This year, after finishing Elden Ring, I was looking for a game to sink some time into and as a result of that a friend ended up gifting me the collection of all the seasons of Telltale's The Walking Dead on Steam. He asked if he could watch me play some of the game now and then through me streaming it to him in a discord call, and to make sure I played the last two episodes of the final season when he was there. He also made it clear early on that the only season he thought highly of was the final season, and everything else was just varying degrees of good, but even so after finishing the third season I found myself worried that he was going to end up disappointed by me thinking that the final season was good – but nothing special.

I just really had my doubts that the first three seasons were going to lead to something fantastic in the end; the first season absolutely aged like milk with a lot of boring dialogue and a largely uninteresting plot (for example: in 2022, a family in a video game apocalypse setting turning out to secretly be cannibals just makes you roll your eyes). The next two seasons, although better written, were still nothing particularly impressive. I left the first two seasons feeling like the only things the writers had really accomplished were making me care about Clem from the first season onward (and making you care about a little kid in an apocalyptic setting isn't exactly a feat of literary genius) and making Kenny kind of an interesting character as a man with a patriarchal mindset who failed over and over to learn the lesson that he couldn't protect the ones he loved by himself and needed to rely on others to help him do so. There was also other somewhat interesting characters, and good moments here and there, but nothing that was going to stick with me except the very end of season 1 – which was, once again, largely relying on the fact that it's very easy to make you care about a little kid undergoing horrible tragedy. And the third season worked well enough as a semi-standalone story in the setting, but I felt like it didn't really do the work that was necessary to make you really care about its characters and was, same as the prior two seasons, simply fine and enjoyable as a way to kill some time.

So, I went into the final season expecting at the end to be somewhat apologetic towards my friend for not liking the series nearly as much as him. Instead, he ended up listening to me cry throughout all of the scene where Clem is dying in the barn – and be deeply invested in the story from start to finish.

In retrospect, it kind of makes sense that they were able to stick the landing. The one thing all the other seasons had done really well was making Clem a likable character and making you care about her. So, it's not exactly surprising that the second season where you play as her, that is also the end to her story, ended up working well. Seeing Clem grow up over the seasons and go from a sweet child who struggled to see anyone get hurt in the first season, to a straightforward and competent young woman who is willing to do what is necessary to protect herself and those around in the last season was very satisfying. Even more so because, despite everything, she retained a lot of empathy for others – even complete strangers – and a sense of humor, both of which regularly show through despite her somewhat matter-of-fact personality and practical worldview. Still, Clem being a great character and getting to see the end of her story wouldn't be enough by itself to make the final season great, if the rest of the story and characters weren't particularly interesting. Thankfully, the final season improved those aspects significantly compared to the other seasons.

A lot of the season revolves around AJ and who he's becoming as he grows up, as a kid that has only known a world where simply not dying is a regular struggle. Playing as Clem, the game once again makes you feel responsible for raising a kid the same as you did back in season 1. And although it's obviously all smoke and mirrors (since really how much the story of a game like this can branch based on your decisions is very limited), the final season still did a great job at making me worry about how the decisions I was making were potentially effecting AJ. The game presents a lot of scenarios where committing violence seems like the obvious answer, but AJ is right there and he's already clearly way too comfortable with hurting people if he can justify it to himself – making each of those decisions, for me, really difficult as I tried to balance doing what seemed like the right call and trying to keep AJ from learning the wrong lessons and hurting more people. This is essentially the final season doing again what the first season did in Lee being responsible for Clem, but now with some added layers of complexity to it. And that, combined with the game doing a really good at keeping Clem a very likable character and making me want to see her have a happy ending, was already enough to make me way more invested in the final season than any of the others. But, there was even more that the final season does right.

The majority of the season takes place in and around Ericson, a school for “troubled youth”, many of whose former students still live there today after being abandoned by their teachers when the apocalypse started. These former students make up most of the cast of the season along with Clem and AJ, and the story is ultimately one of Clem and AJ finding their place among them – a kind of found family story. This leads directly into another great aspect of the final season, in which someone on the dev team made the very smart decision to think to themselves: “if we're going to be telling a story about a bunch of kids, who had rough childhoods and grew up fending for themselves, building a found family – there should be multiple queer kids in this”. It probably goes without saying why a story about kids who were let down by the adults around them and needed to learn to rely on each other is a natural fit for including some queer characters. Plus, the writers deciding to have Clem be bi is a welcome addition to her character, and if her and Violet (one of the students, who is a good portrayal of a kind of awkward teen who's trying her best and a great character in her own right. I mean, she's a lesbian who kills zombies with a meat cleaver who is desperately trying to keep herself emotionally separated from others in an attempt to try and avoid getting hurt when she loses people she cares about again, but below the performative detached nature is a deeply earnest and well-meaning person. How could anyone not like a messy character like that?) end up together the scenes between the two of them are surprisingly good. It's just some cute, awkward teen romance that I found very sweet and never failed to put a smile on my face. It was nice to see Clem in a very commonplace situation rather than just the usual fighting to survive, and it was a pleasant surprise as I had no clue that queer romance was part of the story going into it.

On top of those two aspects of the story, that mostly revolve around just a few characters, the final season does a great job with making all of its characters interesting. Pretty much all the kids of Ericson who you are supposed to root for are sympathetic characters, and I was way more invested in the cast as a whole than previous seasons. Also, even the characters that are kind of shitty people succeed at not being one-dimensional antagonists (unlike, for example, Carver). Marlon is somewhat sympathetic as a kid who is clearly in way over his head. The game makes an effort to link the person Lilly has become to growing up with a controlling asshole for a father (and, if you don't kill her and pick the right dialogue choices as she drifts away down the river, it's clear she's not 100% happy with the person she's become either). And the things that Minerva end up doing throughout the story just feel like a tragedy. And lastly, on top of all that good character writing, the final season absolutely nails the ending.

While is true that the game faking out Clem's “death” is controversial, to me that scene played into the themes of the final season well. The final season, as a found family story set in the apocalypse, obviously rejects the idea that uncaring individualism is a good way to survive crisis. Sure, it's not exactly a particularly deep or controversial message that helping and relying on others is good – but for what is ultimately a fairly happy ending to the series, it's a fine theme to include. And AJ refusing to do the smart thing and listen to Clem when she tells him to accept that she's dying and to leave her, plays into that theme; Clem surviving because of what AJ did is the final touch that really brings together a great story. And, on top of that, it's a nice way to wrap up AJ's story as well. Whatever bad decisions he made throughout your playthrough to hurt or even kill other people, in the end him saving Clem is a reminder that she taught him how to survive and he is just as capable of using those lessons to help people as he is of using them to hurt others. He's still just a kid, and although his willingness to commit violence is troubling, he still has the potential to grow up to be a good person. After the season was so effective at making me worry about who AJ was becoming, it was really nice for his character arc to end on that note. Would it have been better to have all this without faking Clem's death? Maybe, but nothing is perfect. Besides, it serves as a very good emotional rollercoaster.

And then, the story ends with Clem and AJ, happy with their new home and the people they've surrounded themselves with. Not without troubles or worries, but content in the moment. And that's about as happy of an ending as I could have asked for for Clem, and makes all of what came before the final season more than worth it.