Episode 2:
Taken
Tropes featured in this episode of Alan Wake:
- Bear Trap: We find bear traps for the first time in the game littering the forest, placed by poachers in the area.
- Cassandra Truth:
- Understandably, when Alan tries telling anyone about his encounter with the Taken, people think he was either concussed, shell-shocked from a more believable trauma or suffering some kind of psychotic break.Barry: What— What the hell was that?! I saw it from the window — I saw — I saw something!
Alan: Forget about it Barry. It's just me going crazy. - Walter had a run-in with the Taken and the locals seem to think that it was due to bender.
- Understandably, when Alan tries telling anyone about his encounter with the Taken, people think he was either concussed, shell-shocked from a more believable trauma or suffering some kind of psychotic break.
- Distant Prologue: The episode begins with Alan and his wife in their apartment three years before the current events of the game, working on The Sudden Stop and dealing with a power outage.
- Enemy Mine: Alan almost immediately realizes that he's talking with his wife's kidnapper after Ben Mott saves him from the Taken, but still teams up with him to fight through the woods due to a lack of other options.
- I Have Your Wife: It is revealed that Alice was kidnapped by Ben Mott, holding her hostage in exchange for the rest of the manuscript.
- Reverse Escort Mission: Halfway through the episode, you lose your gun and rely on Mott to protect you, providing support with flares and your flashlight.
- Sacrificial Lion: Rusty ends up the second major Taken character, but unlike Stucky, we get to know a fair bit more about Rusty, and even get a brief Hope Spot to save him.
- Security Blanket: Alan talks to his wife about "the Clicker", a small remote he was given as a child that he was told would protect him from darkness and helped him sleep.
- Self-Parody: We find the first two pages of The Sudden Stop, an over the top Max Payne-esque detective story, including lead character Alex Casey being voiced by Payne’s voice actor James McCaffrey.
- Shout-Out: Barry says the Taken birds around the house are “going Hitchcock on him.”
- Toilet Horror: A Taken hunter lies in wait for an ambush in a bathroom stall, jumping out just as the flickering light dies.
- Video Game Caring Potential: When you meet Walter in his cell, he is hysterically asking to have the lights on (clearly aware of and afraid of the Taken infestation in Bright Falls) and the player has the option to ignore him or do what he asks. You can also simply ignore him and walk outside, or if you’re feeling extra cruel, can turn the lights on and turn them off again.
- Wham Episode: The episode ends with Rose calling Barry to her trailer with the promise of his manuscript, only to reveal the woman in black by her, Rose having been possessed and leading him into a trap.
