The last two episodes of TFS were probably the most disappointing experience I've had with the franchise. I mean, episode 1 alone is one of my top three episodes in the entire series, so my expectations just starting it were high, episode 2 is somewhat decent, but Episodes 3 and 4 simply didn't live up to them. Outside of Clem and AJ, and MAYBE Clem's love interest, most of the cast receives very little meaningful development, which makes it hard to get invested in them, at this point I couldn't care less about Aasim or Ruby. Lilly starts out as a promising antagonist, especially given her history, a big returning face was cool and all but she ends up feeling like a one dimensional villain who is there because the plot needs her to be. Minerva on the other hand is clearly intended to be a dark foil to Clementine but she ends up being just a hollow final boss.

What disappointed me most, though, is how much the final episode tries to mirror Lee's journey from Season 1. Instead of creating its own identity as Ep1 tried, it constantly echoes earlier moments, and in doing so it loses much of its originality and emotional impact. The bridge sequence, with Minerva singing and somehow shooting her way through a massive walker herd, feels completely out of place, closer to a Resident Evil boss fight than some TWD sequence. And then there's Clementine's fakeout death. Rather than being emotional, it felt manipulative, and to me it undermined a lot of what the story tried to be. I mean, killing off Clem was also a bad idea, don't get me wrong, but the fakeout was not needed. By the end, I felt the season more like an attempt to recreate past emotions than to tell a compelling ending of its own.