The Walking Dead: The Final Season - Episode 3: Broken Toys (PC) Review

Like Episode 1, Broken Toys begins with the aftermath of the death of another student; this time it is Mitch's, while some of the other kids in the camp got kidnapped by the Raiders. Following the theme of all the other The Walking Dead stories, it seems that grief and suffering is the only company these characters will ever get in this new world. Almost following the exact same formula from the previous episode, poor Tennessee cops the brunt of the raw emotion from Willy, who blames him for Mitch's death, after he was tricked into coming out of hiding when Lilly taunted him with the promise of seeing his sisters.

However, this time around, Clementine and the children have got a member of the Raiders in their clutches: Abel. So instead of resting on their laurels, Clem and little but less innocent AJ take on the duty of interrogating him for the whereabouts of the Raiders hideout, and the possible location of the kidnapped children. The theme of AJ growing up continues here; from the interrogation scene with Abel early on where Clementine can make decisions that may forever stay with AJ, to the important scene later in the episode where Clem and James have a philosophical discussion about AJ possibly growing up to become a murderer if he gets too comfortable with the action.

With only one episode remaining, there seemed to be little time left in the way of storytelling to wrap up all the story threads - and the futures of AJ, Clem and the other students are as vague as they've ever been. James is a character who continues to spout his holistic beliefs regarding the undead, and, unfortunately, his sentiments don't seem to get any better here. James is still of the belief that the zombies are not purely evil; which is fine, though bringing this thread into the mix with one episode left to complete the series seems a bit tacked on, with the possibility of not having an actual payoff from it.

While Clem and AJ share a few more touching scenes, they seem to be the key two characters carrying this season. The voice actors for both those characters have done extremely well to bring their childhood and adulthood into the one due to their forced environment upon which they must grow up in. Unfortunately, the other characters are still not coming across as well-developed characters or are lacking strong performances. Funnily enough, Marlon's performance in the first episode is still the most memorable behind AJ and Clem, and this episode does little to bring a new character into the main spotlight.

There is a scene that plays out during the middle portion of the episode, where the students are decorating their home in celebratory style - before they sit down to play a game where they each reveal their "true selves" to Clem and AJ. It is interesting as it does throw heighten the issue that these kids are not angels. They have been put at this school for the reason of being troubled children, with some causing more serious issues than others. However, that doesn't mean that these kids should be left alone to fend for themselves, which is exactly where they were found in the first episode.

While this is the most we have seen any of the minor characters develop, it still seemed a bit forced due to the time constraints of only having a four-episode season. Willy was practically unsighted in the first episode, and now he is happy to reveal all his "teenage" issues to Clem and AJ like they were best buddies. None of this really seems natural to the characters, but again, this is probably due to not having an extra episode up their sleeve to allow the pieces to fall naturally. Broken Toys does finish off on another cliff hanger - one where the story could head off in all sorts of directions in the final episode. The penultimate finale does feel a bit odd in the scheme of things, as it seems to tie up the major story threads without leaving any sort of direction for what will happen next. Still, this is an exciting prospect as one of the more beloved episodic stories comes to an end.