After nearly four months of waiting, episode 2 of "Life is Strange: 2" was released last Thursday (1/24/19). When we last left off, Sean Díaz and his brother Daniel were on the run from the police after an incident in Seattle left many people dead. This episode continues the stressful journey of the Díaz brothers as they now have to deal with the frigged winter in Oregon. The police are still on their tails and Sean is worried about what to do next. Eventually, he gets the idea to head to Beavercreek to visit his grandparents. Maybe they could help them. But a lot of unintended secrets and consequences rise up once they meet up in Beavercreek. Unlike the last "Life is Strange 2" article, I am going into some mild spoilers so I can explain my thoughts. You have been warned.
We begin the episode training Daniel and he has greatly improved since the first episode. He can levitate multiple objects at once and stop projectiles in midair. He has truly become more capable with his abilities. The boys have been living in an abandoned cabin for the past week or two I'd assume and are ready to leave. And Mushroom is still around. And this is where my annoyances begin.
Okay first of all. Mushroom. F—ing Mushroom. As you know, the boys "adopted" an abandoned pup and named her Mushroom. And I don't know if the boys have ever owned a dog before because they are terrible at taking care of it! Sean goes to town constantly and never seems to bring home any dog food for Mushroom. Not even the cheap kind that they could afford. Instead, they feed her leftover Ravioli. The dog person in me was literally screaming when Sean put the leftovers on the ground for Mushroom to eat. I mean come on, that's human food.
My annoyance with the treatment of Mushroom isn't over there. The next day, the boys decide it's time to visit their grandmother in hopes of a safe haven. Mushroom has to go out and the boys just left her to go UNSUPERVISED! If this was a trained dog that could defend herself then I would be a little less worried. But no, she is a puppy! That dog would run away into the forest if it saw a squirrel run up a tree. Sadly, tragedy does strike. A mountain lion was stalking Mushroom and surprisingly the developers went all in and killed Mushroom! And I was mad.
Not at the developers for not giving me a choice, not at the mountain lion for killing the puppy. I was mad at the Díaz brothers. Because in what world do you let your puppy go relieve themselves alone?! The choice popped up to either let Daniel kill the Mountain lion with his levitation power or let it drag and eat the puppy. And I was about to let Daniel kill the cat but I didn't want my emotions to get the better of me. I also did not want to have Daniel kill again, seeing as we can assume, he killed that police officer in Seattle back in episode 1.
We eventually make it to town and visit the boys' grandparents. They are the boy's mom parents and are a little hesitant to take the boys in. They haven't spoken in years and we are given a little more backstory to what happened to Sean and Daniel's mom. Apparently, she left all of them behind and cut all communications with them. I could tell that Sean did not want to look more into his mom, only calling her by her first name Karen. But Daniel did not want to drop it! I just grew more and more frustrated with Daniel. Makes me feel like I was too nice to the boy in episode one and the beginning of episode two. Because now he thinks he knows what's best for himself and won't drop it. He sneaks off to the neighbor's house to play superheroes with the neighbor kid and is constantly showing off his powers. He just doesn't listen and it annoys me funny enough!
Continuing on, there is a lot of character development in this episode and without going into spoilers there are a lot of decisions I make that I feel will come back to haunt me. Like me calling Lyla from episode one to check up on her, or not letting Daniel reveal his true power to the neighbor kid, Chris. Without going into spoilers, I spent a good four hours on this episode just taking my time and figuring out if I was making all the right decisions. Eventually, the boys blow their cover and in the final minutes of this episode, Sean and Daniel are hiding out in the woods waiting for their ride.
A train heading to California mentioned earlier by Cassidy the guitarist. Usually, the second episodes of the "Life is Strange" game is my favorite. But at the end of this episode, I was just frustrated. Not with myself, not with how the storyline forced us to go on the run again, but at Daniel. I've never had a sibling before, but I was just angry with how he was acting. I specifically told him all episode to not use his powers and to be responsible with him. I understand he is nine but he needs to grow up! Yes, I know he just a video game character made up of polygons and code, but he's the person I am trying to protect now.
In conclusion, I am still trying to get attached to this new Life is Strange story, but it is taking longer for me to get used to the characters. Maybe episode three will become that one episode I really enjoy. Whenever that releases, I'll be sure to give another review. Here's to hoping the Díaz brothers have a happy ending. Probably not… also #RipMushroom.
