ever wants to go back in this decor, but I prefer that it does not happen. Clementine was ready for everything that would follow, and I was ready to say goodbye. After so many years and dramas at stake, it's good to have an honest closure.
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