EP 4: An Unbiased (?) Review
First off, I'd like to say that I really enjoyed this episode, even though it wasn't 'enjoyable' in the traditional sense of the word. I have my nitpicks and my more legitimate qualms with it, but as I thought about it more, I realized that a lot of my negatives for this episode are the fault of set-up in previous episodes (mainly EP 3). So I'll try to just give my opinion on what actually happened, and not what I thought should have happened. I'll give a quick synopsis of what I liked and didn't like (this is subjective obviously) and then go into more detail about controversial points and look at them from more of a good/bad stance based on the writing.
Likes: More Hub areas than any of the previous episodes this season, Jane's back story and the themes it carried with it; people don't change, sometimes it's better to let people go (which set up Sarah's death nicely), Jane teaching Clementine survival skills, the entire museum scene (the raccoon chase, mike's humor, reference to lee, Clem too big to fit in the door, but too small to pick up the water jug), both Luke and Kenny having their own faults that affect characters or the story, which in my opinion was necessary because of how they were a little too well liked up until this point (gray characters are always more interesting in my opinion). A great cliffhanger.
Dislikes (and some of these are nitpicks): I wanted to know Mike's back story, Bonnie should have had more to do, I thought Sarah's ultimate death(on the observation deck) shouldn't have been by accident, but by Clem making the decision to let her go and understanding you can't save someone who doesn't want to save themselves (as Jane's story set-up), the Russian robbers were kind of ridiculous, and I wish the choices had more variety on how the final events played out. My biggest; why the hell did Clem not speak up and say she once helped Christa through pregnancy? To me, that indicates that Clem wasn't there when it happened, and in that case, what the hell happened? Were they in a group where Clem didn't need to help? Were they separated? I wanted Telltale to answer these questions and the EP never did.
Thoughts about more controversial points about this episode:
1) Character Deaths: As I said, even though I really liked Sarah despite her faults, her death wasn't out of nowhere, and considering the themes of Jane's story, it made sense for Sarah to go out like this, I just wish it was executed better like I said before. I was glad Nick died and in the way he did, to be honest. It was simple, to the point, and anything else might have made me roll my eyes considering Nick and Clem never really had that much of a connection. Like I said I'm not going to focus on past episodes, but at this point Nick had no relevance on the plot and was boring, to be honest. His death was necessary at this point. If telltale makes a third season of TWD, I don't think they should try to handle determinate characters, or get better at writing them, because it obviously isn't their forte. I loved Rebecca (she actually sought out Clem in the middle of the horde unlike the rest of our crew who just all took off on an 11 year old), but in media like this, pregnant mothers seem to always die. It wasn't unrealistic considering what she'd been through, but it was a cliche, and I'm hesitant to flat out call it a bad decision considering it set up a hell of a cliffhanger.
2) Choices - It seems a lot of people dislike that their dialogue choices didn't really affect the story, and to be completely honest, I would have enjoyed it for replay ability, but most of all the larger decisions felt like they made sense considering what this writer had to work with (Sarah and Nick's death both made sense). The only decision where I felt cheated a little bit was the last where you either choose to stay at the observation deck or go ahead and leave for the town. It would have been nice if maybe the confrontation with the robbers was different, or perhaps if you left eariler, Rebecca lives till at least EP 5. I understand why, because the endings would have been completely different, and that would have been difficult to accomplish. But even though I wasn't completely bothered by a lack of changes on the story based on your decisions.
3) Extras: I think it's ridiculous that some people expected Eddie and Nate would be in this episode, that would be the definition of pure fan-service at this point. I believe Christa's fate will be revealed in the next episode, and I really hope Clem doesn't get shot in the shootout!