Was anyone else disappointed with Season 3's ending? (SPOILERS)

edited March 2012 in Sam & Max
Let me just start by saying that while I haven't posted much, I love Sam and Max. Some episodes (S1E4, S1E5, and S2E4 especially) were just brilliant. I also loved Season 3.

Until I got to the ending that is.

I had two major problems with it.

1. Max went completely out of character. After Max has been built up as evil for the entire series, it's not believable that he would die just so Sybil wouldn't have to give birth outside of a hospital. I don't think Max would even care if Sybil died, honestly.

2. Girl Stinky died despite the fact that she's alive in the future. This was a pretty glaring plot hole.


The worst part about it though is that I can SEE a brilliant ending in Season 3. Had they not made those mistakes, I would want that to be the finale of everything Sam and Max, just because of how beautiful an ending it would have been.

#1 could have easily been fixed if it were Sam who Max died for instead of Sybil. Sam is the only person I think Max would die for, and it would still get across the point that Max isn't completely irredeemable.

So yeah, thoughts?
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Comments

  • edited April 2011
    It was a shocker, certainly, but I don't know whether it was really a good or bad ending for me.
  • edited April 2011
    Let me just start by saying that I haven't posted much, I love Sam and Max. Some episodes (S1E4, S1E5, and S2E4 especially) were just brilliant. I also loved Season 3.

    Until I got to the ending that is.

    I had two major problems with it.

    1. Max went completely out of character. After Max has been built up as evil for the entire series, it's not believable that he would die just so Sybil wouldn't have to give birth outside of a hospital. I don't think Max would even care if Sybil died, honestly.

    2. Girl Stinky died despite the fact that she's alive in the future. This was a pretty glaring plot hole.


    The worst part about it though is that I can SEE a brilliant ending in Season 3. Had they not made those mistakes, I would want that to be the finale of everything Sam and Max, just because of how beautiful an ending it would have been.

    #1 could have easily been fixed if it were Sam who Max died for instead of Sybil. Sam is the only person I think Max would die for, and it would still get across the point that Max isn't completely irredeemable.

    So yeah, thoughts?

    We never see Stinky alive in the future. All we know is it's a girl stinky, not THE Girl Stinky.

    Also, you clearly do not understand the concept of character development.
  • edited April 2011
    To my understanding, it was not quite Max just dying to save Sybil. From what I could gather, Max ID understood that he was going to die soon anyway. It wasn't the nuke to the chest that did him in, it was actually that his head was going to catch on fire and explode. When Sam and the others get out, Max's head immediately goes out in flames, then he gets the nuke to the chest, and then he teleports himself out to space. So what he does is not sacrifice himself, but actually STOP trying to destroy the west coast of the USA when he goes out (which was Ego's original plan).
  • edited April 2011
    Let me just start by saying that I haven't posted much, I love Sam and Max. Some episodes (S1E4, S1E5, and S2E4 especially) were just brilliant. I also loved Season 3.

    Until I got to the ending that is.

    I had two major problems with it.

    1. Max went completely out of character. After Max has been built up as evil for the entire series, it's not believable that he would die just so Sybil wouldn't have to give birth outside of a hospital. I don't think Max would even care if Sybil died, honestly.

    2. Girl Stinky died despite the fact that she's alive in the future. This was a pretty glaring plot hole.


    The worst part about it though is that I can SEE a brilliant ending in Season 3. Had they not made those mistakes, I would want that to be the finale of everything Sam and Max, just because of how beautiful an ending it would have been.

    #1 could have easily been fixed if it were Sam who Max died for instead of Sybil. Sam is the only person I think Max would die for, and it would still get across the point that Max isn't completely irredeemable.

    So yeah, thoughts?

    No, Max isn't evil his alter ego is
  • edited April 2011
    The ID isn't 'evil' per say just an expression of a person's most base desires. Max had been developing a little bit over the entire season (or so I felt).
  • edited April 2011
    The first episode already dealed with predefined future. I assume the future in 204 was like the future visions what could happen not what will happen in the future.
  • edited April 2011
    I wasn't disappointed, because the ending broke my tiny little heart. If a game can do that, it's noteworthy.
    1. Max went completely out of character. After Max has been built up as evil for the entire series, it's not believable that he would die just so Sybil wouldn't have to give birth outside of a hospital. I don't think Max would even care if Sybil died, honestly.

    BUT, Max isn't evil. Not strictly evil, atleast. He acts like he doesn't care, but he does save the world an awful lot for not caring. Season 3 even has him actively saving the world on his own at times. He may use the Toys of Power for... stupid purposes, but he doesn't use them for evil. (Hey, if it was up to me, I'd be using those Powers for Stupid more than for Good, lol.)

    And, as crfh explained, he doesn't die just to save Sybil, he dies to save everybody (including Sam). Saving Sybil wasn't his only goal, although it was probably emphasized to make it seem that way, because Max dying to save someone other than Sam is more unexpected.
  • edited April 2011
    This whole Stinky alive in the future could prompt an idea for Season 4 - Sam and Max could end up in the future once more and have to figure out whether it is the real girl Stinky or some imposter...
  • edited April 2011
    Ribs wrote: »
    Also, you clearly do not understand the concept of character development.

    There's a difference between character development and someone going out of character.

    Development has to be believable, and I didn't believe Max would do what he did.
    crfh wrote: »
    To my understanding, it was not quite Max just dying to save Sybil. From what I could gather, Max ID understood that he was going to die soon anyway. It wasn't the nuke to the chest that did him in, it was actually that his head was going to catch on fire and explode. When Sam and the others get out, Max's head immediately goes out in flames, then he gets the nuke to the chest, and then he teleports himself out to space. So what he does is not sacrifice himself, but actually STOP trying to destroy the west coast of the USA when he goes out (which was Ego's original plan).

    IIRC, they were trying to save Max by getting rid of the tumor when he told them to help Sybil instead. His death wasn't inevitable, and if he had been saved he wouldn't have continued to attack the town anyway.

    The fact is that Max being selfish was emphasized again and again throughout the series. I didn't get the impression that Sybil was someone Max particularly cared about, so it seemed strange that he would die for her. There was only one character who Max actually seemed to care about at all - Sam.
    skullbank wrote: »
    BUT, Max isn't evil. Not strictly evil, atleast. He acts like he doesn't care, but he does save the world an awful lot for not caring. Season 3 even has him actively saving the world on his own at times. He may use the Toys of Power for... stupid purposes, but he doesn't use them for evil. (Hey, if it was up to me, I'd be using those Powers for Stupid more than for Good, lol.)

    I was under the impression that Sam and Max only save the world because they have fun doing so.
  • edited April 2011
    I was under the impression that Sam and Max only save the world because they have fun doing so.

    True, but they could have just as much fun aiding villains, or being villains. And they choose not to. The choices characters make (especially under pressure) are what define their characterization.
  • edited April 2011
    There is a line from Surfin' the Highway that I believe covers Sam and Max' motivations perfectly.
    Sam: Crime is a disease and we're a pink chalky-tasting medicine!
  • edited April 2011
    1. Max went completely out of character. After Max has been built up as evil for the entire series, it's not believable that he would die just so Sybil wouldn't have to give birth outside of a hospital. I don't think Max would even care if Sybil died, honestly.

    Max isn't evil, just...chaotic. Steve Purcell's always insisted that despite their sociopathic tendencies, the Freelance Police are good at heart. They're not the type to, say, assault innocents for no reason.

    And it's not that he was dying for Sybil. He was going to die no matter what, and he didn't want the people inside of him (Sam is there too, remember) to get killed as well.
    2. Girl Stinky died despite the fact that she's alive in the future. This was a pretty glaring plot hole.

    Sam and Max has always been firmly anti-continuity. While the Telltale episodes have reversed the trend, continuity can still be sacrificed for the sake of a joke.

    If you want an in-universe explanation, Sam and Max constantly messing with the timeline has caused the future seen in Chariots of the Dogs to never happen. On the bright side, though, this means Sam won't be a delirious old man in Davros' wheelchair.
  • edited April 2011
    I personally loved the ending. It is almost poetry, and it is difficult obtain such effect with the death of one character.

    Beside I loved the idea of the alternative universe where is Sam that gains the powers and Max is forced to blow him up.

    - Let's fight crime? (draws Lugan)
    - Let's.
  • edited April 2011
    Max isn't evil, just...chaotic. Steve Purcell's always insisted that despite their sociopathic tendencies, the Freelance Police are good at heart. They're not the type to, say, assault innocents for no reason.

    And it's not that he was dying for Sybil. He was going to die no matter what, and he didn't want the people inside of him (Sam is there too, remember) to get killed as well.

    I thought that they were about to change him back to normal and stop him from dying?
    Sam and Max has always been firmly anti-continuity. While the Telltale episodes have reversed the trend, continuity can still be sacrificed for the sake of a joke.

    If you want an in-universe explanation, Sam and Max constantly messing with the timeline has caused the future seen in Chariots of the Dogs to never happen. On the bright side, though, this means Sam won't be a delirious old man in Davros' wheelchair.

    One thing I liked about Telltale's Sam and Max stuff was that the continuity was surprisingly good. At the very least when they wanted to retcon something they would give a half assed explanation for it (like when the internet died but then came back).
  • edited April 2011
    I think that there was simply no time for that. Ego says he was going to perform the surgery, but before it can be complete, Big Max's head caught on fire. The nukes were due in 3 minutes. A nuke hits Max in the chest. He waves goodbye and leaves.

    If Max's friends weren't out by that moment, they would have been teleported into Skunkape's ship and killed. That means Sybil, Paperwaite, Norrington... and Sam.
  • edited April 2011
    Even so, I'm not sure Max knew he'd explode so soon, and he did say "Save Sybil" instead of something like "Get out and save yourselves".
  • FlyFly
    edited April 2011
    I saw the point of the scene as showing that Max is just as capable of acts of random goodness and kindness as he is of random evil and mayhem. He's all id - I don't buy that he rationalised the act at all. He just arbitrarily decided to Save Sybil, and so for that moment all he could think about was saving Sybil, and it came from the same thought processes that lead to him arbitrarily deciding to torture someone. Max isn't good or bad, or even selfish or unselfish. He's just impulse.

    There's a little bit of this characterisation in the comics, in Beast from the Cereal Isle (which I'd guess is the main influence on Devil's Playhouse). Right at the end of the story, a kid falls off the Beast, and Max, without breaking conversation, catches him and sets him back on the ride. He's not really paying attention to what he's doing - he just instinctively decided to help the kid, and so he did.
  • edited April 2011
    I don't agree with the people that says he doesn't care about Sybil. When the Toy Mafia puts a hit on her, Max no only worries about not killing her. He even goes as far as to object when Sam says they gotta convince her to stop being a "professional witness". Max says then she'd lose her job.

    Max is a freelance police because he likes mayhem, but he likes a free card to do it. It's not just randomly hurting people, or at least not always. Somewhere under those fuzzy ears lie some scruples, and so he justifies his admittedly over-the-top violence because he's inflicting in what he perceives to be bad people, or with a "end justifies the means" policy.
  • edited April 2011
    Fly wrote: »
    I saw the point of the scene as showing that Max is just as capable of acts of random goodness and kindness as he is of random evil and mayhem. He's all id - I don't buy that he rationalised the act at all. He just arbitrarily decided to Save Sybil, and so for that moment all he could think about was saving Sybil, and it came from the same thought processes that lead to him arbitrarily deciding to torture someone. Max isn't good or bad, or even selfish or unselfish. He's just impulse.

    There's a little bit of this characterisation in the comics, in Beast from the Cereal Isle (which I'd guess is the main influence on Devil's Playhouse). Right at the end of the story, a kid falls off the Beast, and Max, without breaking conversation, catches him and sets him back on the ride. He's not really paying attention to what he's doing - he just instinctively decided to help the kid, and so he did.
    crfh wrote: »
    I don't agree with the people that says he doesn't care about Sybil. When the Toy Mafia puts a hit on her, Max no only worries about not killing her. He even goes as far as to object when Sam says they gotta convince her to stop being a "professional witness". Max says then she'd lose her job.

    Max is a freelance police because he likes mayhem, but he likes a free card to do it. It's not just randomly hurting people, or at least not always. Somewhere under those fuzzy ears lie some scruples, and so he justifies his admittedly over-the-top violence because he's inflicting in what he perceives to be bad people, or with a "end justifies the means" policy.

    It's weird seeing two slightly differentiating viewpoints of a character side-by-side that I both wholeheartedly agree with.

    On topic, though, I wasn't really disappointed at all, the reasons having pretty much already been discussed in this topic. With Stinky's death, much like the use of Future Vision, her future success is pretty much a possible timeline. Plus, didn't Sam and Max screw that future over with their tar cake patent shenanigans, or was that just the adhesive? Eh.

    Whilst Max's character is difficult to pin down at times, I can't classify him as evil. He will act on id most of the time, and mainly seems to act in his own best interests, but in the grand scheme of things, he's not out to destroy the world - otherwise he'd have done so already. :/ But yeah, while the "Save Sybil" was out of character for him, I thought it was plausible enough, considering the severity of that situation.
  • edited April 2011
    Dammit, I wanted to weigh in on the discussion but I recall far too little of the plot to make sense of what you are talking about! I guess I have to replay the season (or at least the last episode) to go into details.

    However, even if I don't recall the particulars, I do remember that I very much enjoyed season 3, including the dramatic ending, which I feel compelled to point out with all the complaining going on in the forums.

    (Also, I don't think Max can be described as particularly good or evil: he seems mostly amoral. I don't think it was out of character for him to save somebody he liked; it seemed like something he might do on a whim.)
  • edited April 2011
    The ending definitely could have been better
  • edited April 2011
    Fly wrote: »
    I saw the point of the scene as showing that Max is just as capable of acts of random goodness and kindness as he is of random evil and mayhem. He's all id - I don't buy that he rationalised the act at all. He just arbitrarily decided to Save Sybil, and so for that moment all he could think about was saving Sybil, and it came from the same thought processes that lead to him arbitrarily deciding to torture someone. Max isn't good or bad, or even selfish or unselfish. He's just impulse.

    There's a little bit of this characterisation in the comics, in Beast from the Cereal Isle (which I'd guess is the main influence on Devil's Playhouse). Right at the end of the story, a kid falls off the Beast, and Max, without breaking conversation, catches him and sets him back on the ride. He's not really paying attention to what he's doing - he just instinctively decided to help the kid, and so he did.

    This is a good explanation, actually.

    I was still disappointed by that part of the ending, but your interpretation helps.
  • edited April 2011
    Well, ended on a Deus Ex Machina, which isn't necessarily inappropriate for the series. The whole credit sequence forcing us to accept that the Max we've followed up to now is truly dead -- that was a deeper punch in the gut than one would expect from a so-far comical series. A good Season 4 might make up for it, but lacking that Sam and Max is closing on a sour note that recolors the entire trilogy.
  • edited April 2011
    Well, ended on a Deus Ex Machina, which isn't necessarily inappropriate for the series. The whole credit sequence forcing us to accept that the Max we've followed up to now is truly dead -- that was a deeper punch in the gut than one would expect from a so-far comical series. A good Season 4 might make up for it, but lacking that Sam and Max is closing on a sour note that recolors the entire trilogy.

    TTG injected a heart-crushing downer of a dramatic ending into absolutely the wrong game series. It was terribly out of character for the Sam & Max games and fiction, and to be honest, I'm very wary about playing any future TTG S&M games.
  • edited April 2011
    I thought the ending rocked.
  • edited April 2011
    I wasn't disappointed with the ending's theme itself. Both Sam and Max received quite a bit of character development throughout this season, Max in particular going through the usual "with great power comes great responsibility" deal. A sacrificial ending seemed fitting. Unfortunately, it still seemed a bit shaky and way too deus ex machina, even for Sam & Max. Maybe it was the lack of a climactic final showdown, what with the 'main villain' doing a complete 180 right at the very end. I dunno, I just felt better about Episode 4's ending, before Max became all monstery, of course. Seemed much more in line with Sam and Max in general.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited April 2011
    Some of my favorite bits in the Sam & Max comics are when Sam and Max are super threatened or get separated and lose each other (both happen a few times in Monkeys Violating the Heavenly Temple, Auntie Alice genuinely freaked me out in On the Road, and obviously Max getting zapped into oblivion in Bad Day on the Moon is the textbook example), and most of the stories end with crazy deus ex machinas (the cult leader spontaneously combusting saves them from volcano sacrifice in Monkeys Violating the Heavenly Temple, Squiddo our octopus pal comes out of the sea and saves them from the pirates in On the Road, the Rubber Pants Commandos crash through the ceiling in Night of the Gilded Heron Shark to save Sam & Max from Mack Salmon, to name a few) -- when there are bits of contrast like that, of genuine fear or genuine loss, it makes all the regular flippant Sam & Max stuff resonate a lot more strongly to me, and the deus ex machinas are just trademark Sam & Max storytelling -- so I was beyond pleased that we could close the season out with a big version of both those things.

    It felt like a valid choice to me since, at least in my experience playing it, the season ended up dealing a lot with the nature of Sam & Max's friendships, and accidentally with their personalities underneath their veneer (303 for whatever faults it had, I thought did a great job with that, with the first half of the episode focusing on Sam without Max, and the second half including a lot of Max having to be self reliant for the first time). I don't know how on purpose that was, but it ended up coming up again and again in the season, so closing on a big version of that felt like an okay thing to do. I think we expected it to play as more over the top/gratuitous than it did, though, as a lot of people were bothered by it either positively (as in, were genuinely emotionally effected by it, which wasn't expected*), or negatively (felt that we didn't earn it**, or that it was inappropriate, or a cop out), but I'm still proud that we made the choice to go for it.


    * but which is okay!

    ** also a totally fair opinion to have!
  • edited April 2011
    TTG injected a heart-crushing downer of a dramatic ending into absolutely the wrong game series. It was terribly out of character for the Sam & Max games and fiction, and to be honest, I'm very wary about playing any future TTG S&M games.

    That was what made it so powerful and moving. I'm sorry, maybe you just can't take emotional storytelling, but it was beautiful.
    Let me just start by saying that while I haven't posted much, I love Sam and Max. Some episodes (S1E4, S1E5, and S2E4 especially) were just brilliant. I also loved Season 3.

    Until I got to the ending that is.

    I had two major problems with it.

    1. Max went completely out of character. After Max has been built up as evil for the entire series, it's not believable that he would die just so Sybil wouldn't have to give birth outside of a hospital. I don't think Max would even care if Sybil died, honestly.

    2. Girl Stinky died despite the fact that she's alive in the future. This was a pretty glaring plot hole.


    The worst part about it though is that I can SEE a brilliant ending in Season 3. Had they not made those mistakes, I would want that to be the finale of everything Sam and Max, just because of how beautiful an ending it would have been.

    #1 could have easily been fixed if it were Sam who Max died for instead of Sybil. Sam is the only person I think Max would die for, and it would still get across the point that Max isn't completely irredeemable.

    So yeah, thoughts?

    The future changed. When does that happen? Time travel. I'm thinking Skunkape is from some distant future, and he used time travel to return to a point where the toys of power were still intact and obtainable. It's a theory, and it doesn't solve anything, but you know. A possibility. This caused most of the events of Season 3 when you think about it.
  • edited April 2011
    Truskenite wrote: »
    A sacrificial ending seemed fitting. Unfortunately, it still seemed a bit shaky and way too deus ex machina, even for Sam & Max.

    Yeah, I don't agree with that, for reasons that Jake has listed through. If anything a sacrificial ending may come too clichéd and maybe too subtle (any subtlety in a Sam and Max storyline is too much) as a whole, to be used in a game related to Sam and Max. I can also say the deus ex machina was implemented TOO good and actually did make sense, which is ironically a bad thing for THIS franchise, I guess.

    I had no big problems with the ending though. The whole main storyline just made more sense than the ones we sat through in previous seasons, except for the Girl Stinky subplot which was... Okay well, Girl Stinky subplot may be classified as a Sam&Max-ish storytelling, with all loose ends and weird revealizations. The problem with THAT is; it was like that UNINTENTIONALLY, and storyline itself was too busy getting adjusted into the sensible direction (yes, I just called a mermaid going out with a giant cockroach SENSIBLE) instead of using the joke opportunities OR better yet; going for creating joke opportunities -like Sam and Max always did for, like, uh, always.
  • edited April 2011
    2. Girl Stinky died despite the fact that she's alive in the future. This was a pretty glaring plot hole.

    I believe that Skunkape clones himself, girl stinky, and I'm guessing SamunMak; (possibly Sal) sometime in the future. I got that from this
  • edited April 2011
    It's not like Sam and Max is the kind of super serious setting where it would be that difficult for them to bring Girl Stinky back somehow.
  • edited April 2011
    The ending was awesome in all fronts.
  • edited April 2011
    That was what made it so powerful and moving. I'm sorry, maybe you just can't take emotional storytelling, but it was beautiful.

    The expectation of snide insults like this is exactly why I didn't comment on the ending when the game came out.

    I can definitely take emotional storytelling. I just don't tune into Sam & Max to get it. I tune into Sam & Max for chaotic, irreverent slapstick and high-speed absurdity.

    Telltale's otherwise done a good job of infusing an actual, gripping plot into the episodes without losing touch with the spirit of S&M, but the end of season three, IMHO, strayed too far from the tone which is the entire appeal of Sam & Max.
  • edited April 2011
    But why is it out of place? I take the comics as the basic Sam and Max canon, and there HAVE been serious moments there, even if they have been brief. The emotional aspect of the ending was not over the top, corny, or excessively melodramatic.
  • edited April 2011
    Jake wrote: »
    I don't know how on purpose that was, but it ended up coming up again and again in the season, so closing on a big version of that felt like an okay thing to do. I think we expected it to play as more over the top/gratuitous than it did, though, as a lot of people were bothered by it either positively (as in, were genuinely emotionally effected by it, which wasn't expected*), or negatively (felt that we didn't earn it**, or that it was inappropriate, or a cop out), but I'm still proud that we made the choice to go for it.

    The ending is something that elevates the game to the best Sam&Max game IMHO.
    So deeply emotional, asbolutely poetic, and not usual.
    Thank you TT for this.
  • edited April 2011
    Jake wrote: »
    Some of my favorite bits in the Sam & Max comics are when Sam and Max are super threatened or get separated and lose each other (both happen a few times in Monkeys Violating the Heavenly Temple, Auntie Alice genuinely freaked me out in On the Road, and obviously Max getting zapped into oblivion in Bad Day on the Moon is the textbook example), and most of the stories end with crazy deus ex machinas (the cult leader spontaneously combusting saves them from volcano sacrifice in Monkeys Violating the Heavenly Temple, Squiddo our octopus pal comes out of the sea and saves them from the pirates in On the Road, the Rubber Pants Commandos crash through the ceiling in Night of the Gilded Heron Shark to save Sam & Max from Mack Salmon, to name a few) -- when there are bits of contrast like that, of genuine fear or genuine loss, it makes all the regular flippant Sam & Max stuff resonate a lot more strongly to me, and the deus ex machinas are just trademark Sam & Max storytelling -- so I was beyond pleased that we could close the season out with a big version of both those things.

    It felt like a valid choice to me since, at least in my experience playing it, the season ended up dealing a lot with the nature of Sam & Max's friendships, and accidentally with their personalities underneath their veneer (303 for whatever faults it had, I thought did a great job with that, with the first half of the episode focusing on Sam without Max, and the second half including a lot of Max having to be self reliant for the first time). I don't know how on purpose that was, but it ended up coming up again and again in the season, so closing on a big version of that felt like an okay thing to do. I think we expected it to play as more over the top/gratuitous than it did, though, as a lot of people were bothered by it either positively (as in, were genuinely emotionally effected by it, which wasn't expected*), or negatively (felt that we didn't earn it**, or that it was inappropriate, or a cop out), but I'm still proud that we made the choice to go for it.


    * but which is okay!

    ** also a totally fair opinion to have!

    I wasn't bothered by the choice to be dramatic (though some other people were), I think for the most part things were handled quite well in Season 3.

    It's just that a couple things (particularly the fact that Max died for Sybil of all people) bothered me.

    I think I just get upset when something comes so close to being brilliant but is held back by a couple little things.

    Anyway, I'm kind of surprised someone from Telltale posted to give such a humble response.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited April 2011
    I wasn't bothered by the choice to be dramatic (though some other people were), I think for the most part things were handled quite well in Season 3.

    It's just that a couple things (particularly the fact that Max died for Sybil of all people) bothered me.

    I think I just get upset when something comes so close to being brilliant but is held back by a couple little things.

    Anyway, I'm kind of surprised someone from Telltale posted to give such a humble response.

    I think part of your issue with all of it might be that you're reading Max as being "evil" for the whole series. Was that the case? To me it seemed like Max was being built up as a force which could destroy itself and those near it; so, a strong damaging force yes, but not necessarily a malevolent or malicious one. Maybe that's too nuanced, or I'm totally off base? I don't know.

    The way I see Max at least, I know he revels in screwing with people, and that he's generally just a bundle of id, but I don't think he ever wants to hurt people if he thinks they don't deserve it. He'll ploink a purse snatcher in the eyes and pull out a clump of his hair and maybe an eyebrow, but the lady who was being robbed won't suffer a scratch. (She may suffer the unshakeable trauma of watching a crazy 3 foot tall lagomorph leap into the air, scream "booga booga!" and turn some dude inside out (metaphorically speaking), and Max might get some glee from that knowledge, but that would be the extent of it.)

    Maybe the turn at the end of 305 was too abrupt (though it was deliberately abrupt, it may have gone too far), I think it still played fair, in that while Max is always a chaotic force of destruction and general gnawing on things, he's always aimed more or less in the direction of Justice and Truth and Stopping Bad Guys (or at least whoever falls into his personal definition of People Who Deserve It). When Sam says "there's still some of Max in there, I know it," he's quoting Star Wars, but also I think he's right -- the Max he knows wouldn't blow up a friend, unless they were really asking for it. I don't know why Sybil in particular was chosen, other than the fact that she was the last one talking (and has a baby), but I was personally glad that a specific non-Sam character was chosen. We all know Max will save Sam. Max giving a crap about anyone else makes it a more interesting test. Again, maybe "a more interesting test" makes it less "Sam & Max," but I was glad it went somewhere unexpected, even if it didn't fully work for everyone.
  • edited April 2011
    Jake wrote: »
    I think part of your issue with all of it might be that you're reading Max as being "evil" for the whole series. Was that the case? To me it seemed like Max was being built up as a force which could destroy itself and those near it; so, a strong damaging force yes, but not necessarily a malevolent or malicious one. Maybe that's too nuanced, or I'm totally off base? I don't know.

    The way I see Max at least, I know he revels in screwing with people, and that he's generally just a bundle of id, but I don't think he ever wants to hurt people if he thinks they don't deserve it. He'll ploink a purse snatcher in the eyes and pull out a clump of his hair and maybe an eyebrow, but the lady who was being robbed won't suffer a scratch. (She may suffer the unshakeable trauma of watching a crazy 3 foot tall lagomorph leap into the air, scream "booga booga!" and turn some dude inside out (metaphorically speaking), and Max might get some glee from that knowledge, but that would be the extent of it.)

    Maybe the turn at the end of 305 was too abrupt (though it was deliberately abrupt, it may have gone too far), I think it still played fair, in that while Max is always a chaotic force of destruction and general gnawing on things, he's always aimed more or less in the direction of Justice and Truth and Stopping Bad Guys (or at least whoever falls into his personal definition of People Who Deserve It). When Sam says "there's still some of Max in there, I know it," he's quoting Star Wars, but also I think he's right -- the Max he knows wouldn't blow up a friend, unless they were really asking for it. I don't know why Sybil in particular was chosen, other than the fact that she was the last one talking (and has a baby), but I was personally glad that a specific non-Sam character was chosen. We all know Max will save Sam. Max giving a crap about anyone else makes it a more interesting test. Again, maybe "a more interesting test" makes it less "Sam & Max," but I was glad it went somewhere unexpected, even if it didn't fully work for everyone.

    Thats what made it more emotional. Max is violant to those that deserve it(he ripped the head off someone in hit the road's begining) but never to those that dont deserve it(then again he did willingly shoot sam for no reason in episode 102).
    I was basicaly shouting at the computer "WHAT DID HE DO TO DESERVE THIS" when I watched as their was no hope for his survival.
    Great ending telltale, a little deues ex michanimaie with the "oh he was time traveling, there was another max" thing, which is my complaint, but sam and max has done that before.
  • edited April 2011
    The appearance of alternate time Max is not truly a deus ex machina if you consider the overall series as opposed to just the season.
  • edited April 2011
    There was a lot about season 3 that was good in my opinion, but it got to the point of being difficult to follow for me. Granted Sam and Max is not supposed to be known for its realistic plots, but it can be said that there are points where even the universe can't account for everything.

    Girl Stinky was a major plot point at the end of "Beyond Space and Time". Later on in "The Devil's Playhouse" we are told that the hole turning her into a cake was an optical illusion. Which makes me question the ending of "What's New, Beelzebub?", with using the recipe to make a cake to help defeat the poppers.

    The Penal Zone seemed to be a nice place to spend a weekend. Even after Sam and Max send Skun-ka'pe back into it, in "The Penal Zone", he comes escapes without any mention of how he did it, though I could have missed that bit of information.

    I felt a bit overwhelmed by the storyline this time around. The Toy abilities were nice to have, but they did add to a few headaches for me personally. Time travel was fun in "Chariot of the Dogs", but it felt like too much of a good thing when using future vision.

    Short list of what I liked and still remember from my playthrough of "The Devil's Playhouse". Flipping between the reels and playing with the curses in "The Tomb of Sammun-Mak" was extremely fun and the comedy in that episode was spot on(Tally Hoo!). The hardboiled detective work that Sam did to try and find Max's Brain in "They Stole Max's Brain!" made talking to people more interesting. The epic battle with Charlie Ho-Tep was the highlight of "Beyond the Alley of the Dolls". Also I can't wait to see how the german tourist does in the next season. ;)
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