YMMV / The Walking Dead: Season Two

General
Season one — Season two, 400 days and Michonne
Season three: A new frontier — Season four: The final season

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YMMV tab for Season Two. Beware of unmarked spoilers.

• Accidental Aesop: Vince's story provides one about the past "Don't let a person's past define their current identity". Danny was a statutory rapist while Justin was a selfish, remorseless con man. If Danny was saved then it's revealed that he was killed by the walkers and taught Vince to be altruistic and protective of the members of your community. If Justin was saved then it's revealed that Justin abandoned Vince without a second thought and Vince ends up becoming selfish as he becomes a soldier for a dictator. A decision that could have caused his death when walkers overran the community.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Sarah, who's either left behind in a trailer or trapped beneath rubble in Season Two: Episode 4 and is Devoured by the Horde of Walkers. In the latter situation, there is nothing the player can do to save her, even if Clem tells Jane to save her.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Ian Danskin interprets the season as a story about abuse. Kenny is a depiction of how even a well-meaning, otherwise good man can become an abuser (although it does not excuse him) and Clem's helplessness in the game is a reflection of how helpless a person can feel in on the other side of a toxic relationship. The closest thing to "right choice" in the endgame is one where Clem walks away from Kenny to become her own protector.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Kenny's behaviour is extremely contentious among the fanbase. Is he a wounded man who is struggling to control his emotions as he is surrounded by people he is unable to trust, and his relationship with Clementine is the only way to move on from the death of his family and new girlfriend, and his desperation to get to Wellington in the finale is only because he wants he believe is best for Clementine and baby A.J.? Or, is he needlessly hot-headed and antagonistic towards the more rational team members to the point where he pushes them away because of his increasingly unstable and violent behaviour, acts rather possessive towards Clementine and baby A.J. and sees anyone who tries to bond with them as a threat, relies far too much on pure dumb luck on planning to take his group to a rumoured safe-haven in the middle of a blizzard with a baby in tow, low supplies, and with no sense of direction, and could have very well gotten everyone killed in a worst-case scenario? There's also how some believe that Kenny's incessant belligerence, irrationality, and controlling nature, is what played a major part in the eventual downfall of the group in the Season Two finale, along with driving Bonnie, Mike and Arvo to betray the team out of fear of Kenny.
    • One fan theory for Kenny's increasingly reckless and irrational actions is that he suffered brain damage from Carver severely beating his face in, and Carlos himself does give this possibility some credence when he mentions how they won't be able to diagnose how severe the brain damage was until Kenny wakes up from the attack.
  • Christa's behavior towards Clementine after Omid's death. Does she resent Clementine for letting Michelle get a hold of her gun, which led to her shooting Omid? Or is she simply broken by it all? These two interpretations aren't necessarily exclusive. The fact that she tries to protect Clementine by lying to the bandits about being alone at gunpoint lends credence to the latter.
  • Sarah. Does she have a mental disorder of some kind that causes her to act the way she does or is it simply a result of extremely overprotective parenting? Again, it could be a combination of the two.
  • Arvo. Was he dangerous and morally loose all along? Or did Kenny's constant abuse break him? A number of his actions: ambushing the group with the intent to rob them, leading them over an icy lake and then running for it, and constantly giving Clementine dirty looks, are viewed completely differently depending on whether the player chose to rob him or not.
  • Jane and Kenny in the Season Two Finale. Both are on shaky moral ground throughout the episode, but their actions in the climax have practically split the fandom apart to the point that the character pages on this very wiki had a minor edit war over which was the Big Bad, or if either of them were.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • While it was a boss fight in a storyline sense rather than a gameplay sense, the battle with the Russians and the end of Episode 4 and beginning of Episode 5 was extremely anti-climatic. True, you did outnumber them, but considering how intimidating they looked, plus the implied mafia past and the long wait between episodes made it very anti-climactic when the only people who died were minor characters on their side and not a single person on yours.
  • Norma from the finale of Michonne was this for a few players since it's another Telltale boss fight with easy quick-time events.
• Ass Pull: Some players feel that Kenny's survival is this, as his "death" in the previous season entailed beyond cornered off-screen by walkers with no apparent way out. Especially not helping is the rather flimsy explanation for said survival: "I got lucky".
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Kenny. Again. It's even worse compared to Season One. He is either seen as a credible contribution to the story and provides a much needed and more familiar companion for Clementine, or he is seen as a Creator's Pet who is given far too much screentime over other more interesting characters that deserves more recognition, provides a lazy retelling of his own sub-plot that deals with the loss of another partner, after the death of his wife in Season 1, and has his Jerkass attitude taken up to eleven that continues to annoy many players.
  • Sarah is a big one too. Seen as either an Adorkable Woobie and a sweet, lovable companion of Clementine or an annoying liability due to her immaturity and anxiety issues.
  • Carver's characterization in Episode 3, some players either find his ruthless and tyrannical nature in tone with the bleak and desperate setting of the chapter, while others find his might-make-right attitude over the top, cliché, obnoxious, and inconsistent with his Affably Evil demeanour in Episode 2.
  • Jane. She's either a Pragmatic Hero who only cares about her own survival, or she's a Jerkass Woobie who's very sympathetic and human, but pretends to be cold so she won't be hurt so much.
  • Arvo gets this a bit as well. Players are split between him being perceived a conniving and irredeemable scumbag who is responsible for the shoot-out in episode 4, tries to lead the group across a potential death trap that costs Luke's life, willingly shoots Clementine out of spite when he tries to make his escape, and worst of all never pays for his crimes. Others feel that his treatment at the hands of an increasingly unstable Kenny is unjust due to the lack of concrete evidence that Arvo had planned out or supported his group's idea of ambushing Clementine and her group over a theft that Jane had definitely committed against him (she takes his gun and doesn't return it after she tries to rob him from earlier). The outcome of the frozen river was also seen as out of Arvo's control due to the whole group making their own decision to cross the river in order to reach Arvo's hideout for supplies, since Arvo was being held hostage by the group and was in no position to order anyone. And finally, Arvo's decision to shoot Clementine is either seen as a response of Kenny's abuse and paranoia towards a defenseless kid, or a flimsy attempt to justify Kenny's needlessly cruel actions towards Arvo.
  • Nate is this as well and has a special mention of splitting the Base in thirds. Either people hate him because of his creepy, perverted, Jerkass behaviour and the fact that he killed the elderly couple at the end of Russell's story and possibly killed Eddie. Others are drawn to him, finding him funny and like him because of his flaws or despite them. The last group are torn between the first two, liking Nate up until the aforementioned killings. However, these people can't seem to decide whether or not they want to continue liking him or start hating him, usually opting for a middle ground.
• Breather Level:
  • Visiting the museum with Mike and Bonnie to find supplies for Rebecca and her baby in episode 4 of season 2 counts as well. Aside from a single walker trapped in a room there are no hazards or enemies for Clementine to fight and the player doesn't have to make any hard choices. The atmosphere is also more lighthearted with some funny comments made by Mike and Bonnie as they look for the stuff they need. The group doesn't even suffer any setbacks and returns with some water and a coat that they can use as a blanket for the baby. Given the events that take place before and after this part most players were probably very thankful for it.
  • Sitting around the campfire in episode 5 of season 2 is definitely this. The party stops to spend the night, and the player is given a quite long sequence that involves nothing more than the entire group sitting around the fire, drinking, laughing, and generally getting along, with quite a bit of humor and some possible heartwarming moments. This comes right after a lot of hardship, and is more or less the last time the entire group ever gets along with each other again.
• Broken Base:
  • Those who are on Luke's side in Season 2 and those who are on Kenny's. Some find Luke to be naive and too idealistic, others find him to be genuinely nice and a likeable character. Some dislike Kenny for being too brash and selfish (his actions in Season 1 don't help at all), some think he's awesome and trustworthy. The base has become ever MORE broken after "Amid the Ruins", during which some Team Luke members went to Team Kenny after him sleeping with Jane and, thus, accidentally killing Sarah. In the same way, Team Kenny members have gone Team Luke after Kenny's unfair outburst at Clementine and his odd liking for Rebecca's baby. A rumor going around says that you'll have to choose between Kenny or Luke in Episode 5, which pretty much makes the broken base necessary. Although in Episode 5, it turns out you don't. You do have to choose between Kenny and someone else, but that someone else is Jane, not Luke, who dies partway through the episode.
  • The Season 2 finale tore the fanbase asunder during the climax. As listed above, many players still like Kenny, and agree with him that Jane (if the player let him kill her) could've prevented the fight if she merely told him the baby was alive. And then there are people who support Jane, and knew that sooner or later, Kenny would've snapped and that he needed to be put down before he seriously hurt anyone else. But like "Amid the Ruins" some fans immediately switched sides during and/or after the fight; those on Team Kenny switched over to Team Jane upon realizing how savage, petty, and insane he became, and those on Team Jane switched over to Team Kenny upon realizing that Jane was intentionally trying to make Kenny snap all just to prove a point. And then there are those who don't support either team, stating that Kenny and Jane crossed the Moral Event Horizon and couldn't be forgiven for what they've done to each other.
  • Carlos' decision to shield Sarah from the way things really are tends to get divided opinions from every player. Some are willing to accept that, as Sarah's father, this is how he's choosing to raise her and it isn't Clem's place to object to it. Considering how Sarah later behaves after Carlos' death, freaked out to the point of near catatonia, the same players also consider Carlos' choice to be the right one. On the flip side, other players greatly disagree with Carlos, feeling that on top of not being able to shield Sarah forever, keeping her in the dark only made things worse for her. Again these players still feel this way after Carlos' death—that Sarah would not have been so damaged by her father's death or helpless against walkers if Carlos had properly prepared her beforehand.
• Complete Monster: William Carver is a cruel despot who runs his settlement like a prison camp. When a group of survivors escape from him, including Rebecca, the woman he raped and impregnated, Carver relentlessly pursue them and upon finding them he would break Carlos fingers to lure Rebecca. Carver would then proceed to kill his hostages one-by-one, starting off with Walter, then potentially Alvin, and threatens to kill either Sarita or Clementine; if Alvin survives, Carver will torture him to death. He also murders one of his own men, and beats Kenny so savagely that his eye is permanently damaged. When Rebecca tries to escape with her group again, Carver attempts to kill her and the unborn child. Though claiming to have everyone's best interests, Carver just wants complete control believing that the strong should rule and the weak should be dominated or culled.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Vitali from the Russian Group in Episode 4 is quite obviously a violent, unstable, and bloodthirsty monster of a man, and it's hard to find anything even mildly amusing about him. However, if you know Russian or look up the translation for his lines, you'll discover that he is so Ax-Crazy that it almost crosses into Cloud Cuckoolander, and makes his lines almost hilarious in how insane they are.
  (Translated) "I can kill any three of them with my bare hands, we don't even need the weapons! That's right, I mean you, eyepatch man, you're weak and I could tear out your throat with my teeth, who needs to use bullets for the likes of you? I'll kill you all and eat your entrails for breakfast!"
• Designated Hero: Sam (and possibly Michonne herself, depending on the player's actions) from the Michonne mini-series can be considered this. Sam is introduced to Michonne's group by signaling for help after her supplies raid from the Monroe community, causing Norma and Randal to capture Sam and her brother Greg down, and also inadvertently causes Michonne's group to be captured as well. Come the next episode, Sam and Michonne break out of captive and escapes, while causing the entirety of Monroe to catch on fire and thus destroy the community and kill several inhabitants off-screen who have likely never met Sam and Michonne before. This causes the remaining survivors to hunt down Sam and Michonne for revenge, only for the rest to be killed as well in the finale, including Norma, who was still willing to try a diplomatic approach in spite of what she had lost, until her brother is killed. The entire series of events happens because Sam steals from the people of Monroe not once, but twice, and incurs the wrath of the Monroe community for her theft, as well as getting Michonne's group captured in the ensuing struggle between her and people from Monroe. To the dismay of several players, Sam is never called out on how she is arguably (if unintentionally) responsible for every death in the mini-series, including one or two of Michonne's own people.
• Designated Villain: Norma from the mini-series can be perceived as this. Unlike her violent and brutish brother Randall, Norma is portrayed as a 'tough, but fair' leader and diplomat of Monroe. She is introduced during Michonne and Sam's capture, and while making the poor assumption that Michonne was a part of Sam's group who had raided her supplies, Norma is shown to be reasonably polite towards Michonne without resorting to needless violence. After Michonne and Sam escapes, she contacts them upon finding out that they had held Randal hostage, and tries to negotiate with them to bring him back safely. During the finale, Norma goes out of her way to be diplomatic and reasonable in spite of having lost both her people and community in one day because of Michonne and Sam's escape, right up to the point she easily releases a captive and unharmed Pete (if he stayed behind in Episode 2) back to Michonne, and allows them to kill one of her men for impulsively killing Berto during the trade. Unfortunately the trade goes awry and causes Randal to die, quickly sending Norma in a fit of rage and orders her remaining men to kill everyone. Eventually, Norma dies in a horrific fashion that most feels undeserving for someone who had suffered at the hands of the heroes who had destroyed her community and killed all of her people over the supplies that Sam had willingly stole from her twice.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Kenny and Jane, are both subject to this by the fanbase. Kenny is often defended as a man broken by trauma, whose increasing violence only stems from justified paranoia, stress, and grief (not only for his wife and son, but later Sarita) and whose targets largely (Carver and Arvo) "deserve" it. This is despite his violence resulting in not only Clem getting hurt, but Mike and Bonnie becoming so fearful of him that they leave with all the group's supplies. Much of his violence is also directed at Arvo, even after he's proven not to be a threat anymore. His potential murder of Jane is justified due to him believing she got AJ killed, but regardless it was done in a blind fury, not because Jane meant to. Meanwhile, Jane is defended for being correct in that Kenny is becoming more and more dangerous, and that her actions in the final episode were to prove this to Clem for her own safety. The fanbase also points to how Jane is much more composed and level-headed than Kenny, which makes her a safer companion. Her gambit in the final episode is defended for ultimately proving her point: that Kenny really is too dangerous to be around. However, in doing so, she abandoned the newborn AJ in a car in the middle of a blizzard, which could have very well gotten him killed regardless. Both leather-pantsing groups also tend to ignore that Kenny and Jane both show unhealthy behavior towards Clem as a Replacement Goldfish, for their son and sister respectively.
• Evil Is Cool: Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he is by all means an Ax-Crazy jerkass who Would Hurt a Child, Randall from the Michonne miniseries is well-liked for being a very efficient and frightening antagonist in a game that many feel wasn't nearly as good as he deserved.
• Fridge Horror:
  • After Omid and Christa show up in Season 1, it's subtly insinuated several different ways that she has just recently learned she's pregnant, before being outright stated in Episode 5. When Season 2 picks up months later, she's obviously in the late stages of the pregnancy. Then comes the sixteen month time skip, with no baby in evidence. So there are three options, each worse than the last:
    • Christa had the baby and she either left it behind for someone else to raise or was kidnapped.
    • She had the baby and it later died, forcing them to then prevent it reanimating.
    • She had a late-term miscarriage, which is perhaps the worst of the three. Because that late in the pregnancy, she would have had to go through labor and full delivery if the fetus died. And since we have no idea if reanimation can occur that young, Christa would have to undergone delivery, unsure if her child could have potentially come back to life and start to kill her from the inside?
  • Whoever the player decides to let die in episode 5 of season 2 comes back as a walker as neither suffered brain damage (with Kenny being shot in the chest and Jane getting stabbed by a knife) in their respective deaths, which are followed by Clementine and the survivor immediately leaving with Baby A.J. to find shelter. Not only are they probably still out there, but Telltale may even decide to bring them back in season 3 for a special encounter... *** Even worse, Season 3 reveals that Jane was pregnant.
• Glurge: The decision to go with Kenny to Wellington can be this in the Season 2 finale. Clementine and Kenny discovers that Wellington did indeed exist, only that the community could only make enough space for Clementine and AJ, where Kenny sacrifices himself to let the two stay in. While it is presented as a heartwarming and teary-eyed moment, it does not address that Kenny was perfectly happy to gamble with the lives of everyone in the group, including Clementine and baby AJ, to go to Wellington, a place that no-one at the time had concrete proof that existed and thus have no real destination, the group had limited supplies and ammunition, there is an oncoming blizzard that is reducing both visibility and the temperature was dropping to the point where everyone could die from hypothermia due to lack of shelter, and Kenny had made it adamant that he plans to drag everyone, including those who voted against the plan, to go to Wellington whether they liked it or not. And even if Mike, Bonnie, and Jane had went along with the plan against their wishes, they would all be refused entry by Wellington and would have no choice but to turn back with whatever they had carried with them at the time, thus making the journey to Wellington a complete waste of time and resources. And that's not even getting into how easily Kenny allowed Clementine and AJ into a community no-one has any idea that is even stable or safe to stay in for a child and a baby. The implications behind the ending seems to address the message that the "ends justify the means, and anyone who argues otherwise is wrong".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Clementine threatening to reveal that Rebecca's baby may not be Alvin's. At the time it's a satisfying Take That! after Rebecca consistently treated Clem badly and suggested she be left to die. However, it's harder to do on subsequent playthroughs, when you realise the baby may be a result of Carver raping Rebecca.
  • In the season 2 finale trailer, Sandra's line of "That's no way to say goodbye to your mother!" is this. Given, she does give a formal goodbye to her parents a moment later but it's not much better. "See you soon."
  • Trying to get all the main characters in "400 Days" to leave with Tavia ends up making the bad endings being better choices as we find out they ended up working for Carver, the Big Bad of season 2.
• Ho Yay:
  • Luke and Nick have a few moments like this. Kenny actually comments on this when trying to get a rise out of them.
  • Mixing with No Yay, quite of few things that Russell can say ends up with Nate responding in some sort of flirty manner, intentional or not. If all of these possible responses are chosen in one gameplay and you choose to befriend him, Russell's storyline can feel like a quasi-slash fic, much to the pleasure or horror of the player.
  • From the beginning to end, Nate can possibly come across as being very "friendly". If Russell doesn't hide from Nate and tells him that he needs a ride, Nate will respond by asking if he'll work for it because he has "needs", though he'll soon say that he was joking. When in the car if Russell asks Nate if they can just drive instead of talk, Nate responds with confusion over the plural usage and asks if Russell wants to sit on his lap. He apologizes soon after for freaking him out. At the gas station when they're both getting shot at, if Russell responds with fear, Nate will ask Russell to look at him. If Russell refuses, Nate will cup his chin, not so roughly make Russell look at him, and motivate him to continue on. With all of these moments from Nate and the more friendly actions on Russell's part; accepting the drink, apologizing for being scared, thanking/acknowledging that Nate saves his life when he falls, and staying with him at the end can make this part of the game really enjoyable or disturbing.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The main problem people have with the Michonne miniseries is that although the episodes aren't bad, they're just too short to make an impact.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Nick. He argues with the group left and right—especially with his Uncle Pete—and is highly distrustful of Clem right from the start. Pete later explains that Nick lost his mother prior to Clem's arrival, and is still reeling from the grief. Pete's death also mellows Nick out, as he tries to be more helpful to the group and make up for his actions.
  • Jane. She's a jaded survivor with a penchant for brutal honesty, but as we later find out, she once had a younger sister who became so overwhelmed with the state of the world that she became catatonic, necessitating Jane to leave her behind. This is now more applied in episode 5, in which she abandons Alvin Junior and pretends that he's dead just so Clementine will come with her.
  • Arvo. Sure, he may have been involved with the shootout at Episode 4 and nearly got everyone killed, but watching the man cry over his sister's corpse, and later crossing the Despair Event Horizon, is enough to make anyone feel sorry for the man.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Nowadays, plenty of people (especially on Reddit) think that Season Two had a disappointing storyline and underdeveloped characters, and the only good thing about it was Kenny.
• Moral Event Horizon
  • Bill Carver, the Big Bad of Season 2, Episodes 2 and 3, establishes himself as the scum of the earth in his very first episode, between torturing Carlos in front of his daughter, killing Walter to prove a point, and threatening to shoot Clementine or Sarita in order to force Kenny's surrender.
  • Troy in general is a relentless Jerkass in Season 2 Episode 3, but after he smashes an 11 year old girl in the face with the butt of his AK-47 few people were sympathetic when he was shot in the groin and devoured alive and screaming shortly thereafter.
  • Jane recklessly endangers Alvin Jr. by leaving him in a car, surrounded by walkers, solely to provoke a fight with Kenny. Depending on the player's actions, this may also be her undoing.
  • Arvo shooting Clementine with a remorseless look on his face. This appears to be a cold-blooded act of attempted murder on a child, motivated by his feud with Kenny.
  • Nate in 400 days. At first he seems somewhat crazy but mostly amicable towards Russell. Even his actions in Wyatt's story are justified. However, Russell, and the player see Nate kill an elderly couple and take their stuff with a smile on his face.
• Narm:
  • In Season 2, Episode 2, Walter's Patrick Stewart Speech about how there's still hope for humanity feels a tad too scripted. Possibly justified by him being a teacher, and used to talking this way.
  • In Episode 3 of season 2, if Alvin was shot in 2, Carver will take Clem aside for a personal interview in his office, where he'll threaten her to cooperate if she doesn't want to "end up in that chair"... which the camera shows to be a perfectly ordinary, empty chair (albeit one with handcuffs). This threat carries more weight if Alvin survived the ski lodge encounter, in which case his bloodied, passed-out body will be occupying the chair.
  • In the end of Episode 3, Clementine comes across Sarita getting her arm bitten by a Walker, forcing Clementine to either kill the Walker or cut off Sarita’s arm. What would normally be horrific is turned goofy by the ridiculously dopey look on said Walker’s face, especially with it’s puckered out upper lip over Sarita’s arm, not helped by the scene being done in slow-mo, making it impossible not to notice.
  • Some players can't seem to take Reggie's voice acting seriously, leading to most feeling apathetic or unintentionally cheering for Carver when he murders him.
  • Russian players have noted that the Russian Group have no idea how to pronounce their lines, leading to the extremely serious climax becoming a hilarious attempt by English VA's to sound foreign.
    • Buricko is not a Russian name. It’s not even a name at all. As Long as It Sounds Foreign, I guess?
  • The scene where Rebecca gives birth to her son feels more awkward than heartwarming for players who rescued Sarah from the trailer as it completely glosses over the fact that the same fifteen year old girl was brutally killed by walkers a few meters away from them not more than a few seconds ago, and everyone acts as if it never happened.
  • Some find Nick's death in Episode 4 to be this as well. It was highly foreshadowed by his little influence in Episode 3, and it's done in a very lazy fashion. It does not help at all that everyone is sad about it for five seconds, at the most.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Episode 1. Not only is watching Clementine sew her wound up horrifying... It's pretty gross, too. You can even tell Luke as much later on.
  • As listed in the Squick section below, Kenny bashing Carver's head to a literal pulp.
  • In the second episode of the Michonne miniseries, Michonne has to remove a bullet from Sam and cauterize her wound with a fireplace poker. It doesn't help that everything is in full detail.
  • Michonne also has to relocate her arm socket after dislocating it in a fight with Randall.
• Player Punch:
  • Season 2 hits you right off the bat. If Omid's Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome didn't get you, how about meeting a cute little dog, searching for food together, playing fetch...and then getting viciously attacked by it and subsequently having the option to let it suffer a particularly slow and agonizing death?
  • For those who liked her seeing that convincing Sarah to leave the trailer does nothing as she gets a brutal death later in episode 4.
  • Episode 5 of Season 2 is filled to the brim with these.
    • If Clementine stayed and watched Kenny murder Carver, and then tells him to stop beating Arvo in Episode 5, he'll growl at her "What, lose your taste for this sorta thing?" Ouch...
    • Clementine being shot and having a flashback with Lee.
    • Luke's unavoidable death, which happens shortly after his birthday and a much-needed calm, heartwarming moment in the episode. Even after he falls into the lake, the game gives you the option to try and save him by bashing the butt of your gun against the ice to free him, which proves to be futile. None of this is helped by Bonnie's potential death either.
    • Mike, Arvo, and (possibly) Bonnie trying to steal the truck and leave the group. Sure, they had a good reason, but seeing the one person (or two people) you could trust suddenly betray you out of fear of one man, and having no way to convince them to stay is horrible.
    • Choosing between Kenny or Jane. When they're fighting, you have the option to kill Kenny, or to let him kill Jane. There are no other options. No matter what the outcome is, you're gonna be stuck with a murderer who has a tenuous grasp on his sanity or you're gonna be stuck with The Unfettered woman who left a baby in potential danger and forced you into killing a man just to prove a point and just to get you to win her over in a sociopathic plan that even she admits was wrong. Or you're gonna be alone after refusing to forgive Jane, or after putting Kenny down after realizing the monster he's become.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • For some fans, Rebecca in Episode 2. Not only is she much nicer to Clementine, and less abrasive to everyone, but she even admits and apologizes for being a bitch to both Clementine and Alvin.
  • Despite coming off as the new Ben, Nick grew on many players during the second episode. According to a statistic, the 85% of players chose to convince Walter to forgive Nick, thus saving his life.
• Ron the Death Eater: Another reaction to Kenny and Jane at the same time as Draco in Leather Pants. [[spoiler:Kenny's more violent acts (caving in Carver's face, brutalizing Arvo) are pointed to as proof of him being too dangerous to be around, yet Kenny never turns such violence to innocents. On top of imprisoning and abusing the group, Carver did nearly beat Kenny to death, and Arvo led his group back to kill the others in petty revenge for Jane mugging him. Similarly, while he sets out (and can succeed in, if you so choose) to kill Jane with his bare hands in the last episode, it is done so under the belief that she has gotten the newborn AJ killed. On the other hand, there is Jane, who is often pointed to as a smug, lying manipulator who just wanted Clementine for herself. However, it isn't hard to see how she comes to the conclusion that Kenny is too dangerous to be around, especially after he not only inadvertently injures Clem while attacking Arvo, but cause Mike and Bonnie to bail with all of their supplies. Her theory, that Kenny would fly into a murderous rage if he thought she'd accidentally gotten AJ killed is proven correct.
• Rooting for the Empire: As it turns out, a lot of people like Carver because he's more interesting than our bland, not-really-fleshed-out "heroes" of the cabin group. Even if the protagonists did have some personality (which was kind of rare when you think about it) they were still badly written.
• The Scrappy:
  • Nick seems to be the Season 2 equivalent of Ben. In Episode 2 especially. In fact, if you saved Nick instead of Pete back in episode 1, then in the Nick-scenario "beginning segment", one of the dialogue choices even has Clementine compare Nick to someone she once knew, and "he was always screwing up, too". Presumably she is referring to Ben.
  • Carlos gets a lot of derision for not being The Smart Guy he is set up to be. He is unable to differentiate between a dog and walker bite and is unaware of the stupidity of his proposed remedy (or alternatively is, and is willing to doom Clementine from the get-go), asks Clementine how big "a small house" is, views an 11-year-old as the best candidate to turn off a windmill, thinks sheltering Sarah is good parenting...
  • Arvo lost supporters and attracted a new level of hate by shooting Clementine, in what may have been a spiteful attempted murder.
  • Mike and Bonnie were initially well-liked, due to their appearances in Amid the Ruins being one of the most well-received parts of an otherwise poorly received episode. This was unfortunately Subverted come the finale, where both would ditch Clementine with the unpopular Arvo, with Bonnie in particular getting flak for being Too Dumb to Live and playing a major hand in the death of Luke and blaming Clementine if she doesn't go along with her ridiculously dumb plan.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: The QTEs are somewhat harder this time around, with directional controls added and some slight changes in layout and controls (which most likely results in your instincts causing your death in regards to the controls being different), among some other things. Telltale also added an "invert Y" function, but having presumably played six chapters the other way, the players may have different opinions as to whether or not changing it now works better.
• Squick:
  • In Episode 1, Clementine is forced to stitch up her own wound. The game forces you to go through every agonizing step of this process.
  • In Episode 3, Kenny smashes in Carver's face with a crowbar. Repeatedly. With close-ups of the bloody, ruined mess that used to be said face if you choose to watch or go back to the warehouse later
  • In Episode 4, assuming the character survived up to that point, killing the zombified Nick is much less than clean. Basically, while attempting to take him out with a hatchet, Clem ends up lopping off side of his head before finally getting through to it.
• Strangled by the Red String: A father-daughter variant can occur to those who don't see Clementine's and Kenny's bond all that convincing in Season 2, mainly due to how very little the two interacts in Season 1, with Kenny even going as far as to willingly not participate in rescuing Clementine upon being kidnapped by The Stranger in "Around Every Corner" if the player does not build a strong enough bond as Lee beforehand. By the time Season 2 arrives, Kennyreunites with Clementine and suddenly takes it upon themselves to become Clementine's new friend and guardian, and even if the player as Clementine tries to distance themselves from Kenny, the narrative seems determined to treat them as beloved friends to the end even if the player shoots Kenny to stop him from killing Jane in the finale. It does not help that Kenny's behaviour listed in the aforementioned Glurge section makes them come across as more obsessive towards Clementine and baby AJ to the point of appearing very possessive.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • After Omid's death, Christa becomes more cold and resentful towards Clem since she's the one who got him killed indirectly with her gun and when Christa is apprehended by scavengers, fans can have Clem choose to abandon her to save not only her own ass but to retaliate against Christa for her bitchy attitude according to them.
  • Threatening/Blackmailing Rebecca in the first episode of Season 2 felt like this to many players.
  • At one point in Season 2: Episode 4, you have the option to leave Sarah to die inside of a trailer. Even if you don't, Clementine will be forced to slap her just so you'll be able to rescue her.
  • There's also Nick's ignominious offscreen death, which no one seems to care about afterwards.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The optional characters from the 400 DLC served no purpose in Season 2 besides having a very short cameo. And on top of that, it's possible that they were all Killed Offscreen when Carver's compound was being overrun by the herd of walkers.
    • Some of the characters like Shel, Becca and Russell would've had some interesting encounters with Clem as they encounter some characters from the first season (the sisters knew about Vermon's group and Russell saw either Carley or Doug's corpse).
  • When Clem sees Shel and Becca, Becca mentioned that she knew about Sarah, which would've been interesting to see how the two interacted with Clem as they're opposites of Clem (Becca is brash while Sarah is timid) or at least a flashback with Sarah and Becca. But this never came to be.
  • A lot of Sarah and Nick fans feel like their anticlimactic deaths in Episode 4 wasted two of the arguably most complex and well-developed characters in all of Season 2.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The First Season wasn't all sunshine's and rainbows to begin with, being a Zombie Apocalypse game where Anyone Can Die, but there was some ray of hope with some comic relief such as Omid. The second season on the other hand manages to be even darker and bleaker. Starting off with Omid dying and Christa most likely dead as a reminder with how messed up this season will get. The characters tend to be Jerkasses, even Kenny himself, and rely on the 11-year-old Clementine to solve nearly everything despite being adults. Everybody eventually suffers a Cruel and Unusual Death too early before they can develop. The finale then involves giving you a tough choice to kill one of your last two companions, kill both of them after one kills the other, or leave your remaining companion to go off alone with AJ.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Sarah can be considered one by the fandom who don't consider her as The Scrappy, especially when considering how the narrative in Episode 4 of Season 2 seems to want to persuade the audience to abandon a shell-shocked young girl to a horrible fate after the death of her father, for the crime of being considered as The Load or an outright liability, the majority of players chose to save her than leave her to die. This is especially notable when her actions is nowhere near as catastrophic or liable as Ben was in Season 1, who could arguably be responsible for nearly every death and disaster that occurred in his group from Season 1 after Episode 3, and yet was portrayed in a far more sympathetic light than Sarah. The creator's disdain towards Sarah may also inspire more sympathy for her due to some feeling that the negative reception towards her detractors tends to come across as both irrational and undeserving.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Both Kenny and Jane can come across as this to some in Season 2, especially in the finale where the fight to the death between the two had split the fandom on who was the one crossed the line during the finale. Considering how contentious both characters are with the fandom for varying reasons, some opted to abandon the two and walk away with baby A.J. due to how unlikable they were.
  • Arvo is this as well. One could make a reasonable insight that Kenny's abuse broke the kid in very bad ways...unless you took the opposite option when you first met him and reveal that he was going to attack you either way. Arvo gets beat up by Kenny for sure, but when you realize what he does and what he later does, you lose sympathy for the kid fast.
• Vindicated by History: While it isn`t the strongest example of the trope, Season two was better looked upon by gamers when compared to A New Frontier, the follow up season that did worse in critical and audience reception.
• The Woobie:
  • Nick. It's been established that even before the apocalypse he had issues with parental abandonment and self-worth, but then his uncle Pete is bitten by a walker, and after realizing he's lost his last family member, he confides in you that before you joined the group, he had to kill his own mother.
  • Sarah. At first she just seems like a Creepy Child who's a little bit too oblivious to whats happening with the world but eventually the game starts to seriously screw her up. In the space of only a few days, she is forced to leave her home, get tracked down by the man she and the group tried to escape from, witnesses the death of Walter and (potentially) Alvin and also sees her fathers fingers brutally broken. Then they're brought back to Carver's settlement where her father is instructed to hit her and she also witnesses Carver shove Reggie off the roof (which she is an indirect cause of). Finally to top it off, she sees her father get shot when they try to escape and then attacked by walkers. The fact that she appears to have some sort of as yet unidentified developmental disorder also makes it much harsher and crueler when bad things happen to her and her father, and this aspect of her character can potentially make players feel inclined to be sympathetic towards her and motivate them to try and be protective of her in these incredibly terrible situations she quite clearly doesn't fully understand.
  • Although initial interactions with her made it seem like she would be The Scrappy, Rebecca turns out to be this as Season 2 goes on. It's revealed that the child she is having is potentially a Child by Rape via Carver. Then, she's forced to lose her husband, either by seeing her rapist shoot him dead in a hostage stand-off or by losing him to a Heroic Sacrifice. She then spends a good amount of time wondering whether or not she'll be alone in the world, all while doing her best to avoid becoming The Load for the group. When she finally goes into labor, it initially looks like her child is a stillbirth, though this is thankfully averted immediately afterward. However, she doesn't even get the chance to enjoy this much, as she dies from exhaustion in the cold just a few days later, reanimating into a Walker while holding the newborn in her hands.
  • Luke also gets a bit of this, having been forced to see EVERYONE from his original cabin group die horribly before he himself freezes and/or drowns in a lake, trapped under ice.
  • Sam goes through a lot in the few days Michonne knows her. First she and her brother are caught by Norma's group and interrogated at gunpoint. Then she watches as her brother is accidentally shot and killed in front of her, after which she has to hold him down as he reanimates so Michonne can either bash his face in or drive a screwdriver through his eye. After managing to escape Monroe, she gets shot in the shoulder and almost bleeds to death. Her life is only saved when Michonne performs an excruciating impromptu surgery on her, involving pulling out the bullet while she is still conscious and cauterising the wound with a red hot fireplace stoker. Then she finds out her father has just been murdered by Randall, orphaning her and her brothers. Finally, her beloved family home is burnt to the ground, and she can even die while trying to escape it! The poor girl can't catch a break.
  • Sam's younger brothers also count, having already lost their mother to suicide, and then losing their brother, father and (potentially) sister all in the same day.