A House Divided is underrated
I know people are quick to point out the plot problems and Clementine doing everything but despite that its without a doubt the best of Season 2 and deserving of praise its easily one of my favorites. The story was at it's highest point and the group was faced with hard and deep themes that were present throughout it loss, grief, trust and most of all a villain Carver's introduction was great and he commands attention when on screen. The Cabin Group's characters were explored deeply. I like the depth Luke and Nick got. Now I know Kenny's return was VERY predictable and a lil bit of bull shit and kinda forced but the reunion with Clementine was as emotional as the Season could have got. The story really fell in a downward spirit after this imo
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Underrated? From what I've seen everyone praises this Episode to be the best out of the season. This episode gets tons of praise, so I think its anything but underrated.
Your definition of underrated is strange.
Back when it was released the reaction was very recieved. Some noticable problems mentioned but alot of good discssion about it happened too. Now some including me just moved on waiting for season three, that's why there's not a lot of talk about it these days other than the usual season 2 bantering.
I thought it was cool. The bond formed between Luke and Clem, Kenny's return, Bonnie's appearance, the hostage situation. Definitely a good episode.
It's not underrated. It's just that as people talk more shit about season 2 in general, A House Divided falls into that category of being with season 2 (therefore people not caring about individual episodes and instead just focusing on the season as a whole). Even then though, I've never really seen anyone talk bad about A House Divided other than the Kenny haters who let his return blind their entire judgement of the episode. Again, I think it's far from underrated.
Maybe other places but on these forums many people think its the best of Season 2 (Me included)
This episode got so many people talking even before the thing was released with the "I thought you were dead" line. Compilation videos of the Youtubers seeing Kenny's return were all over place and people were analyzing the shit out of Carver's personality. It was pretty well received from what I've seen. And yes it was a good episode imo.
A House Divided was pretty "meh" honestly. It's not a good sign when the emotional highlight that the episode was building up to was that fuck-face Kenny returning out of thin air to help ruin what could've been an amazing season in a Kenny ex machina "I got lucky" explanation.
Other than that, I can't say I was engaged by any of the central conflict or cared for any of the boring ho-hum cast of expendables that were put in the game to leverage fairly cheap emotional baiting. At least it had one of the coolest Clementine moments. Besides her blowing Kenny away, Clem confidently suggesting killing both walkers, then stealing Luke's kill was pretty damn badass.
I got to agree with what a lot of people are saying here, A House Divided is not really underrated, it's often considered the best episode of Season 2 and is very highly praised not only here on the forum, but pretty much anywhere. Along with the first episode, I rarely see anyone criticize this episode, it's the next three that get the most hate. While No Going Back is my personal favorite, AHD is a close second, it was well written, had difficult choices, had some great character development, and the last like 15 minutes or so of the episode are extremely tense and nerve racking. Overall, I'd say it's considered one of the best of the entire series by a great majority of the people. I'd give it a 9.2/10.
People dislike it mostly because of Kenny.
It's my favorite episode of Season 2.
I was never really sold on the whole Luke/Clem sibling bonding thing.... (after the shed scene with Nick, I was much more interested in bonding with him, but I digress). But other than the turbine thing, and forced friendship with Luke.... yeah, I'll be the first to admit, this was Season 2's best episode. Take that for what its worth.
Really? From what I see, this episode seems to be the fans' favourite of Season Two.
i think its the best episode, it made me like Nick and Sarah and my favorite character from season 1 returned, it also had Walter who should have been the determinant one instead of Alvin IMO
a house divided is far from underrated, people praise it as one of the best episodes of season 2, i think you need to work out in your head what underrated actually is
Yeah, i've been replaying some eps here and there out of boredom. Kenny's return really upped the stakes and brought it up a level imo. I found Luke acting as if we were best buddies on some kind of exciting adventure to be a little bizzare. Nick was also a little more interesting than I remember.
Its more over looked. Its on par with NTL or LRA. Its more deserving of praise than Starved For Help imo but that seems just me
A House Divided wasn't that bad. But not the best of the season. I feel that the first episode "All That Remains" was the strongest and set the season up to a strong start but things really got rocky onward. Like why did Rebecca and Carlos suddenly become more friendly with Clem after scolding her just the night before? Why did Kenny return? How did Kenny return? Why does Ken give the lamest cop out excuse for his reappearance? How could Nick die from one walker that Walter refused to kill, when earlier he fended off several walkers so Clem could escape back to the Cabin while drunk no less from the all the moonshine he drank in the shed overnight? Really each episode had very illogical moments but I think it mostly points to weak writers and severely short episodes. The basic overall synopsis of each episode was great... just the execution was weak along with the characters potential and development not exploited to the maximum as with the first season. And to do all of that would require longer length episodes and very intelligent script. I think the 90 minute play-times worked much better for The Wolf Among Us than The Walking Dead 2. Since the former is more so about interrogation and investigation while the latter is about intense drama between survivors and the audience building a bond trying to relate to some of the characters.
If by underrated you mean the most praised episode of the entire series, then yes. I agree with you.
The wait between episode 2 and 3 was the most exciting period for me, and the best time to be a Telltale fan. The introduction of Carver, Kenny's resurrection, the tragic scene in the van with Uncle Pete, the Clem/Luke banter, and that amazing song "Into the Pines:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nUKhWx95fE
Even so the Dlc IMO was better than every episode of season 2.
I wouldn't say it's the most praised episode, but it's definitely up there.
Y'know something, that's understandable. However, A House Divided is where many of the problems in the season started to rear it's ugly head and was the genesis for why a lot of people (myself included) eventually stopped having nice things to say.
I know you're a Kenny fan, fine. But, his return was pretty ham-fisted and didn't make a whole lot of sense. I love Lee, but I hated that TT dragged him into a ridiculously pretentious "dream sequence" which was so out of nowhere I'm convinced everyone who played it for the first time thought the whole season was a dream making a confusing section more confusing.
Then the group starting to treat an eleven year old like a full stacked 200lb man and asking for her advice on dumb things like what kind of a man Kenny is. The characters started becoming less fleshed out ominous figures that may be a danger to you and they became very generic ho-hum bores that have the lifespan of a jock in a slasher flick.
Not to say it's terrible, just a plethora of goofs, missteps, and oddities beginning to culminate into the final insult "No Going Back."
It was the only episode where I got to tell people I never really liked Kenny, so it's got that as a plus.
Unfortunately the rest of the episodes conveniently forgot I never really liked Kenny.
I agree. You're right and to be honest the events described in the game could never happen in reality because reality is always boring.
If you treat the game as more like fiction, a movie series it may work better for you. So did I, closed my eyes on Clem being a mule/phylosopher/martyr/hero/mother and just let it flow.
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A House Divided was the best TWDG episode to me, and the best Telltale episode until Episode 2 of Tales from the Borderlands. A House Divided had some faults but it had the right mix of everything, from a nice set up for the story, to shared character time with nearly everybody [even if Rebecca suddenly being nice caught me off guard; I was ready for mortal combat with this woman dammit! why'd you take that away from meeee!?!?] but everything within the episode went together really nicely, from the themes of family and trust, to the business with Matthew and how that intertwined with events later with Nick and Walter, and then Carver fucking shit up, giving Kenny big hugs.....getting to sit with Luke....T_T wanting to adopt the Luke.
And also, it was the last one that the credit songs actually fit more or less with the damn episode! I mean it had pines, losing the safety of home, the mood of the song just fit it o_o but then, every song after that episode was just
[Episode 3 credits song]
'Remember meee, wait whooo? Carlos I guess...meh, The Great Escape theme would've be more fitting than this! Gah! I need lyrics or the original I can't understand the smexy voice in this song!'
[Episode 4 credits song]
'The salty tears of stuff and stuff...um, I'm confused, this episode didn't lead me to salty tears of stuff. The theme from Lost would've been the right call, because I'm so lost with where this plot is going! wait, IS IT ABOUT THE RUSSIANS!?'
[Episode 5 credits song]
'Oh, there's no song...damn, all this hype crushing and lame plot twists and they've not even the decency for somebody to randomly to hum, just, something at the end of it all...? Alright whatever then (dances to Happy)'
Anyway enough of that blah blah. A House Divided isn't underrated by me. It was the last episode when things were really really good ಠ_ಠ and thus is painful to rewatch.
A House Divided was one of the best episodes of the entire game (including S1)
I will personally come to the house of anyone that disagrees and beat them up
Bring it.
You are in for a world of HURT
Throw down.
People love this episode. It was Amid the Ruins that was under rated
Let me join you Deltino, and I shall assist in chucking rubber duckies at her! >=D
Amid the Ruins had too many flaws and was looked at as one of Telltale's worse for many reasons. It gets the reception it deserves imo
Amid the Ruins is overrated IMO, because of the fact people actually like it. All the characters i cared about died besides Kenny, we got like a majority of the episode dedicated to Jane (though some would consider it a good thing, i consider it a waste), the ending was pointless, its the episode our choices mattered the least, and the worst part, fucking terrible pacing overall. I lost Nick, Sarah, and Rebecca, Kenny was being downright unreasonable, Jane was shoved down my throat, Luke was an idiot and didn't seem to care about Nick's death, Mike and Bonnie did practically nothing. The only good thing to come out of that episode is AJ, because the world of the walking dead needs more innocence like him.
I agree with basically everything you said except AJ. AJ is a poor plot tool who was used for the group's destruction and a poor one. Him dying would have saved the episode in some aspect. It would be gritty, dark and realistic.