Exit Stage: Your Dream Final Scene For The Final Season of TWD
I shared this on the TWDG subreddit. Since fans seem to be much more "passionate" here, I'd figured I'd share this on the TTG Forums to see what can come about.
There have been threads where people have expressed how they want the series finally to end for TellTale's The Walking Dead Game. These threads and discussions have mostly been centered around the fates of Clem and/or AJ. For this thread, I would like to hear everyone's ideas for the final scene of TWD. Tell us what you want to see in those final moments before the screen goes black and the credits roll (or however you want it to go). Don't be afraid to go into detail. Sell us on the final scene with Clem.
I'll post one in a little bit, but I'd figured I'd share to see if we can get the ideas flowing. The community has conjured up some interesting ideas in the past, so I'd love to see what we could invent here. It's the final scene of the final season how you envision it. Ready. Set. Action!
Comments
Well, here's my idea of the final scene. Hopefully it may spark some ideas from here.
The Build Up: My idea for the final season is centered around the response Javier gives to Clem about AJ at the end of ANF: bring him back or leave him if he is happy. After finding McCaroll Ranch, meeting the people that cared for AJ, and surviving both a major storm and a massive herd of walkers with them, Clem has to make the decision to either leave AJ at a place where he can finally be safe (they don’t have enough supplies for a child and a teenager) or take him back to Richmond. Depending on your choice, Clem or AJ’s main caregiver at McCaroll will have a very heart wrenching goodbye since, while they know AJ will be at Richmond/McCaroll, the possibility of seeing him again are slim due to the journey thanks to the aftermath of the storm, the new abundance of walkers from the herd, and that you will be busy helping your respective communities survive and thrive. Your choice will also determine who will accompany you to assure yours and determinately AJ’s safe return to Richmond.
The Final Scene: A long, symphonic, and more lush rendition of “Alive Inside” begins to play. During the songs duration, we see the journey Clem takes back to Richmond. This scene will also reflect why the journey between McCaroll and Richmond will be extremely difficult (down trees, collapsed bridges and passage ways, the density of walkers, etc.). After the song reaches its peak and diminishes to its resolution, Clem finally arrives back to Richmond. At the gate, you can exchange some final words with the person that accompanied you. Javi will arrive and offer the person to stay until morning, but said person will say they need to get back to their people. Javi will hand that person a small bag of supplies to aid them in their journey back.
The camera will then point to Clem’s face. Looking straight into the camera, Clem will say, “Thank you… for everything.” It will be as if she broke the fourth wall. It will be as if it was not only Clementine the character was thanking the other character, but also be as if Clem was thanking us, the player. It will be as if that “thank you” was on behalf of Melissa Hutchinson, Dave Fenoy, and all of the cast and talent at TallTale Games that have made The Walking Dead: A TellTale Series what it has been over the past 6 years. It won’t be super satisfying as we will never know what became of Clementine, AJ, nor Richmond, but we will know that Clementine and everyone else is grateful for what we have done. Clem walks into Richmond, the camera fades until a soft silhouette remains, then the screen fades to black as the rendition of “Alive Inside” concludes. Credits roll.
I think the player should be given several determinant versions of an epilogue set several years in the future where Clementine is now an adult between 18 to 21 years old, possibly revisiting various locations from "A New Day." Her childhood home & treehouse, the Lee pharmacy drug store, the motor inn, etc.
I think that the ending will lead around to two major final choices which will spring off and serve as a catalyst towards multiple different endings to the series depending on choices made in previous episodes.
1) One of these involves finally finding AJ at whatever location he may be in, and after building us up to be so eager to reconnect and get AJ back. We realise that he is with a new family now and is quite happy, maybe his new foster parents cannot have kids of their own and have come to love him as their own son… Basically this choice will stem to something that will come at a cost… it would be taking AJ back by force from the new caretakers, possibly killing or destroying anything in her way in order to get him back, maybe even going as far to tear his new family apart if they put up a fight. So basically in order to get him back, Clementines humanity is the cost, what she is willing to do to get him back… and if she believes it was worth doing what she did at the end. So you end up getting him back and leaving to go back to Richmond or wherever we get the choice to go to next, but it's more of a bittersweet scene than something that would be completely happy.
2) Option two would be deciding that AJ’s new family is truly the one he deserves, seeing how close AJ and his new family have grown ultimately leads to Clementine knowing he is happy where he is, and after a tearful goodbye lets him stay with his new family, pretty much breaking all ties with the past and symbolising she is starting fresh now. There could be multiple ways to extend this ending, maybe as far as going towards where option 1’s ending leads to but midway through her ‘rampage’ she stops what she is doing, realising the monster she has become due to the extreme efforts of how far she was willing to go to get him back.
As for a final scene this is really hard to predict since there's so many ways to do it, but I think a respectful way to do it is to maybe depending on our choices have a mini time skip of Clem back at Richmond with AJ. This scene can work with AJ at whatever age if he’s older or younger, Clementine begins showing AJ all of these all photos pinned up on a wall from her past as she reminisces on them. It zooms in on one particular photo, an African American man looking happy with his family… the same photo Lee was holding in season one, Alive Inside begins to play as it slowly zooms in on the photo whilst Clementine explains the lengths this man named Lee Everett went through to get her back, just like Clementine did for AJ- full zoom takes effect, fade to black on the photo of Lee as Alive Inside plays with Clem’s final words as we pay homage to the man that started it all
I really hope they do not spend more than 1 episode at the start on finding AJ, AJ is the weakest part of the plot by far, and A New Frontier already allowed Clem to know where he is.
I really think that the final season should focus on humanity, and how much Clementine has lost (people, feelings, parts of her humanity), and how far you are willing to go to survive, it should have real consequences, like, if you do the “right” thing and take someone in or dont kill someone or dont steal supplies, it could come back to bite you in the ass, maybe one of your groups people dies of hunger, or someone you didnt kill comes back with a group to kill your group, they should have rewards and consequences for both sides, being “good” and being “bad”
I think episode one is way too early to find him and too convenient, since ANF Clem was a mere device to draw audiences in for Javi's story her proper story of finding him must begin with The Final Season, just because she knows where Lingard last left him doesn't mean he is actually still there. Lingard could have very well given out outdated information since he mentioned something along the lines of "at least that's where we last left him", for all we know he could have moved again and reaching the ranch will only serve as a catalyst of finding out he's not there and propelling us to his actual true location. Finding AJ will mostly be the climax of the story so I think they will save it for the later half while they let us breath and meet new characters first.
Even though i am not that bothered about this series any more, if there was ever going to be some closure, I would still love it if this happens:
Clem finds herself somewhere safe and the end scene concludes with her sleeping and she has a dream (without dialogue, maybe some familiar or emotional music) where she is standing outside in the street at her old house, as she walks in through the gate into the garden, we see her parents waving to her, smiling and laughing, Sam the dog runs up to greet her. Kenny, Kat and Duck are sat on deck chairs smiling and laughing and also wave to Clem. Luke, Rebecca, Alvin, a grown up AJ and anyone else she has ever cared about are also there maybe having a summer BBQ or swimming in Clem’s pool having a really great time. Everyone that matters (whoever you the player wants there i guess) is seen except Clem as she is the camera and focus if that makes sense? Like the other characters breaking the fourth wall. As she turns towards her treehouse, we see Lee with his back to her. He turns round holding a teacup with a bottle of bourbon (haha just kidding although that would be an hilarious throwback). As he sees Clem he smiles at her and the camera then shows an adult Clementine smiling back at Lee. The final shot we see is a group picture. Credits roll.
I know, i know! That is corny/cheesy as fuck! It would never happen in a million years but damn i would be in tears if i saw that.
I just think that AJ is boring as hell, its a noncharacter being used as a plotdevice and a way to elicit a feeling of duty from the player because he is “a defenseless baby”, and we will most have AJ forced upon, which i personally hate, for a game that advocates choice, these games have forced so many relations on us in later seasons, ANF was terrible with this, where half the cast had previous relationships with Javier, meaning we dont get any choice in the matter, and now they have made Clementine obsessed with AJ, even though my Clementine never really cared for him, but Telltale have decided what Clementine is now, and I kind of hate it
I'm inclined to somewhat agree with this, which is why I'd prefer for them to impose the limitations that AJ brings on Clementine by having her find him in the later half of the season so we can spend most of the season free and limitless on what we can do and also just get to know other characters, just so he isn't some annoying walker magnet the whole time.