An Ep 3 Review Primarily Regarding Jack and Fiona
I loved this episode. It was exciting and funny and fast-paced and full of character-defining moments (which I will talk more about in this post). 
I just have a couple complaint...-like comments regarding a couple characters:
HANDSOME JACK
In my canon playthrough, I chose to "trust" Handsome Jack at the end of Ep 2. (I wouldn't say I TRUST him...at least, not very much. I just thought his plan was better, and I didn't expect anything really bad to happen either way, and nothing did. But I'm really glad I trusted Jack. Poor Vaughn if you trust Fiona. Did they ever get him any eye drops?) So, in my first playthrough, I was fairly okay with the way Jack was portrayed. He did seem a little off. He seemed a bit too sexist and a bit too happy. Honestly, he seemed a bit more like a caricature of himself than the actual thing, but there was so much going on in this wonderful and exciting episode that I couldn't spare much thought for Jack at first. Then, I did the "Trust Fiona" playthrough. And I was really annoyed by Jack's portrayal.
Now, I have never played the Borderlands games, so all the information I know about Jack comes from reading the Borderlands wiki, listening to Jack's lines of dialogue from Borderlands 2, and watching a playthrough of The Pre-Sequel. Also, the Game Theory video (
) on Jack really influenced my view on him.
It was only after TFTB Ep 2 that I looked hard into Jack. I thought he was extremely interesting...potentially. An evil CEO who commits heinous, large-scale crimes NOT out of greed or a lack of feeling (like a psychopath or sociopath would), but out of passion and a sense of duty -- that is, out of his intense hatred for the people he was hurting and out of his belief that he was the hero of the story. Not to mention Jack's voice actor did a wonderful job and Jack had a multi-faceted personality, being funny and smart and cruel all at the same time. However -- and I hate to say this but it has to be said -- the idea for his character was badly executed.
WITHIN Borderlands 2, and WITHIN The Pre-Sequel, he was actually pretty solid as a character. However, Pre-Sequel Jack and Borderlands 2 Jack seem like two wholly different characters. First off, it's a bit of a stretch that Nice Guy Jack, who dislikes killing people in The Pre-Sequel, turned into the extremely cruel, manipulative character he was in Borderlands 2, who tortures animals and shoots babies. The Pre-Sequel did a solid and compelling job of showing how a nice, smart man with a hero complex could become bitter and insane, and hence, turn into a bad guy of a sort. However, I don't think it showed how a nice, smart man could become Handsome Jack. Handsome Jack is not bitter or insane. He's smart, funny, cruel, manipulative, egotistical, and full of hate/condescension. And that's just not how Jack seemed at the end of the Pre-Sequel.
ADDITIONALLY, and perhaps more importantly, Jack was supposedly already cruel and manipulative, long before The Pre-Sequel. In Borderlands 1, he manipulated the vault hunters into opening a vault with a dangerous monster inside. (Right? I forget what was inside.) Also, his lines of dialogue show that he was cruel to Angel long before his rise to power in Hyperion, while he was still Nice Guy Jack. I mean, I could MAYBE imagine Nice Guy Jack "restraining" Angel if she seemed too powerful for her own good and likely to hurt someone. But according to Borderlands 2, Jack was flat-out mean to Angel. He appeared completely unmoved by her pleas when he enslaved her, and he yelled at her while he was still working under Tassiter, who called him ugly, which would imply that Jack's face was messed up before the end of the Pre-Sequel. And that's another thing. Tassiter. The Pre-Sequel implied that Jack killed Tassiter out of a personal dislike for him, while Borderlands 2 implied that Jack simply tried to blackmail Tassiter first -- another step on his rise to power -- and wouldn't have killed him if he had just complied. Oh, and in addition to Tassiter, Jack vowed to kill Lillith, Roland, and "all those sons of bitches" in the Pre-Sequel, but in Borderlands 2, he appeared to hold no such grudge.
It's a mess.
Now, granted, I don't know as much about the Borderlands games as a lot of you out there, so forgive me if I got any of that wrong, but my point is that I felt like Pre-Sequel Jack and Borderlands 2 Jack were both interesting characters, and could become one amazing super-character if they were seamlessly sewn together, but they weren't. There was too much inconsistency in the writing. Too much of a disconnect.
So, when I learned all that about Handsome Jack, I thought, "Wow. Gearbox sure is lucky Telltale got their hands on this property. They'll sort out this mess, give consistency to this character with so much potential, and probably even take him down a new and interesting path. Telltale always elevates the properties its given. TWD game is so much better than the TV show and, from what I've heard, the comic..etc. etc." So I was disappointed when Telltale's Handsome Jack became bizarrely inconsistent in the "Trust Fiona" version of the conversation on top of the caravan.
In that conversation, Jack goes on at LENGTH about how he should have "thrown stock options at the vault hunters, instead of trying to kill them," and "worked with the people he wanted to punch in the throat." Worked with them towards WHAT? His sole purpose in life was to kill the vault hunters and all the other dangerous people/creatures on Pandora. That's who Handsome Jack was (according to himself). The "hero" to the bandits' "bad guys."
The hero complex was a huge part of Jack's character. And in the caravan conversation, he seems to have totally forgotten/abandoned it. He now seems to be far more concerned with money, beaches, and women, as any old cliche, rich, evil CEO would be.
Not to mention he says all of this because the topic of his death came up, and it is strongly implied that he remembers his death. ("That shit hurts.") And that means he probably also remembers Angel's death and does not seem upset by it at all. His reaction to Angel's death was one of the things that gave him depth in Borderlands 2. So, taking that away from him seems...well, bizarre.
Why would Telltale do this? I wondered and wondered. I mean, it is a brilliant idea to have the character develop as a result of contemplating his own death...which has already happened. But such a quick, complete abandonment of his old "principles" and feelings of hate? It's jarring, to say the least. I expected better from Telltale. It could be that Handsome Jack is just lying, pretending to not be his old self anymore, but I very highly doubt that. It just wouldn't make sense in a lot of ways.
Well, then I discovered that caravan roof scene was actually written by the Borderlands 2/Pre-Sequel writer. Ahhhh. It all makes sense now, I thought. The stream of good ideas and poor execution for Handsome Jack continues.
But then I had to wonder why Telltale let that happen. I mean, it's fine if they wanted the writer who basically created Jack to write some scenes for him. But then, maybe no one at Telltale had the guts to tell that writer that he was being inconsistent with the character? Or maybe...Telltale is just not invested enough in the character to keep close watch on the writing for him, since Handsome Jack will likely continue on in Borderlands games long after TFTB has wrapped up...
Now that I think of it, that's probably the most likely explanation.
In that case, Handsome Jack is doomed as a character. RIP, Handsome Jack. At least, you're still good for a laugh.
FIONA
I expected Ep 3 would be Fiona's episode to shine, since Ep 2 was basically Rhys's. And Fiona did shine, and I did develop more sympathy for her. It's good to show her secret insecurities, especially since she's seemed so confident up till now. However, I'm very confused about the direction her character is being taken in.
I don't understand why she appears to have no issues regarding Felix and nothing heartfelt to say to Sasha. I mean, okay, I understand Fiona might care less about Felix than Sasha does. Fiona is older than Sasha. Fiona probably bonded more with her biological parents than with Felix. But that just makes me wonder about her relationship with her biological parents.
And I also don't see why it's Athena that Fiona is opening up to in this episode, and not Sasha. It makes me think that Fiona's not close with Sasha. That would be understandable, since Fiona is quite a bit older than Sasha and probably had to be the strong one growing up. But that just brings up more issues that I think should be explored.
And now Telltale also has to explore Fiona's desire to become a vault hunter and her strangely fast bonding with Athena. It just seems like Fiona's character is all over the place and Telltale really needs to get it sorted out fast because there are only two episodes left.
OVERALL
Aside from those two characters (who were still pretty great), everything was great. I laughed a lot. I freaked out a lot. I did both at the same time a lot. For instance, when Sasha said she was going to let go and it turned out she and Rhys were really close to the ground. I laughed till I got red in the face and cried, and half of it was real laughter and the other half was nervous, hysterical laughter because I was genuinely scared for Sasha. And I was genuinely sad at the end when Athena was dragged off and everyone else was captured, except Vaughn who I know will come back to save the day in the next episode but it was still very sad to see Rhys so scared for Vaughn. And then the "Next Time" preview showed Yvette and I was all like, "Yayy! More friends on our adventure!" Good stuff, Telltale. Good stuff.
Comments
Yeah, about that
One does get the idea that maybe they aren't sure if they want to make Jack irredeemably evil, or basically a good person who was twisted by the choices you find yourself having to make on Pandora.
Um...What? He raided New Haven killing everyone, thinking he killed Lillth. He was being brutal with Sanctuary but not as brutal because he knew they had no chance to win. He killed Roland and tried to destroy Sanctuary. That grudge was there the whole time but he thought he won so he didn't care.
He's Handsome Jack, he's always been sexist. Depending on your choices on top of the caravan, he finally thinks he has someone who won't betray him...OR someone who has just betrayed him again and he is sour with you.
See...That is called character development. Jack is Jack...Let me try to explain his character progression, the best I can:
Jack was abandoned by his mother and left with his bandit grandmother who abused him...Pretty brutally (Two betrayals early on in life). He met a woman and had a siren daughter, as I expect his wife tried to get her away from him and that caused him to either murder her or something. He saw that as another betrayal. Jack worked at Hyperion as a low level employee but had big dreams...He was already kind of messed up in he head from all the past experiences but not as much as Handsome Jack. He knew of the vault and had Angel trick the BL1 VH to open it and then convinced the Hyperion Corporation of the value on the planet...This worked out and they got rich as hell from the Vault. Now, Jack convinced Hyperion to build Helios near Pandora because of his ideas on more vaults and riches. Around this time, he also dates Moxxi and they break up.
Now, TPS...Helios gets attacked by the Lost Legion and he hires Vault Hunters to help him find the one on Elipis. Jack at this point...Has a good guy impression and honestly believes he's the hero...Which he kinda sorta is. Stuff happens, blah, blah, blah...They find Roland, Lillth, and Moxxi on the Moon and they help Jack. Jack also faces yet another betrayal by the Meriff who he actually tries to spare but learns he can't just leave people alive or they'll shoot you in the back. Jack, while trying to recover Helios rescues scientists...but at the thought of one them might betray him agian, he kills all of them.Jack upon recovering Helios again kills Zarp for her antics and then finds the Warrior's Eye, his one true way to get peace on Pandora, a way to destroy any bandit settlement fast and efficiently. Moxxi, Lillth, and Roland betray him YET AGAIN destroying the eye and almost killing him. At this point, with Tass being an asshole threatens him. They go to find the Vault and after seeing the only way he could restore "peace" using the vaults power plans, but Lillth shatters it into his face...Scarring him and making him insane from the vaults power.
Jack post TPS destroys New Haven and after some time as Handsome Jack, gets fed up with Tass and tries to blackmail him...When he can't do that, he just kills him and becomes the President of Hyperion. He thinks he killed Lillth and trapped the Vault Hunters in Sanctuary so he doesn't stress. He kills any new Vault Hunters and plans his final move, however everything falls apart for him and he realizes this and gets even more pissed at the Vault Hunters. Blah, blah, blah...They kill Angel, Jack is fucking done, he has nothing else to lose but his life and goes completely nuts. He kills Roland and captures Lillth. He activates the Warrior in his final attempt to restore order to the planet and complete his heroic legacy but is foiled...He then dies.
However, Holo Jack isn't Jack nor Handsome Jack. Holo Jack is Jack pre-BL2 and Post TPS. Therefore, he isn't completely mad with fury at the Vault Hunters for the events of BL2 nor is he less insane Jack from TPS. This Jack is the insane, charismatic Jack. Throughout Tales, he becomes his own version of Jack. This Jack learns that the betrayals is because he refuses to work with people and compromise...Therefore he decides that as long as Rhys isn't betraying him yet or that he has a chance to not allow him the opportunity then he'll be happy and friendly. Jack also realizes that if he merely offered the VH money instead of trying to kill them then he would be alive, happy, and the ruler of a orderized Hyperion Pandora.
He has been made by:
Jack is an interesting character and so far, Tales has only offered a new type of Jack for us to explore.
This is beautifully put, I love it
you're so right! love your explanation
My experience with Handsome Jack is almost shockingly the same as yours. After playing the first episode and realizing he was the kind of character EVERYONE in this universe would know about, I chose to look into him and did the same stuff as you, pretty much.XD I won't deny that I initially saw Tales Jack as different than his main series counterpart, mostly because he seemed more friendly and significantly less violent. I do consider the AI as his own person, but I don't buy into the claims that he in an imperfect copy or is made to have an earlier version of his personality. Tales Jack tries to kill Rhys within seconds of meeting him, and his design is also the Borderlands 2 version.
AI Jack is not dealing with Vault Hunters, but an employee of his own company, who also seems to idolize him. It actually makes sense that he would act a little less hostile towards him. Also, he has no physical body, and his existence is tied with Rhys', so there's no real point to being overly hostile. I also think that being unable to act on his every violent impulse and having time to reflect on his life, choices, and death is changing him.
As time passes, I think Jack starts to enjoy himself with Rhys. Knowing what we know about his life and about how he was after becoming Handsome Jack, I think it's safe to assume he's never really had much in the way of friends or close relationships. He had a tendency to distrust and/or alienate those around him. If you trust him, then he starts to think of Rhys as a friend. If you don't, he's not sure where you are in your relationship. In the case of the latter, I think he genuinely opens up to you. I chose to completely trust Jack, but I still love that version of their chat, BECAUSE it shows him growing as a person. You may think of it as jarring, but learning you died when you thought of yourself as an invincible hero is pretty jarring, and who knows what else he remembered.
Thanks for this detailed explanation, I never played TPS but I'm starting to wish I did, now that I'm getting into Tales.
As someone who played BL2 I can assure you, he did hold that grudge. It sounds like you think that the new Holo Jack has suddenly turned over a new leaf, but I wouldn't be so quick to trust him. He has learned that "at some point you're going to have to trust someone you hate" but that doesn't mean you two are now best friends, or that he's not going to betray you the minute your goals don't align.
Ok well besides the fact that that was a joke, he IS a rich, evil CEO. That's like a defining trait of the personality Holo Jack is based on. In one of the conversations you have while you and Vaughn wander in the desert, he is very eager to convince you to take him back to Hyperion, probably so he can resume his former position of power.
Jack didn't murder his wife, it's implied Angel did it by accident with her powers.
You're assuming that everything Jack says to you on top of the caravan is what he believes to be true. It's very likely he'd say anything he needs to at that point to convince Rhys to trust him and give him more control.
Speaking of betrayals, if you trust Jack, and then decide to buddy up with him, he still abandons Rhys when Vallory has him held up.
Honestly, that just feels like poor writing, because they didn't want Jack to do anything. Regardless of his loyalties, there is no way Jack would have just left. He needs you alive.
Which wife? Because one of them he killed for sure.
Also, I'm just gonna copy-paste that piece from wiki about Angel cause I'm too lazy to write it myself and it's well said:
"Now, I have never played the Borderlands games..."
I'm sorry, not to be rude but I stopped reading from that point
I was using the AMA explanation...I don't know what exactly happened there so I was trying to theorize the best I could.
I'm not so sure about that. When Vallory shows up you guys are in the middle of a jungle and unarmed. What was Jack suppose to do? There weren't turrets to hack this time around.
While I think the creators don't want Jack to be able to fix all your problems in the same way they keep handicapping loader bot, I don't really see how Jack could really have been any help in that moment.
Yes, but if that was over any grudge, it was the very recent grudge Jack held against Roland for killing Angel, and Jack was going to kill Roland anyway because Roland was a 'bad guy.' If not for TPS, no one would ever have known that Jack held a long-term grudge against Roland and Lillith because he never once mentions it in all his Borderlands 2 lines. And what about Moxxi? Jack never even tried to kill her and I assume she was one of the primary people he meant by "all those sons of bitches" since she was the mastermind behind his betrayal.
Anyway, it doesn't matter much. That was just one of the inconsistencies in Jack's character. And if that was the only one, I wouldn't mind so much, but there are lots others and I've given up on Jack's character being this amazing, consistent psychological look at the deranged human mind, so I don't want to argue with anyone over this.
Fiona honestly seems much more cold than Sasha. She can loot a dying man's corpse while spouting a snappy one-liner in the first episode, no remorse whatsoever. Sasha is the emotional one of the bunch, and it looks like she relies on Fiona for guidance.
Jack destroyed her largest source of income and fun because that's how you stick it out to Moxxi.
In other words, you're not going to listen to anyone proving you wrong and just think Jack is inconsistent even though he isn't. Ok.
That's a good point. Fiona can be super cold in her opening scene(s). This reminds me that I was thinking about that a few days ago because of Fiona's shocked reaction to Vallory murdering Vasquez, which was not cold of Fiona at all. And that made me remember her shocked reaction to August killing that man in the bar, which was also not cold of Fiona but came mere minutes after her very cold reaction to a bunch of psychos murdering a man in the street out of nowhere. I feel like that's something that Telltale needs to resolve regarding Fiona. Is she, at her core, ice cold like she was to man in the street or...not?
I feel like Telltale is currently addressing a similar question regarding Rhys. In Rhys's opening scenes, he seemed like a smug jerk, but down on Pandora, he seems like a nice, awkward guy. However, his jerk-ness seems to be resurfacing a bit, as I said in my character-defining moments post. So it seems that Telltale will be addressing those unsavory aspects of Rhys's personality and will allow us to develop him out of those jerk-like character traits. That's what I'm hoping for anyway, and I hope they do the same with Fiona.
According to the wiki, Jack destroyed Moxxi's underdome because he thought she was cheating on him, not in retribution for her trying to kill him...if that's what you're referring to.
But, lol, dude. I didn't realize my post would make anyone so angry. Obviously, people feel more passionate about Jack than I realized. And passionate discussions on the internet usually devolve into fights, and I don't want us to be at each other's throats. There's no reason for it.
Jack does stuff for a number of reasons.
I'm not angry. I'm a smartass. :P
Still, I wrote that whole long thing because I was bored and thought you didn't understand the character.
True, still, if you say something...You should defend your statement.
BTW, don't take anything I say to heart, I can be a huge smartass a lot...It's apart of the charm. :P
There were guns and the like around, but even if there was nothing obvious he could do, it still seems weird that he'd just disappear like that when Rhys' life is in danger. He'd want to hang around and offer what help he could, not just leave it to chance. Him just leaving might make some sense in playthroughs where he is mad at you, but definitely not the ones where you opt to trust him.
LOL, okie dokie.
If you're talking about the security turrets that Rhys disabled, the only place we saw them was outside and inside the chamber where the Gortys piece was. If there were guns spread around the inside of the dome then Rhys, Fiona, and the rest would have been attacked by them earlier. So even if Jack could hack those guns who knows how far away they are.
As for whether or not Jack shouldn't have left, it never really bothered me or struck me as being out of character. I guess just agree to disagree on that one.
No, I'm talking about all the guns and vehicles that were present.
Up on Helios Rhys would cover his awkwardness with arrogance and a swaggering confidence. The Hyperion organization is one giant shark tank, and if you aren't a shark you are the bait. He has his business face and his real face, a fact of life for many people who want to move a head in a job. He isn't a jerk, he just understands how to play the game.
Well, how to play the game is by being a jerk, and he is a jerk, even to Vaughn sometimes and even down on Pandora rather than in the business world. And I would like to see Rhys develop out of that and have a chance to apologize to Vaughn.
I might be wrong, but when Rhys and Vaughn are in the car in episode 1 and you chose to say "I am going to become rich, not you" doesn't vaughn responds with: "I sometimes forget that you fake your arrogance"?
I'm paraphrasing because i don't remember the exact lines but it did seem to support the idea that Rhys' arrogance is a role he plays in order to be more successful up in helios.
Ya know, if you're faking something for too long...
Rhys says sth along the lines of 'There's only room at the top for one, but you can still be my royal retainer', to which Vaughn responds 'You know, when you say things like that I sometimes forget you're pretending to be the kind of person who would say things like that' and Rhys goes 'Yea, righ... wait, what?', and then shrugs it off.
So this might suggest Rhys really means the jerkass things he says, perhaps without fully realizing just how jerkass they are, and his friends are a little in denial of how douchey he actually is.
But of course that's only one of the dialog options.
Oh I agree, form follows function. You act like a jerk long enough you become your persona. But one would hope the giant slap down he is getting on Pandora will remind him who he really is.
You mean the ones Vallory brought? Because Vaughn and Rhys don't have guns. And Jack can't touch those unless he's possessing Rhys and he can't hack or take control of them either. Like I said, Jack is pretty much useless in this situation.
There's no reason to believe he can't hack them, and again, it still makes no sense that he'd just leave.
One line, literally one line. And it seemed more sarcastic than meaningful.
I get where you're coming from. I saw the preview for Tales ep. 2 and thought Athena looked cool. So I went up through UVHM with her and now she's my favorite character from TPS and BL2.
So who's HandsomeJackHyperion? Is that an Anthony Burch alias, or just some random person who managed to grab the name before anyone else? I mean, what proof is that post?
It's Anthony. I think he confirmed it somewhere - either on reddit or twitter.
Plus, I think that counts as a proof. That's not to mention that if you read the whole AMA it's obvious that person knows too much and knows Jack too well to be just a random person and not a gearbox employee.
Actually I'm pretty sure that's Vaughn's reply to the "don't be such a wuss" option, which comes earlier in the conversation if I'm not mistaken. I'm pretty sure he says something like "Wow. You are unbelievable" if you choose to say "Not us, just me". That line is kind of open to interpretation I think, it could be that Vaughn is genuinely surprised that Rhys would say anything like that at all, or it could be that it's surprising that Rhys is still keeping up his jerky persona even on Pandora where it isn't necessary.
Ah, right, that might be correct. But it still seems to me that Rhys is pretty serious, if oblivious, about his jerkassery, while Vaughn's reaction appears to be a bit incredulous, of the 'come on man, you don't really mean that... right...?' variety.
He seemed momentarily baffled if you chose the 'damn right I deserve this, I earned it' line before the promotion scene, and felt it necessary to remind Rhys he and Yvette had a hand in the success too... and Rhys wasn't very grateful then either.
I personally think there's usually the one dialog option that is there for you to be able to play Rhys as an actual self-absorbed dick, Handsome Jack style (which I usually take advantage of :P). I mean, you never got an option to say you pretended to take Vasquez's deal like Vaughn did, so I assume the game assumes if you took it, you meant it.