Thoughts on reunions?
I know there's a bunch of theories and wishes that Lilly, Kenny, or some other Season 1 character would return. In my opinion, I think that most of those ideas would make better fanfiction rather than Season 2 material. I'd rather Clem just move forward than have a reunion with one of the possible survivors from the original cast. I would have possibly been interested in Omid and Christa finding her, but there were too many different dialogue options in No Time Left for this to work out. As Lee, you could say you wanted Kenny, or Omid and Christa to take care of Clementine when you find her, but then you become separated from both optional caretakers no matter what you do. You also have the option to tell Clem whether or not to find Omid and Christa as your last words, along with, "Stay out of cities, they're more trouble than they're worth." and, "Find another group."
Omid and Christa could still search for Clementine on their own volition, but we're playing as Clem this time around, and her having any sort of designated caretaker will severely limit our choices. She needs to be an individual who makes her own decisions, and who we, as Lee, helped to make. If she's to have any reunions, I'd only see it happening at the end of Season 2, or if she makes it to a Season 3 (also if we'd even have a Season 3). Since the events of the first installment are still somewhat recent from when Season 2 takes place (a few months after), it wouldn't be as fun to immediately see those whose fates were left up in the air, which include Lilly, Molly, Kenny, and Omid and Christa. Seeing any of those people later on however, would prove more interesting. Clementine will have grown/developed even more since whatever happens in Season 2, and would be a pretty different character from last they saw her, and the same would go for them from last WE saw them, yet there would still be this awesome sense of, "It's you again!" Until then, I'm excited to see Clem alongside an entirely new cast of characters, and how she'll work together with them.
Please post your thoughts and ideas, I'd really like to discuss further.
Comments
Assuming Season 1 Episode 5 ends at around 100 days into the apocalypse and Season 2 Episode 1 starts at around 400 days into the apocalypse, that's a LOT of time for people to change and develop. Any number of things could have happened to Omid, Christa, Lilly, Kenny (if he somehow survived, which I don't know how) and even Clementine by the start of Season 2. Clementine, particularly, will have been without Lee for TRIPLE the amount of time that she spent with him. So I don't think that we need until Season 3 for the characters to develop enough that a reunion would interesting.
That being said, I do think that it's better not to have any other old characters around Clem for a little while to really drive home the point that she's learned to rely on herself by now. Maybe save the reunion for Episode 2 or 3. I also think it would better for her to run into a familiar character who she can't quite trust than one that she would. Running into both Christa and Omid again would be nice and heartwarming but running into someone like Lilly would make for a more interesting sequence. Or maybe even have her running into either Christa OR Omid, who has been somewhat broken by the death of the other. You'd still have that sense of familiarity with that character but he or she might have a drastically different personality. Just imagine a depressed Omid quietly telling Clem about how Christa died.
I like the points you brought up about the time that's passed and how it connects to 400 Days. If we do in fact end Season 1 on 100 days into the apocalypse, and we pick up several months later, several months wouldn't be enough to get to Day 400. We'd probably start Episode 6 somewhere after Day 184 in Russell's story, or Day 259 in Shel's story, and it will have been either three or five months since the first game. Part of it is I don't think that three or five months is a long enough wait period before we reunite with anybody, but also I think that even though time has passed in the game's world, it's just too recent for us in the real world to be seeing those characters again early on. But time can still go by in between Season 2's episodes and we'll probably reach Day 400 very quickly, and then it will be "okay" to see those characters by that time. Also, Omid telling you about how Christa died would be even more interesting but depressing, since she was pregnant last we saw her.