character development.
Actual Grade 8.5
(Spoiler Alert)This episode starts with the group being taken back to Carvers camp, they arrive and Carver locks them in the pen, which is basically a punishment for the group members who have done something bad. They meet someone named Reggie and his conversation with them is that they are basically not going to get out of their. Kenny tells Clementine to look around to see if she finds any weakpoints in the area they are being held but unfortunatley their don't seem to be any. After this the group goes to bed and in the morning they must attend to certain jobs. In the morning Carver speaks to the group about their morning duties, as he is doing so Sarah idioticly interrupts by talking to Clementine, Carver gets angry and orders Carlos to slap the $hi% out of his daughter, He does so in hopes that he won't let anyone else do it. Clementine starts work with Bonnie by loading up magazines, Bonnie apoligizes about this whole mess and trys to convince Clementine that Carver really isn't that bad, Clementine has quite the rebuttal and definitly makes Bonnie question herself, after Clementine is done she goes to the greenhouse to cut berries off of the trees, Reggie the funny character he is pleads for them to do their work properly so that he won't get in trouble with Carver.Clementine notices that Sarah is still in shock from the slap from Carlos that she isn't doing her job correctly, So your first big choice comes into play you can either help her or just do your job and let her do it by yourself, either answer will end you up with the same results Carver will blame Reggie for not teaching them properly and throw him off the roof(geez pretty reasonable anger huh?) After this Carver tells Clementine to go meet up with Bonnie for more work, as she goes to see Bonnie, Bonnie can tell that Clemenines been rattled and asks her what happened you can either tell her the truth or lie, either one will be the same result but she will know you trust her more if you choose to tell her. Clementines next job is to move some supplies to Kenny and Mike, who is Mike? you find out during the start of the episode that this is basically what Telltale is trying to recreate for Lee at least thats what they are trying to say just play the game and you will know what I mean. Kenny and Mike are about to get into a fist fight and when they are about to fight it out a walkers break through the fense theirs a big running scene but in the end the walkers get killed and they fix the fence. Troy tells Clementine to leave and as she does she is ambushed and pushed into the comic book store, you find out that the person that ambushed you is Luke and that he has a plan on getting everybody out but he's going to need a radio, so clementine leaves and is about to tell the others when she is stopped by Troy and is questioned why she was in their, your response will work whichever one you choose, Troy tells you that Carver wants to see you. When you meet Carver his basic conversation is implying that Clementine is the same as he is, they both do whatever they have to survive no matter what. This is what Telltale is really trying to make out of this episode that Clementine is not a kid anymore and that she has learned so much in the past that she might not be the most sane child out their, they do a good job of this and I will explain why later. After talking to Carver Clementine returns to the group to explain her plan of giving the walkie talkie to Luke, Kenny also add that their is a herd nearby and that if they can make a really loud noise with the camps radio system the herd could make an opening so they can escape, Jane also explains that they can use the the walkers innards to mask their scent so the walkers will past right by them. So now that the plan is made who do you thinks going to have to do it all? do I even have to say it. Shes done all the other chores for them lol. So Clementine is able to retreive the walkie talkies and they go to bed plotting their next move. the next day clementine trys to find Luke but he is not their Troy finds her in the comic book store, slaps her he takes Clementine back to the group to find that Carver has caught Luke and found out about the walkie talkie he starts counting to three and as you choose to say it was you or somebody else or just say nothing at all Kenny will interrupt you and take the radio saying it was his fault Carver will beat the crap out of him, and the second big decision comes into play, Sarita will try to stop them from beating up Kenny, you can either restrain her, help Kenny, yourself or do nothing, if you restrain Sarita Bonnie will make Carver stop, if you help kenny yourself you will get knocked out, and finally if you do nothing Sarita will get knocked out, their really is no consequenses to this decision, so a bit dissapointing. Clementine wakes up to the group arguing that they need to do the radio plan tonight, but Sarita argues that Kenny is in no condition to go Carlos adds some more bad news for kenny saying he could be in a coma for a long time, after arguing for a little while more you see that Kenny has awoken and said that no one is getting left behind. So after this who do you think will have to do this? you guessed it Clementine. Clementine does her job and as she gets back to the group she jumps on Carver and knocks him down, and that's when its time for a little payback, you have another choice to make you can either watch Kenny murder Carver or you can walk away, While I'm sure many wanted to make sure he died I figured Clementine didn't need to see that so I chose not to watch, again this has no consequence cmon this is getting a little ridiculous. The plan is now in full effect the group smears walker guts on themeselves and try to get away, Sarah starts to panic and the whole group is getting seperated the walkers start to get whats going on and bite Saritas hand, your last big decision is to cut her arm off or hit the walker with the axe, your decision won't be answered till next episode.
Your probably wondering why I liked this episode so much when lets be honest the decisions were really weak and their wasn't very much plot progression, well before I answer that I'm going to complain some more first off Carver was supposed to be this big villain and lets be honest this guy was a puss I'm serious, yeah sure he did some mean things but anybody that is a fan of the series will know that he was unoriginal and was over hyped, all that talk in the past two episodes and they kill him in one episode what a joke I can't believe they thought that was acceptable! I know so why did I like the episode? well while that did piss me off and really made even the whole season look bad after that, This episode better oriented us with the characters and I think this season desperately needed that because before this episode all the other characters were basically just the group you were staying with. So I will say that the episode did a fantastic job with the way they finally got this group to connect with you. Another thing I like about this episode was that it made a good point, claiming that clementine may become a monster if she continues the way shes going and I think the ending cut scene said it all when you chose to cut Sarita's hand off if you did Clementine did this with absolutely no mercy and makes you really wonder what type of person Clementine is going to be. Another thing I liked about this episode was just a lot of where it progressed I just liked what was going on thru the whole episode and made the episode quite fun to play with.
Overall a lot of you might see my review as saying that this is a bad episode and It's not, in fact I really liked this episode in fact this is probably my favorite episode this season so far, but I wish they executed it better because in the long run I think this episode is going to hurt the season as a whole, but besides that I think this episode is a must have and really pulls the group together and how it's going to be on how this moves forward.