On paper, a return to the world of The Walking Dead should be a perfect reunion for Telltale, to bring in fan-favourite Michonne; a strong, cool, yet troubled character, and tell her origin story as well is all the more tantalizing a prospect. The worry however, is that The Walking Dead as a series, and Telltale’s adventure game formula aren’t as fresh and exciting as they once were. So does In Too Deep, the first episode in a three-part mini-series, recapture that old magic or merely reanimate it and create a shuffling abomination?
Michonne is an interesting character to build a series around, given the slightly ambiguous nature of her past that changed her from a mother-of-two into the cold, calm, sword-wielding warrior fans were introduced to in the early issues of The Walking Dead comic book series. She clearly has an untold story worth visiting, and one that should guarantee the usual heartbreak, shock and awe we’ve grown accustomed to with creator Robert Kirkman’s post-apocalyptic world, and indeed from Telltale’s previous two seasons based upon it. The episode opens with Michonne in a familiar situation, slicing away at the undead, albeit with less finesse than we’re used to seeing from the character.
We’re joining Michonne at a point where she hasn’t quite got her emotions under lock and key in the same way she does at a later date, her tragic losses still raw, and her psyche at breaking point. This shows during these opening moments where reality flits in and out of the scene to the point Michonne is nearly overwhelmed with her grief. It’s probably the most impactful moment of the entire episode, and followed by some lovely looking opening credits that are very evocative of TV crime show True Detective—not a bad thing to emulate. From here however, In Too Deep sadly begins to slide into mediocrity.
The problems with this episode don’t really lie with its protagonist, though as with Bigby in The Wolf Among Us, using an established character as the lead in a Telltale game lessens the unpredictability and scope for what you can and can’t do with the narrative. Michonne has the benefits and drawbacks of being fleshed out elsewhere to give you an understanding of the character’s emotional state, and to Telltale’s credit, they’ve once again respected the source material whilst adding to it where she’s concerned. Rather, it’s everything else that doesn’t feel well-realised that causes the issues.
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Telltale’s strength has been to provide good foils for their protagonists. Lee and Clementine had the likes of Kenny, Rhys and Fiona had Vasquez among others, and even Jesse has The Order of the Stone. Michonne has nobody to bounce off; well, not strictly true, it’s more accurate to say that she has nobody that’s interesting enough to be considered a foil. It’s not even that Michonne is overwhelming as a protagonist (though she is rather effective), as the rest of the cast get plenty of time to speak and react; they just don’t have anything to add that hasn’t been done before, but done better, by Telltale itself.
Each person that strolls into the episode has the overwhelming whiff of staleness about them, something that’s partly to do with the increasingly predictable ‘survivor’ character archetypes that have developed in the boon of any medium set in a post-apocalyptic world. You know the ones: the naive, hopeful one, the surly, sarcastic one, the ‘I’m doing unspeakable things, but I’m doing good, honest’ one, the freaked out young person, etc. It’s completely okay to use these character traits, but you have to add some layers to them. As such, In Too Deep fails to produce a single noteworthy character outside its protagonist.
There was a creeping sense of this starting to happen in the second season of The Walking Dead, but it was better protected by having Kenny return and the bridging 400 Days episode to give some of the new characters a bit of backstory. Here, the slow pacing should allow characters to breathe and show glimpses of depth, but instead they end up being a undercooked rehash of previous Telltale casts, as lifeless and limp as the rotting husks walking around in the game. Not caring for others in a Telltale game is a crippling flaw to have, and here, alongside a story that treads predictable ground in a dull fashion, it creates an imbalance with Michonne being so strong and intriguing, and highlights the weakness of the rest of the game.
The other thing that hampers the episode is the structural familiarity. Despite looking a bit cleaner and having more impressive menu screens, this doesn’t look or play all that different from the previous Telltale Walking Dead titles—it even has some of the same glaring technical issues. This coupled with the poor plot gives you a highly underwhelming start to this mini-series, which is a great shame considering it has such an incredibly solid lead. Normally, opening episodes are where Telltale come out snarling and biting, getting in your face and making an impact.
In Too Deep isn’t toothless exactly, more like it has a single sharp, powerful fang in Michonne surrounded by soft, unthreatening gums. With only two more episodes to tell this story, there’ll have to be one hell of a turnaround to steady this ship, which in fairness, Telltale have managed before after duff episodes. Before however, there was usually wiggle room in having a few episodes ahead of you to build with. This won’t be the case for TWD: Michonne though, so it’ll be a long climb uphill if it is to redeem itself.