The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode 5 - No Going Back Reviews
While Season Two did its best to present the story of a little girl growing up into a seasoned survivor in a shattered world full of death, it fell short of capturing the magic that Season One held.
As Clem, we survived from one day to the next, fighting against the futility of it all, trying to find our own way absent a clear objective. Where Season One was the story of a man becoming an adoptive father, learning that he would do anything to keep his ward safe, Season Two is more personal. It's about growing up, deciding who Clem is. But no matter who that turns out to be, one thing is consistent: she's still a survivor.
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If you've been waiting for the finale to dive in, well go ahead and do so with the full confidence that it'll be worth it. Now… can we have Sam & Max Season Four now Telltale? Please?.
You can end up in a lot of different places at the end of The Walking Dead: Season 2 Episode 5. I'm not entirely sure how this could possibly transition into a season 3 because of it. However, that's exactly why you should play this game. Play it and make different decisions. Play the whole season over and examine how you got here. Play season 1 again and look at how your Lee raised Clementine. Just play the game, don't stop playing, because it makes you look at humanity in a different way with each play through, not just the harsh and unforgiving humanity that exists in the zombie apocalypse, but the harsh and unforgiving humanity that exists around us in the world we live in now.
But therein lies the rub: Season Two is good, and great at times, but it never reaches the lofty heights of its predecessor. To be fair, the first season was a masterpiece that would be difficult even for its own creators to emulate, and while the second season doesn't quite hit that benchmark, it's still a tale worth telling.
Episode 5: No Going Back may not have had the emotional impact as last season's finale, but it certainly provided moments of heart-racing action and split-second decision making.
No Going Back is the perfect title for the fifth episode of The Walking Dead Season 2 as it captures the emotional scenarios Clementine has had to overcome. At the same time, it's difficult to see how the series will move forward, especially with the determinative conclusions that contains multiple outcomes.
No Going Back lacks the punch of the first season's finale and becomes an analogue of the second season as a whole: an above-average game which has vainly struggled to step out of its predecessor's shadow.
There are enough plot points left dangling to indicate that the third season will follow up on the first two, but if the folks at Telltale are smart they'll shift the focus to a new protagonist and really think about what made the first season work.
Sadly there's a kind of crushing inevitability about this second season's climax and we'd be surprised if no one predicts the dramatic finale. We personally thought the pay-off was solidly presented, delivering a tense and emotional sledgehammer to the gut, but we're intrigued to see how the third season pans out given those difficult choices, which lead to one of four different endings (five technically, but two are basically the same).
In this series we look at Clementine, see a child, and then experience where she ends up, getting to feel the disconnect between what it means to be a kid and how to be an adult. You can make the argument that being an adult requires making the hard decisions, and that's what The Walking Dead series comes down to.
My overall negative attitude towards this episode exemplified in "The Game Itself" section is undoubtedly a little inflamed. The visual imagery actually hit some impressive highs, and the voice acting and musical backdrop did some excellent work to support the random plot, more than in past episodes, so the experience was lifted a bit by the team's artists. The writers, on the other hand, dropped the ball.
The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 5: No Going Back brings some serious choices right at its end, and depending on what players want, wildly different fates for Clementine. However, it still has some annoying situations that can't be avoided and players are still unable to do certain things during the actual story.
The story-telling is getting better; the narrative slicker, the choices harsher.
The road has been long, a lot has happened since season one. Clementine has changed and many friends have come and gone. Every moment has led to this episode and its going to be an emotional one.