XP: Life is Strange Episode 5

Finally reaching the last of the Life is Strange series of blog posts. I have done some, but not much TV watching, and maybe someday I will write about them. But for now, I am living a busy life outside of work, and have even started a project of sorts with some close friends. Once we’ve gotten past the beginning stages I might post something about it. Until then, onwards to the finish line!


Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

What I played:

Life is Strange Episode 5: Polarized

Max wakes up to find herself strapped to chair in the Dark Room. She manages to free a limb to sift through photos within her reach, leaping herself across the timeline and make enough changes to travel to the very beginning of it all. She finds the sweet spot where Mr. Jefferson and Nathan are arrested, Chloe is alive, and Max is in San Francisco as the winner of the Everyday Heroes contest. Unfortunately, she forgot about the giant tornado that she had been fretting about since the beginning of the game, and she has to go back once again to make sure she is at Arcadia Bay instead of San Francisco. All the time traveling takes it’s toll and she falls unconscious, her dream state reviewing all the choices she has made and revealing the one she knows she will have to make.

What I experienced:

Right off the bat we are faced with a consequence of the previous episode as Max wakes up in the Dark Room. Remember when we were being nice and we chose to warn Victoria about Nathan probably being the killer? Yeah that backfired. In her wariness to avoid Nathan she went to Mr. Jefferson for help, and well, we now know that he was the real killer after all. So, Victoria ended up kidnapped, drugged, and tied up next to Max in the Dark Room. If you choose not to warn Victoria, she is not there at all, which means she is there directly because of your choice. I thought that was a nice touch, since people don’t always know what consequence an action will have. If everyone knew the exact consequence of their actions then there would be no mistakes, and we all know that’s not how the world works.

Now on to the very complicated journey of multiple time-leaps through photographs. The first two leaps are within her time at the Dark Room where she causes eough changes to have her journal placed within her vicinity, all so she can time-leap even more and make bigger changes in the past. During this journey we learn about Mr. Jefferson’s motivations, whose voice has suddenly taken on the gritty serial killer whisper now that his true intentions have been revealed. He rambles in typical Bond villain style about how being there to photograph the very instant a girl’s innocence is taken away makes them the purest model, or some shit like that. His reasoning was flimsy, but then again some people don’t need much of a reason to do crazy things. On a cool note, when Max goes back to the day where she first got her powers, you hear Mr. Jefferson’s lecture on how he can use his camera to capture any one of them in a moment of desperation forever, which took on a whole new meaning given he is a serial kidnapper.

Anyways, he teamed up with Nathan to supply the funding, drugs, and scout for potential “models” for his photographs. Nathan wanted to copy the creepy new father figure he found in Mr. Jefferson and tried to bring in Rachel Amber, but accidentally overdosed her. Since Nathan was now becoming out of control, Mr. Jefferson killed him. He found out the girls stumbled onto his secret lair through some surveillance system, and used Nathan’s phone to lure the girls to the junkyard. It was nice to finally get an answer as to what happened to Rachel Amber, and it seemed plausible enough. It also gave a reason why Nathan was not present, although later in the episode there is a moment where we hear from him. However, the lesson we learn from Nathan is be a good father to your children, because they will accept any alternative so long as it gives them love and acceptance.

This is a tactic used all over the world to recruit youth into doing what they might normally not consider. Gangs will shower youth with attention and even start to provide financially to their families when the parent is unable to, which serves as the example for the young person that the criminal life is the better path to continue providing for the family. After-school specials always talk about how the criminal/gang lifestyle is a terrible option, and if they stay on the “right path” they can become a fully functional member of society. The sad thing is, depending on the level of funding for schools, employment opportunities, and family support system, entering a life of crime might not be wrong. It’s hard to choose to become a functional member of society when society has forgotten to invite you in.

As I mentioned before, Max time leaps enough times to make it back to the first day she got her powers, and that is where we really get to notice how much Max has grown as a character. In Episode 1 she was so shy and lacked any confidence in her abilities as a photographer, that she failed to turn in her photo for the “Everyday Heroes” contest. She even destroyed it after she was too shy to talk to Mr. Jefferson. This time, she walks around with no fucks given:

The last line was absolutely perfect. Jefferson commented about it being easy for her to submit her photo since he was expecting the shy girl that was in his class moments before. But after facing down a knife-wielding drug dealer, uncovering a friend’s dead body, witnessing her best friend getting shot in the head, and then herself becoming a kidnap victim, Max is no longer that same girl. There is so much more to worry about that turning in a photo. Even calling Victoria out on her insecurities are easy enough to check off her to do list, right after she checks off “survive.” Everyone has struggles, it’s just all of our struggles are relative to where or who we are. Middle-class Americans worry about getting in trouble if their boss notices they’re five minutes late, while families in war-torn areas worry about whether their loved one is dead or alive if they come home five minutes late. That is simply the norm for their respective areas. Max’s norm has shifted dramatically in only one week.

During that time leap Max had also sent David, the head of security, a text about where Mr. Jefferson’s Dark Room was. This lead Jefferson and Nathan to be arrested and Chloe to be alive again. Not only that, when she returned to the present she finds out she won the photo contest and was en route to San Francisco with Principal Wells to view the gallery where her art is being displayed. Max takes her celebrity status in stride now that alls well at Blackwell. Mr. Wells encourages her to go around and talk to everyone to discuss her artwork, and Max is left feeling surreal that she is a “real” artist.

As an aside, I want to explain why I used the air-quotes. I myself do creative writing, mostly short stories, some fan-fiction (I even have an outline for a fan-fic of this game), and a couple of novels that are in the first draft phase. My friend once showed one of my drafts to a professor in college who then asked if I was going to become a writer. I replied that I was already a writer, but whether I would become a famous writer was yet to be seen. I believe there are actually billions of artists in the world, it’s just a select few do artwork as a profession, and even fewer who become world famous. For some it is by choice, others it’s because one way or another opportunities don’t line up in just the right way to get them to be famous. Either way, I think that it is a disservice to not consider someone who engages in a creative outlet as a “real” artist, whether they get paid or not. Now the developer’s intentions may not have been to discount other artists, and it could be just Max’s point of view as a young adult, but I still felt like they could have added some counter-argument from Mr. Wells or even from a patron at the gallery to show some legitimacy for other artists.

While at the gallery, Max suddenly remembers about the tornado that has been on her mind ever since, oh I don’t know, the beginning of the fucking game! She calls Chloe to find out that the tornado did indeed form, and Chloe is about to be killed...again. Max then uses her gallery picture, a selfie, to return to the time she took the picture and destroy it right then and there so she is at Arcadia Bay instead of San Francisco.

Max's Award Winning Photograph

This somehow leads to Mr. Jefferson burning her journal, so she winds up right back to being strapped in a chair at the Dark Room. I had to read a comment somewhere to explain to me that Mr. Jefferson burned the journal out of anger once he found out Max had destroyed her own photo. But to me it seemed unlikely Jefferson would have found out about it, and even if he did it seemed like a pretty weak reason for him to burn her journal. It was just a plot device to have Max deal with Jefferson head on instead of him getting arrested off camera.
At this point the episode has mostly been on rails, with no real choices even if many seemed to be presented. But anytime I ventured outside of what the developers wanted, it quickly led to a dead end and there was only one solution to get through each segment. David arrives to save the day, and this time the choices have an impact on whether he ends up with a scar from his fight with Jefferson, and whether Jefferson will even walk out of there alive. Once David has Jefferson tied up, you have the choice to lie to him about Chloe and say you got separated, or you can tell the truth and tell him Jefferson killed her. If you chose the truth, David executes a still unconscious Jefferson with his pistol. I kind of liked how there was no dramatic music or pleas for mercy from Jefferson. It was just done and over with like the crime of passion it was. Very good storytelling moment in my opinion.

Finally free, Max goes outside and calls Warren to ask for the picture he took of both of them at the End of the World party to time leap and save Chloe...again. Warrens tells her the tornado has formed off of the coast and he sought shelter at the Two Whales diner. Max uses Jefferson’s car to go into town. While on the way Max listens to a voicemail from Nathan explaining how he was manipulated, sorry for what he had done, and warned her about Jefferson.

While Nathan’s apology was very touching, this moment also took a rather large logical leap that broke the story. Chloe was the one to receive the text message from Nathan’s phone as a trap, and that text message was sent by Jefferson after he killed Nathan. If Nathan had called Max and left that voicemail, it had to have been before he was killed. No matter how you look at it, Max should have received the warning before they went to the junkyard. Yet another plot device to keep the story going.

Max arrives and witnesses the damage the tornado has already caused. She winds her way through the rubble and saves the occasional person with her rewind ability. Max even prevents the Two Whales diner from blowing up by preventing flames from connecting to some kind of fuel leak. Once inside, the survivors entail Joyce, Warren, and Frank; if Chloe hadn’t killed him in Episode 4. There you get some exposition from Frank about his feelings for Rachel Amber. You can then choose to tell him that his own drugs were used to kidnap and kill his girlfriend to give him a come to Jesus moment, or you can leave him be. You can do the same for Joyce by encouraging her to patch things up with David or leave it be, but there is no option to tell her about Chloe. Call me morbid, but I was a little disappointed because I didn’t get to see how she reacted to the news.

Cold blooded Max couldn’t even let him finish

Then there’s Warren. Max finally divulges to him about her powers and everything that has gone on for the last week. Warren, true to his puppy love persona, accepts it all without question. Max sticks to the facts regardless of how flirty you may have chosen to be with Warren. He hands over the photo, and before Max time leaps you have the choice to kiss, friend-hug, or leave without goodbye. The kiss is the only moment in the game where you have any catharsis from the small flirtatious moments you choose throughout the game. Every other time she seems so wishy-washy even with actively flirtatious choices selected, that it kind of diminished the experience of the game. Now if you chose to friend zone Warren then the rest of the story fits much better, so my guess is the developers had that in mind as the “true” arch.

With one last time leap Max brushes off Warren to convince Murder-Face Chloe not to go to the junkyard. Despite all the choices you have, the only one that works is to tell Chloe about the alternate timeline, and the tough choice about keeping her alive or her dad. Chloe hears about her dad and snaps out of her rage long enough to listen to the plan. The girls decide to tell David and the police about Jefferson, and seek refuge at the lighthouse which is out of the direct path of the tornado. The plan works and Max slingshots to the present where she and a very much alive Chloe are at the beach making their way to the lighthouse. But all the time travel has taken it’s toll causing Max to pass out from the strain and enter a twisted dream world. The sequence covers a lot of stuff, but there are two things I want to highlight.

First is the townsfolk’s pleas to not let them die in the tornado:

Then comes the Partner in Time moments with Chloe:

The reason I want to focus on those two moments is because of the impact it has on the player for the next and final decision. Choose to return the world to it’s original timeline by letting Chloe die, hopefully fixing any disruption in the universe; or let Arcadia Bay get destroyed for the sake of keeping Chloe alive.
When looking out the diner window you see the streets packed with residents, just to give you a taste of how many lives are at stake. But then right after you are walked through all the moments you shared with Chloe, both good and bad, and reminded of how much Max has already sacrificed to keep her best friend by her side. I thought those two scenes did a very good job of making it difficult to make that choice.

From a logical standpoint,it makes sense to save as many lives as possible by sacrificing one life, even if it is her best friend. However, you then have to start asking yourself: if sacrificing one life is okay, then how about two? Or ten? Or one hundred? Where do you draw the line? And is saving the life of thousands of strangers really worth more than someone you actually care about? What if those strangers were criminals? As I mentioned before, criminals are oftentimes people with no other accessible means to provide for the ones they care about. Not only that, but even non-criminals are not entirely innocent. Their imperfections are socially acceptable, or in the case of white-collar crimes, just not pursued because the system was designed by those white-collar folks with their needs in mind.

So from a morality standpoint, is it really so bad to keep the one person you care about at the expense of people you know nothing about?

There does seem to be the hint of a “true” ending, since one of them has a whole new song and the scene lasts a little longer. The alternate ending seems to be keeping Chloe alive, since it is only a short scene of the two girls driving through the rubble of the town and then leaving Arcadia Bay (and the Two Whales has blown up, since Max wasn’t there to stop the fuel leak). The true ending is sacrificing Chloe, in which you use the blue butterfly photo (shoutout to the “butterfly effect”) to return things as they were. This scene also was interesting because you go all the way back to Episode 1 and hear Nathan talk about how he is tired of people trying to control him, which no longer seem like the ravings of a madman but rather more of a cry of frustration and pain. Very impactful, and it really brought the story to a full circle. Furthermore, if you shunned Warren Max ends up kissing Chloe good-bye, hinting that Max is sacrificing more than just her friend.

In conclusion, Life is Strange asked for some small leaps of logic to progress the story, and for the most part it leads to such an interesting outcome that I was okay with taking those leaps. But Episode 5 had so many larger leaps with so little payoff that it really impacted my ability to enjoy the story. However, despite the flaws, the developers did a really good job of referring back to Episode 1 to help you look at things in a different way. The same goes for using the dream sequence to make the player feel divided by their final choice. You’re left feeling justified with either choice, even if logically saving more lives is probably the better option. I thought the game overall had a great story, even if it was a white hipster tale.

I’ll leave you with this question: What would you guys have chosen? Save your friend/lover or save the town? Let me know in the comments!