Thoughts on season 2 writing (spoilers)
I have completed Season 1 more times than I can count. I've completed Walking Dead Michonne three times. I've only completed Season two once and am on episode 4 right now awaiting season 3. In my opinion the writing was very bad in season two and so we're the majority of the characters. I'll explain why with a recap. My friend and I love well written literature and we both have made notes on Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Casino, Pulp Fiction, etc. We both love when art has a good story. I find that we both yell at the TV when we play season 2.
First off the deaths of Omid and Christa were rushed. We barely had any time to bond with them as it was in season 1. The death of Pete, which he had potential, was also rushed. I really wanted to see what his opinions were on Kenny. Episode 1 starts off promising with Clementine trying to survive without Lee. However as we meet the new group things go south quickly. Carlos is a doctor, yet he can't tell the difference between a human and a dog bite. He refuses to help Clementine as that would be a waste of supplies, when she's just a girl. They throw her in a shed, when she could die from infection, then they get upset when she sneaks out to steal the medicine. I don't see why they couldn't help her, then lock her in a room if she wants to stick around or give her a weapon and tell her she can go if she wants. So here is the first error.
The second one is when Nick shoots at Clementine. No one takes his gun away or yells at him enough. Then Carver shows up. He says that he is a neighbor that lives not far from there, implying that Luke and friends are so stupid that they escape from a prison and live in the first house that they see. Next we see them running again to hike up a mountain, believing that the ski resort is invisible to Carver. Nick is given the gun, somehow after the Clem incident, and he causes trouble again. Nick sees his uncle half eaten and is given the gun anyway. There are walkers and no one helps me and Luke, or should I say me as Luke is useless. We meet Matthew and he is nice and kind, then Nick runs up and aims the gun with Clem and Luke in the middle. Now Matthew could have thought that this was an ambush and either shot or killed Luke or Clem. Or we could have been killed by crossfire. He shoots Matthew and the gun is given back to Nick. What the heck ? Then the group suggests that we take his supplies anyway, I guess they are OK with grave robbing. Near a mountain, any walkers would have heard that gunshot for miles, oh but 3 minutes later the group wants to sit down. Then we go up to the lodge and meet Kenny again, Walter, and Sarita.
From the get go, Luke and friends are rude to them and say, drop your guns first on the bench. OK first off Clementine has just announced that she knows Kenny so this group is good. There is no reason to hold guns when you are a guest in a house of people that Clem knows. Next we meet Sarita and Walter, which are amazing characters. They are way nicer than Luke and friends and are also more interesting. Next Rebecca, Alvin, and Carlos are seen upstairs whispering about the possibility of Carver showing up. They should have told Kenny's group that they can watch Clementine as people are chasing them and they don't want to put them in danger. They tell Clem to spy for them, what cowards ? Luke even acts like one when hiding lol. Or they could have established a trap system ambush on the bridge. Then Bonnie shows up and people are chasing them and no one bats an eye lol. Then Luke disappears and leaves us to hang and dry after the gunfight. Then in the compound Bonnie acts like a good friend after it was her fault that we got taken.
Lol, seriously this was bad writing all around and that is because Kirkman wasn't on board for this season. The characters were bad and I wanted to get to know Walter and Matthew longer. Luke and friends are cowards for constantly running and refusing to tell Kenny about the people and putting them in danger. You see in this season, people like Luke and Bonnie get upset by what you do, yet who cares ? Bonnie had her chance to warn us and chickened out. She was stupid in 400 Days anyway.
[Blind Sniper Mod edit: Added paragraphs for better readability...]
Comments
Are you gonna finish this summary? Because I don't wanna make a true comment if there is no real discussion material.
My thoughts on the Season 2 writing is rather mixed. While I definitely prefer Season 1 and regard it as practically a masterpiece, I don't dislike Season 2. In fact, I like it a lot.
Season 2 managed to squeeze in a few choices that, playing blindly, managed to cause panic. Still, I have problems with the choices. While they seem important in the moment, if you choose to replay the game differently, you discover that a few of the choices are rather shallow. The Season 1 choices seemed to impact the story more drastically, and managed to throw in more subtle references. Also, some of the choices weren't exactly end of episode worthy. The holding the baby choice was a little...uh...you know. Still, Season 1 wasn't perfect in these regards either.
I don't think that all of the characters were bland. This is personal opinion of course, but I thought a few were pretty good. Bonnie, Pete, Luke, Jane, Kenny, Sarah, Nick, Walter, Carver (episode 2), and Clementine are characters that I found myself appreciating. Yeah, all of them are arguable. Even if you did find the character themselves to be interesting or likeable, a lot of them had incomplete or plain out disappointing arcs. Season 1 seemed to handle it's characters better, sure, but I don't feel all of them were bad.
As for the plot, there were a few issues. There seemed to be some miscommunication that caused some plot-lines to vanish and others to be rushed. There was a lot of built-up for something that ended up going elsewhere. Still, I didn't think it was awful. Some things were questionable, but I still cared. I maintained interest in the plot, and I enjoyed the ride, despite all its bumps.
Season 2 did have a lot of issues, and you did run through a few of them. A lot of the cast was weaker than that of Season 1. Still, the story and characters managed to keep me deeply engaged. I love a few of these characters that Telltale has created, and I am just so excited to continue my adventure with them. This game has managed to touch me deeply through both of its seasons. I have so much respect for anything that can impact me like this game did.
It seems to me...season 2 had a great start....but lost it's focus. Kenny should not have come back....It diminished his hero exits in season one. The 400 days group...what a missed opportunity....Clementine should have run afoul of Nate....the rest of the 400 group got relegated to cameos...lame. Dunno what the original script was...but something tells me some good ideas got dropped due to politics.
Understatement of the decade, lol.
Not to mention the quality of the second half of this season--Nah I'm kiddin.
HAHAHAHAHAHA-no.
She would've and should've been had they stuck to their f@cking guns and not just give up! Not to mention she is the blatant example of that shit! The one character/plot point screwup that I can't fully forgive/forget because of the septic tank of problems that come with it!
Which reminds me, I was supposed to do something that addressed that and more back when I first joined but it got pushed back thrice..
EDIT:I'm sorry about the rage but this was a hot button topic then and it still kinda is now. Feels good to free the beast, tho.
I was very disappointed with 400 Days. It was overhyped and a wasted opportunity honestly in Season 2. Nick felt like Ben 2.0 to me and I didn't care about his exit, actually I liked that Walter let him die more than his canon death. Much of the cast was a missed opportunity in my opinion. The characters that we hated in season 1 had purpose and many of them we loved to hate. I do agree that Sarah, Jane, and Pete were great characters, yet Pete wasn't in the season long and what a shame. I'm glad that Kenny returned as he was as great as ever. One of my biggest issues with the game was timing and inconsistencies. Everyone loves Arvo and berates Kenny, but why ? Arvo we just met and he almost got us killed and when Kenny is beating him up, Kenny is berated. It was a joke that Bonnie and Mike ditched Clementine and AJ with supplies in fear of Kenny. Kenny always was trying to move forward and the others whined and complained. They were a cast full of Ben doubles and that really made me dislike the season. It had good atmosphere yes, yet everything else was rushed and poorly executed. There also was no character growth. I wanted to get to know Carver longer and to hate him more, he was the main antagonist after all. He is only in one episode for a long period of time and that was a waste. What are your opinions on this season and what are your aspirations for season 3 ?
I loved Season Two , but I do agree that the characterization was pretty shitty. That's its biggest flaw in my opinion. I still love it though because even despite its flaws, it still has enough of what makes the Walking Dead franchise an entertaining and compelling piece of fiction.
Season 2 I'm very ambivalent on. Kenny really saved the season for me. I kind of didn't like Luke's group from the beginning because of how hostile and stupid they could be(seriously you're going to treat a kid like that). I didn't even know Luke was supposed to be the leader until episode 3 I thought it was either Pete or Carlos as they were more dominant and protective unlike coward Luke. The group were really a bunch of idiots that were lucky to have survived that long. Also they spend like three minutes with each character with none of them being bold like in Season 1 so we don't really establish it for long. The group was acting like the apocalypse just happened when it had went on for two years now so they kept arguing with Kenny on things that were obviously what you had to do. (The only thing Kenny did wrong was trying to attack Carver's group in the truck which he didn't even get to do) Clementine and Kenny are really the only great things to come out of season 2. I look forward to Lilly's return in Season 3. Also Sarah had great potential but I guess they just wanted to kill everyone again which would have made a nice change if they hadn't. Jane was good but was also an idiot for making dumb decisions like threatening Arvo, hiding the baby, and having sex with Luke when they had a pregnant lady in labor.
Kenny was always meant to come back. In Season 1 they listed every character that had died as dead, Kenny was listed as lost on purpose. Besides everyone would have died or be stuck in Carver's camp without Kenny.
I liked Season 2, but I did feel by decisions had more of an impact on Season 1 and farther reaching consequences. In my opinion it's realistic to have some meek/bland/cowardly characters, but they were in the majority in Season 2. Kenny was supposed to return as the main antagonist. The way the game was rewritten, he and Carver got shortchanged. Kenny became a nuisance and Carver a not very compelling villain who left us feeling cheated. That said, I did enjoy and relate to certain characters. Rebecca grew on me over time. Jane and Bonnie were likable, if very fallible. Nick and Sarah could have amounted to something. It seems like the Season was an amalgam of ideas that weren't quite cohesive. Had the writers stuck to the original script, the game would likely have been on par with Season 1.
How so? He saved their lives and has been right about every hunch they've had since season 1 (except that a boat would be salvation and that they should attack Carver's group when they got out the truck)
Nope. Kenny was supposed to give you a hard choice in whether to kill a madman who is a good man or let him live and try to change IF he could.
And actually Carver was a reference point into who characters like Clem or Kenny could turn into.
No, she means he was literally supposed to return as the main antagonist.
Nice showing that to me. Informative. It makes sense now. The new writers must not have liked Kenny all that well. It also makes sense that they bunked that idea very early on as he states "When I first heard about Season 2." So it wasn't like a good idea that got put aside or like it should have happened and got scrapped halfway through.
I agree with zombiebonnie here. I liked Season 2. I believe it had many great moments. The discussion between the group in the middle of no-where (Where they lit a fire?), the conversation between Kenny and Clementine in the ski resort and Kenny's monologue to Clementine (Determinant) in Wellington, were in my opinion moments well done. Those moments, and others, is where the writing really shines. However, it also had signs of inconsistent writing, clichés, bad character development and questionable plot pieces. You did name quite a few: The rushed deaths of Omid and Pete, the sudden disappearance of Christa (leaving her fate unknown), Luke's character and motives, the terrible choices of the group, an 11-year old making most decisions (This is excusable because it's a game, if there was no interaction it would just suck in my opinion).. But that's not all. The constant faints and black-outs, the lame jump scares, and funny dialogue just for the sake of having dialogue are also bad points for me.
However, to be honest, I fail to understand the reason you dislike Season 2's writing. Most of what you wrote was about how "stupid" the characters were. In my opinion, it's realistic to have some meek/bland/cowardly/depressive/optimistic characters because:
The issue with the characterization, at least to me, is that Season 2 used a little too much of this technique, almost making it cliché. The only characters I felt were truly smart were Clementine, Carver, Walter and Kenny. The rest were either idiots (In my opinion), or just never proved their intelligence.
To sum it all up, yes, Season 2 has it's flaws. Many, many flaws. But it also has it's charm. It shares some great moments which either bring tears of happiness or a smile to my face. It's a great game, one that's actually quite enjoyable and exquisite, but some of it's concepts were just not well-thought.
I can totally agree with that comment, every character is unique but the game has many clichés as said. Pete was also an interesting character if you think of it, Season 2 is an great Season, and Season 1 is a masterpiece but this doesn't mean that Season 2 sucks because it's worse than the first one.
In the idea of making Kenny the antagonist of the game would make the writing much better and the game would be much more interesting in my opinion (not that I like it, I like Kenny and I'm happy we have an very good relationship.) but just think of it, what would happen if he saw Clementine with the group he was chasing? but nevermind, the game is still good as it is but it could've been much better, this doesn't mean we must hate it.
My thoughts exactly. It wasn't the best, it was inferior compared to Season 1 in my opinion, but that doesn't mean it's bad or we must hate it. It's flawed, but it's enjoyable. Enjoy the game.
By the way, I typed up both for those posts in a bit of a hurry because I had somewhere to be within the next hour. So if there's an excess of emotion or sentences that don't flow properly, that's why.
Back to my comments about Sarah, I was originally planning on doing a topic about her as my first discussion but it got pushed back thrice do to concerns about a biased and narrow topic(much like the Kenny threads), a computer crash that caused me to lose the collected data, and most recently, a computer reset because I forgot to save my data before the computer automatically updated. I'm still on the fence about whether I'm still doing it despite having collected twice as much data within a day, but I suppose I can elaborate on some of that when I make my post here.
By the way, that first gif was deceptively hard to find!
The writers hated Kenny and that is obvious. The group kept saying that Kenny was unstable and crazy, yet he was the only one helping Rebecca with AJ. Would a person losing it still have the mind to care for Clementine, AJ, and the group ? I liked that Bonnie died in the ice. It was fitting that she lived as a coward and died trying to save someone. Everyone always was hating on Kenny, yet he was trying to save everyone. Luke gets caught and says that we should listen to Carver ? Lol. Then everyone says that we shouldn't have left the compound. Mike says that he doesn't like the Confederate coat and I'm speechless. We're trying to keep this baby warm, it's a coat, goodness. Rebecca takes note of what I'm saying, so again no one was helping with the baby except Rebecca and Kenny, so how is he unstable ? It's like the writers were trying to trick us. Bonnie just got us all captured and some killed, let's be her friend. Arvo just got Rebecca killed and nearly killed Luke, and nearly got us all killed, yet he's just a 14 year old boy lol. I could understand all of what they were saying in Russian, they were mocking the group and were the ones that started shooting. Not to mention everyone in the group forgets that except Kenny. Kenny has to find food for the baby and Arvo was taking too long. Arvo shoots Clementine and Mike still leaves with Arvo, he should have been a man and shot Arvo. That was a shoot to kill shot on Clementine. If you pay attention to Jane, she is selfish and all about herself and Kenny was right. Imagine if we had never met Chuck, or Kenny, or Molly. Remember when Lee was cornered in the alleyway and Molly helped him escape ? Now imagine had Lee been alone he would have died. I disagreed with Jane about groups will get you killed, it's that you have to find the right people. Even at Wellington, Kenny is pleading that they take the kids. I've heard that Jane isn't like that at all. Jane placed a baby in a cold car in the winter with walkers everywhere, she put AJ in danger to push Kenny over the edge and like Kenny said she could have ended the fight by saying that AJ is ok. Jane is the type of person that I wouldn't want near me in the apocalypse. What about Luke and Jane doing it which led to the death of Sarah and nearly all of us ? I pretend in my story that they let Kenny in to Wellington as they saw how selfless he is and would make a great member of their group. The writers hated Kenny as he had no solid good ending.
Let me introduce you to a little thing called "The Cassandra." Basically, it implies that a character who is portrayed as being crazy or just plain untrustworthy that goes on and on about something that sounds very unlikely, which causes the other characters to justifiably doubt the validity of their claims, is actually not so far off from the truth and will be proven right in the end. An opposite version of "The Complainer is Always Wrong", this implies that everything said character did in the name of addressing this mythical thing was ultimately for the best and completely justified, no matter how destructive or disruptive.
(By the way, I actually really like this character but I perfectly understand why he is so divisive)
If anything, the Kenny endings are the ultimate proof that the writers cared more about Kenny than anyone else: Jane has been killed by him after she (ironically, successfully) tried to show Clementine how dangerous he can be, Mike and Bonnie are put in a position where their legitimate fears and concerns lose some power because they're taking Arvo and his belongings to safety without stopping to consider the welfare of AJ, Arvo is more forced into being a villain than he should've been because "Kenny said so" despite his submissive nature and ironically becomes embittered because of Kenny's constant and sometimes unnecessary abuse of him, and his biggest detractors Carlos, Nick, and Luke die sudden deaths that are primarily outside of their control. Only Rebecca, who some players never forgave due to her 180 from her bitchy attitude, and Alvin are portrayed in a positive light at this point due to putting her trust in him and being the parents of the baby who would motivate Kenny to behave much more actively aggressive towards friend and foe alike.
Also, when did Luke say we should listen to Carver?
Vitali and Buricko were the ones doing the mocking, not Arvo, whom they also mocked.
How is Mike not shooting Arvo, the sole surviving kid of another group who he tried to protect from Kenny's rage, when he didn't even have a gun not being a man? Goodness, I guess Bonnie had a point after all!
About Jane...no complaints! It might be a little more one-sided, but I got nothing to say.
I strongly disagree. The writers loved Kenny too much, in my opinion.
As @DabigRG was saying, pretty much everything Kenny said was proven right, which is the only reason why you are able to give the reasons to defend him.
They loved Kenny enough to bring him back from season 1 with only a "I got lucky." They loved Kenny enough to recon their original plan to make him an antagonist. They loved Kenny enough to focus most of their energy on developing him as a character for a second time, energy that should have been spent developing any number of their other original supporting characters, or hell, even their protagonist Clementine. They loved Kenny enough to give him a tragic ending no matter what you choose. Happy endings do not determine how much a writer prefers a character, thoughtful endings do. It's why Lee died in a jewelry store and didn't live happily ever after. And arguably Kenny has the best ending of everyone, able to redeem his whole character at the last minute, unless you left him or shot him after killing Jane.
In my opinion they absolutely had too much of a bias towards him. They made the whole group against him so that you would feel bad for doing against him too.
Which could be seen as ironic, considering that some players would still find Kenny behaving more as an antagonist would in the final product.
Sorry to be pedantic, but we don't really know if it was their original plan. For all we know, that idea never got further than a post-it note during a meeting. Gavin Hammon said that that was one of the first things he heard about S2, which likely means that it was early in development at the time.
Yeah, I knew it was an early thing, and I was debating whether or not to include that in my argument. It's not my main point, I'm still pointing to what's portrayed in the finished game, but it's an extra thing that to me contrasts so heavily against the final version of a selfless man that tearfully sacrifices his happiness and well-being for the good of two children.
I disagree here. They brought Kenny back to remind us of the past, yet he wasn't well liked by the other characters for zero reasons and he was always written to be the bad guy in the group. I would like to take note that Season 2 was a disappointment in my eyes, yet it wasn't a bad game or an awful game. The game was a reminder that Kirkman needs to write Season 3 and I'm glad that he is. Season 2 was overhyped and had inconsistencies one after the other. This is my opinion. I still love Tell Tale and I'm a new member that is happy to be here. Walking Dead Season 1 got me into Tell Tale.
...Was this directed at me?
Agreed.
This was more like he was a loose cannon who the others had a hard time dealing with: Kenny was always a character who always spoke his mind, was quick to take action, and "did what he had to do" in order to take care of those he considers his family. This just made him an odd man out on several things and caused some of the other characters, namely Luke, Nick, Carlos, and Jane, to butt heads with him on occasion. However, he was also just trying to help most of the time and this meant that while most of the characters didn't get along with him, they still cared enough to worry about his welfare. Plus, he was liked by Sarita, Walter, and Mike despite their contrasting personalities. The bad guy part didn't really become relevant until the final episode, which even then I always just saw it as his emotions getting too out of control and him trying too hard to save the day.
This man speaks da truth! Which is part of the reason 400 Days isn't that important to me.
Who says that Luke is the leader of the cabin group, though?
He might have been the one who impulsed them to escape Howe's Hardware, but to me it's clear that the leadership, like you said, was shared by Carlos and Pete, and the group also held regular house meetings in which they discussed other matters.
I thought S2 was amazing and on par with S1. The points you have on why it was bad I completely disagree with. Pete's death was rushed? The guy had a whole intro dedicated to him. You could see him trying his darnist to keep his shit together as he knew he was dying. The guy got a proper way of saying goodbye, which is more than a lot of other TWD characters can say. Omid and Christa leaving so soon was fine. Omid dying early on just made TT remind us all that life still sucks in TWD and bad things will continue to happen out of our control. A lot of your negative points can be easily explained, but you have far too many gripes. Perhaps this game just isn't meant for you.
Agreed.
I like to look at it this way: for all the deaths we got in S2, and the rather... mixed reception some of them got, Pete probably got one of the best and most memorable deaths of the season. Even if it happened early, at least it wasn't an off-panel death like Nick's, or an abrupt one like Omid's, Carlos' or Rebecca's. You could argue that characters that had more time in the spotlight than Pete got less memorable deaths than him. So maybe, in a weird way, it was actually a good thing he didn't last that long.
I don't quite remember but characters in the game state Luke was the leader in the beginning of episode 3 and they also heavily imply it. They had left Carver's group because Luke was always butting heads with Carver and in the meeting discussion it seemed liked they always wanted Luke's opinion the most. When Clem says "But what if they don't want me here." Luke says "Well they'll have to deal with it." As if he's some leader. When you sit at either table. (Even though I always immediately pick Kenny's) It says "Sit with Luke." So I assumed that's what he was supposed to be. Either way it doesn't matter Carlos would be an even worse leader.
i think it was really bad. very inconsistent and characters would change their personalities every episode... probably cuz they had different writer for every episode.
That's just how Kenny is. He's grown as a character and is the only one who has that you can see clearly why. Pitting Kenny against Clementine would never have worked so they opted for pitting his rashness his stubbornness against Clementine, show how dangerous he is for her. They didn't make Kenny the antagonist, they made his characteristics, along with Jane's and Carver's the antagonist. This is a game about who Clementine will become and how she'll change. It's why they put "sometimes you need to kill the one to save the rest of your group" Carver's line against Lee's "sometimes you need to protect those you care about even if it means hurting someone else." When they made Kenny the problem in the group it wasn't so you would feel sorry for him, it was so you would get why he "needed" to be put down and for reinforcement on "shoot Kenny" or "look away." Guess which one sounds like the heroic, the right, the stronger thing to pick? Shoot Kenny does. Not only does it sound like you're helping Kenny out of his misery it also sounds like you're saving someone else's life. So, no, they weren't biased towards Kenny or "loved" Kenny so much this was all development for Clementine.
Which is it? Make up your mind.
Wait. You do know happy endings can be thoughtful as well right? One adjective doesn't necessarily cancel out any others.
You know, S1 had different writers for different episodes as well. This isn't something that was exclusive to S2.
Yeah, exactly, the adjectives don't cancel each other out. I never said happy endings can't be thoughtful. I just said happy endings don't necessarily show a bias towards a character, but thoughtful endings do. If it's happy AND thoughtful then it's still thoughtful.
And in the same vein of adjectives, "tragic" ending and "best" endings also doesn't cancel each other out either. I thought season 1 had the best ending, but it was tragic. There isn't anything I need to make my mind up over.
The difference is that Pete had time to show his responsible personality and gets some time to have a heart to heart with Clementine. While his death was technically a plot device for Nick's character arc, we got time to know him before he interacted with Nick and was clearly capable of being his own character.
Sarita, aside from some brief kinship with Sarah, Clementine, and Matthew, unfortunately didnt get to be anything but Kenny's kind but stern girlfriend and mental anchor. Her role in the already bare boned Episode 3 has her reign in, support, and stand up for Kenny before acting as a medium to contrast and show his and determinately Clementine's ruthlessness.
I loved season two warts and all...but yeah...hopefully there is a more single mind idea for the basic storyline instead of going off the rails.
You've got a point.
You were saying best ending as if he made it out okay and happy as in he had the best case and then said all his endings were tragic that's what I meant. Because clearly you didn't mean best as in you liked it the best. Because happy and tragic ARE adjectives that cancel each other out.
That was not at all what I said. I said best because he was able to redeem himself, despite being tragic. I meant best in the sense that it was most thoughtful, narrative-wise. Funny enough I did like the "Stay in Wellington" ending the best, especially against Jane's two endings, which to me we were not as thoughtful and showed me that the writers preferred Kenny over Jane (I mean, Kenny can have a whole speech before he dies but Jane just... dies).
The argument I'm making here is not that I didn't like Kenny's endings, it's that they show writers bias towards his character.
EDIT: I just saw your addition.
I am having a really hard time figuring out t where you think I ever said Kenny's endings are happy. I think you're confusing my usage of "best" to mean happy when I meant "best" to be closer to thoughtful. And like we established, thoughtful and happy aren't always the same thing.