The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 5: No Going Back is a point and click adventure game now available for download on PC/Mac, XLA, PSN, and iOS.

THE STORY

Last time on The Walking Dead: Season 2, the episode picked up right after Clementine’s choice to either kill the walker holding on to Sarita, or to chop off Sarita’s bitten arm. Both of my Clementine’s (PC and PS3) chopped off her arm. In the aftermath of that decision, Sarita freaked out, and was swarmed by walkers. The group was then split up all over the area. Clementine found Rebecca and the two of them tried to escape the herd, but it would take Jane’s help to succeed in that task. The three of them met up with Mike, Bonnie, and Kenny at a Civil War Memorial, as per the plan. Luke, Sarah, and Nick were missing. Jane and Clementine managed to find them in the trailer park. Nick was dead and already in walker form. Luke and Sarah were barricaded in one of the trailers, where Sarah had run to in the middle of a mental breakdown. The four of them escaped the trailer, at least in my playthrough, thanks to Clementine persuading Sarah to come along. The next task for the group was preparing for the birth of Rebecca’s baby. With Bonnie and Mike, Clem was able to find water and “blankets”. With Jane’s help, Clem was able to find shelter. It was at the shelter that they ran into a teenage Russian boy with medical supplies named Arvo. They let him go, against Jane’s better judgement. They brought the group to the shelter, but were pursued by walkers. To shake the walkers, the group was forced to collapse a deck, leaving them safe on the 2nd floor of the lookout post. In the middle of all that, Sarah fell down, and refused to fight to stay alive, despite Jane’s attempt to save her. Right after Sarah died, Kenny delivered Rebecca’s baby boy. That night, Jane left the group, only telling goodbye to Clementine. The next day, the group set out for a nearby town, but things were very bleak for the cold and hungry group. Rebecca looked especially bad. Things went from dire to worse when Arvo showed up and lured the group into a trap. Guns were pointed, fingers were on triggers; but it took Clementine (or Kenny) shooting the new walker, Rebecca, to incite the firefight.

This time on The Walking Dead: Season 2, the episode begins with confusion, mayhem, and bloodshed. The survivors continue their trek through the bitter weather, looking for food and shelter. In this episode, Clementine will have to face the dead, the living, and the elements to make it to where she’s going to in this climactic finale.

The morality of humans is put on display more than ever in this episode. When things go bad, what do people become? Do good people stay good, no matter what? Do they sometimes do bad things? Are there really any good people? Is anybody capable of anything? These are all big questions that come up in this episode. It’s an episode filled with so much grey, that poor Clementine, and the player will find it difficult to distinguish wrong from right. I think the real world can be very grey at times. Everyone has the potential for good and for bad. Heck, Clementine even has that potential. And yet, I do believe that some people choose to be more of one than another, and would stay that way, even in dark times such as a zombie apocalypse. Bonnie said at one point in the episode that she thought that, “sometimes good people just do bad things”. I think that’s a good way to put it. Good people make mistakes. As a Christian, I make mistakes all the time. No one on earth is perfect. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you try and convince yourself, you’re still capable of messing up at anytime. That doesn’t make you a “bad person”. That makes you a human. I think there are quite a few of these good people making mistakes that have been group members in The Walking Dead. I think Lee was this type of person for sure. He walked in on his wife having an affair with another man, snapped, and accidentally killed the man. What he did was wrong, but I don’t think he’s a bad guy. His actions before and after the incident speak to the contrary. I do believe that there are truly bad people out there, though. Those bad people will sometimes make rare shows of goodness or charity, but that doesn’t make them good. Carver is a good example of this sort of guy. Then, there are the people that are completely grey in their morality. Lee Everett once said, “Clem, people don’t always make sense”. That could apply to these grey characters or even all of the different types of people. I think it was more in reference to these characters with the grey moralities, though. These people are conflicted, confused, and they probably don’t even make sense to themselves. Are they good? Are they bad? It’s pretty hard to read them, because they’re a bit of both. A good example of this kind of morality from last season would be Lilly. I’m not really sure if she was good or bad. I hate her for killing Lilly, but I think her morality would be characterized as grey. You might be able to guess which characters I’m referencing to in this season, but I’ll refrain from naming them, because this episode revolves around them. They force Clementine into making decisions that no one should have to make, let alone a little girl. Who do you trust? It’s nigh impossible to choose and I guess that is the whole point. That’s how I look at it all, at least. Morality can be a difficult subject to write about it, but hopefully my views were coherent enough in this case.

One other thing of note for my commentary about the story. There are several different endings for this season finale and my first time playing through the episode last week didn’t leave me very emotional. It was a grueling experience, but not really emotional like the ending last season. And then I made some different choices on my PC playthrough this week and I got at least as sad for this ending, as I did when Lee died. Oh, man…

THE GAMEPLAY

No Going Back is a narrative-driven point and click adventure game. The gameplay is the same as it has been for the entire season. Check back on previous reviews, if you’d like more specifics about the gameplay.

THE BOTTOM LINE

No Going Back closes the book on a fantastic second season of The Walking Dead. It’s not often that a sequel can surpass the original, but I think that is the case here. The overall story (plot, characters, dialogue) this season is about equal with last season, but I think the improvement came in the gameplay. Everything played much better for me and everything in the game seemed much more polished than the first season did. I remember a lot of glitches in the first season, but I didn’t see any this time. That’s a big deal to me. Also, the choices this season are more difficult than ever, with this episode showcasing some particularly tough ones. I mostly felt confident about my choices as Lee last season. Playing through that season again, I still make the same choices that I originally did. But this season? It was a STRUGGLE. Almost no easy choices. Bad for Clem, good for the player. Storytelling in gaming doesn’t get much better than it was in No Going Back. That’s the bottom line for this finale, for this season, and really for this entire game series of The Walking Dead.