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| Babysitting has never been so stressful. |
It’s been a long and deadly road, but we’ve finally made it to the finale of
The Walking Dead, Season 2. It’s the culmination of all the big questions: How does Clem adapt to increasingly adult responsibilities? How do you know when to stick with the group and when to strike out alone? Is alcohol the solution to dealing with the zombie apocalypse? We wouldn’t blame you if you needed a stiff drink after this one and we’re looking forward to hearing your responses in the comments!
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Show Notes:
- Runtime: 1 hr 3 mins 52 secs
Wait, for two seasons Scott has been evaluating every companion on the basis of how useful they are in a zombie apocalypse, and now he's against Jane (perhaps the single person we've met who's best adapted to coexisting with zombies) and likes babies? That was not what I was expecting.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, here's the, uh, anti-baby take on this episode: newborn babies can't eat solid food for six months or longer. There aren't any nursing mothers in the party; the game has not so far gone into details about the food supplies that people have been surviving on, but I for one have not gotten the impression that there's tons of formula that's still in usable shape. So: A.J. is even more likely to be dead soon than the rest of the party, it's just a matter of time.
Also (and here's something we all agree on): Kenny is an active danger, we need to separate ourselves from him. The thing is, though, he's been incredibly protective / possessive of A.J., even before the baby was born.
So: if Clementine cares mostly about herself, then she should certainly separate from Kenny and probably separate from A.J.; and, for that matter, it will be hard to separate from Kenny while keeping A.J. And if she cares about A.J. (not being a cold unfeeling monster like myself), can she honestly say that A.J. will be more likely to survive being looked after by a 12-year-old kid than by a hyperprotective father? Kenny is all kinds of problems, I don't actually think he'd be a good father for A.J. on any other metric than pure survival, but I'm also not sure any other metric matters.
Given that, it felt to me like the only division that made sense was: Kenny and A.J. go one way, Clementine goes the other way. And she goes the other way with Jane, because Jane actually knows how to coexist with zombies and has already taught her concrete practical skills to that end, and because Clementine does need human contact. In fact, I felt like the game was pushing me so strongly in that direction in the first half of the episode that I got really frustrated by the game's complete refusal to allow matters to turn out that way: the ending created a drama that made no sense to me.
Then again, my Clementine was probably a pretty serious weirdo.
(My overall thoughts on the season: http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2014/09/the-walking-dead-season-two/ )