My opinion about the Ties That Bind [Spoilers]
Now, this may be an unpopular opinion, I actually enjoyed these two episodes. more than I probably should have.
I greatly enjoyed playing as Javier. I played him more or less as a good guy, but very flawed. Whenever situation pushes him to it, he will always be extremely violent and ruthless. It to me made the story feel interesting as my protagonist walks the line of always dangling the violent path or taking the sensible and rational path. I look forward to develop him further in later episodes as he becomes more assertive and pragmatic.
I also love interacting with Clementine. It is bittersweet to see how she has developed and changed over the years. But she can take care of herself and she is her own person. The way I interacted with her, I wasn't too on her side at the beginning. I was distrustful, but Javier and Clem slowly developed trust when they both start taking risk to trust one another. That was really interesting to me and I look forward to see how they both interact in future episodes.
I like talking to Javier's family. I was extremely sad and actually shouted no when Mariana died. Gabe is good enough, he didn't annoyed me as I feared he would. He is a teenager and acted like one. I love talking to Kate. I always ride the line where Javier genuinely have feelings for her, but he doesn't follow through it because these years in the Apocalypse has given him maturity that he didn't have in the past.
Now, I wasn't really mad when during the flashback scenes that Jane hanged herself. If anything, I felt like what it wound happen to her. Now of course, I wished that our choices have better impact, but I kinda expected it would happen like this, so I didn't took it so hard.
As for the runtime. Personally, I never felt like it was too short. The pacing was good and it felt long. Although, it have the same fast pace like Season 2 did, in my opinion, it is done better or at least in a way that I could interact with the characters.
Now, I acknowledge that this game isn't perfect and there are flaws of course. But to me, the most important thing is that I enjoyed my playing these two episodes. It was exciting and intense and I am looking forward to continue to play as Javier and see how his story progress.