The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

Clementine’s story has finally come to an end in The Walking Dead: The Final Season.  ‘The Final Season’ — unofficially known as Season 4, contains 4 episodes.  Episode 4: Take Us Back is the last episode that determines the fate of Clementine and AJ.  Read on to explore all the possible outcomes, choices, and variations in The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending breakdown.  There are unmarked spoilers, so don’t read any further if you don’t wish to be spoiled.  If you spot any errors, or encountered a different experience, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post.



Episode 3 Choices  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

The biggest choice that carries over from Episode 3: Broken Toys is whether or not AJ shot Lilly.  If AJ shot Lilly, she dies right there on the boat.  The episode will open the game will open with Clem looking at Lilly’s bullet-ridden body.  However, Clem can persuade AJ to not shoot her which will result in the death of James.

Lilly will show up in Episode 4 on the raft floating down the river.  Clem runs after her with her bow drawn.  There are three dialogue exchanges that happen between Clem and Lilly.  All three have an option to shoot an arrow at Lilly, but all arrows will miss their mark.  I’ve found no way to kill Lilly in Episode 4.  AJ will find James’ Skin Mask, which is one of the episodes collectibles.

Where is James?  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

James will show up later when the group heads into the caves.  James is angry at Clem for AJ’s actions, and there is a big blowout argument.  The group exits the caves.  Depending on Clem’s relationship and dialogue response to James, he can storm off here or will stay behind to ensure their safe exit.  When they argue about his “philosophy”, the only option that allowed James to not storm off was telling him he couldn’t ‘force his views on other people.’  That is the last you will see of James.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending 01
‘Conflicted’ is the other possible result for James.

Special note about James — In my playthrough in Episode 3, I respected his wishes and didn’t kill any walkers.  I also had Clem tell James that there could be something more to walkers.  However I also told AJ to kill Lilly, which isn’t in line with his philosophy.  I wonder what would happen if in Episode 3, you were to kill all the walkers and dismiss his beliefs, in addition to killing Lilly.  It might be something worth exploring, for a secret scene.  Post a comment below if you’ve done this.


The Bridge  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

After exiting the caves, the group will meet up with whoever Clem decided to save in Episode 3 — either Louis or Violet.  They’ll have a short discussion about the school and their personal lives.

Once they reach the bridge, they find that Minerva has caught up to them.  A skirmish happens, and the decision Clem made in the cave about whether AJ is ready to make the hard decisions or not is reflected here.  If Clem said AJ was not ready, he won’t shoot Tenn but then Louis/Violet will die.  But if Clem trusted AJ, then he will shoot Tenn saving either Louis/Violet.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending 02
#stillnotbitten?

The pivotal moment here is Clem getting her leg axed by Minnie.  This slows her down and then she is later bit.  There is no other possibility here, and you cannot stop Clem from getting bit or axed.

AJ’s Decision  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

Clem and AJ scramble to safety in James’ barn.  After securing the area, AJ has to make the most important decision so far — what to do with Clementine.  With no more bullets left, the only way to stop Clem from becoming a walker would be using the Axe weapon.  AJ’s only other choice is to just walk away and not look back.  It doesn’t matter which option is chosen; AJ will raise the Axe in either case and then the scene with cut to black.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending 03
During the most distressing time, he knew what to do.

AJ meets Walker ‘Tennessee’ Ranger  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

After a brief flashback sequence, the game switches back to AJ spearfishing near the stream.  After putting the spear away, Tenn will show up here.  If AJ didn’t shoot Tenn at the bridge in Act 2, the two will have a conversation to catch up.  Tenn will give AJ Clementine’s hat he found.  After finding Minerva’s body, Tenn realizes that he was naive, and asks AJ to help him gain survival skills.  AJ has the option to help him, or refuse.  Then the two head back to the school.



If AJ shot Tenn at the bridge, AJ will find Tenn as a walker shifting about in the tall grass.  AJ can shoot walker Tenn here, or distract him away from the school with a thrown rock.  Afterwards, he returns to the school.  On the walk back, Abel can be seen tied to a tree.  Whether or not Clem killed him or let him turn affects him here.  If he’s dead, the body is lifeless, but if he turned then he will be a walker.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending 04
Always aim for the head. Was AJ aiming for the head when he shot Tenn at the bridge? Bullet went clean through.

Back to Ericson Academy  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

The big surprise — as AJ enters the school grounds, Clementine hobbles to him on crutches.  Clementine is still alive!  You see, it didn’t matter which decision AJ made in the barn.  AJ will decide to cut off Clementine’s leg with the axe.  It also doesn’t matter whether Clementine trusted AJ to make the hard decisions or not (the cave decision).  There is only this one timeline, one ending, only with slight variations.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending 05a
This is Clem’s reaction to finding her destroyed hat.

Clem shows AJ a cool tire swing she made for him.  As they walk past, a shot of the graveyard will change based on episode events.  If Tenn died, his name will be on a grave cross.  If Violet died, it will be her name instead, and a sketch drawing will be made with the name of the school she preferred.  The same will be for Louis, if he died.

Dinner Together  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

The group have a big dinner together at the school.  Whoever that was kidnapped in Episode 3 (Violet or Louis) will have different interactions with Clem.  Louis — who had his tongue cut out — will slips Clem a note and she giggles.  Violet will have gotten her eyes injured and will apologize for how she acted in the jail in Episode 3.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending 06a
One of the first memories of Clementine, for Alvin Jr.




After the dinner scene, a few variations will occur.  With Tenn alive, AJ will ask him if he wants to do some shooting practice.  They head to a target range for a short scene.  Or, if AJ refused to help him, they will go create some drawings.  Whoever Clementine decided to save in Episode 3 (Violet or Louis), she’ll have a scene together with them in which they are both looking at a map detailing a trade deal with some others.  AJ will interrupt and ask to come along.

The Final Scene  |  The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending

The last we’ll see of Clementine is sitting on the steps talking with AJ.  She’ll ask him if he thought she did alright by him.  AJ will head into the bunks and place all his collectibles (unlocking the ‘Home At Last‘ achievement) and finally Clementine’s signature hat.  The symbolism comes from the idiom of: “hanging up one’s hat”, which means to take up residence and settle down.  Clementine’s story is done, and they’ve finally found a permanent place to call their home.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season Ending 07


A song plays during the end credits, but it’s not always the same one.  There are at least two possible song choices, and I’m not sure if it is randomly chosen, but I think it depends on whether Lilly/James is dead or alive.

What did you think of the ending for Clementine?  The same axe used to cut off Clem’s leg… was previously used to chop up zombies.  Isn’t there a risk of zombie infection?  The hashtag #stillnotbitten was floating around on social media.  Does this make sense, though?  If alive, what would happen to Lilly, or where would James end up?  Would anything else make this episode better?  Feel free to discuss it in the comments below.

8 Comments

  1. Only one ending….with an adwenture game…..disappointed….look for Shadow of Memories (Destiny) with 5+2 endings!!!!!!! and the second walktrough is different from the firts, cause time travel things. So 7 different endings in one story based adventure game!!! That was a 2001 game by Konami! Shows the player that choices are matter! You learn every Telltale game = Choices no matter… and that is no cool! So they made only playable movies…but not too interactive….

  2. About the axe being used on walkers and Clementine. What I think is, it is not the blood of the walkers that infect a person, because if it did, then the characters in the game wouldn’t apply the walkers blood and guys over their faces as there could be high chance of some blood going into the mouth. It is only the bite of the walkers which would infect a person. It’s like a snake injects it’s venom into a body via a bite, similarly, a walker would only be able to infect a person by bite. This is just a hypothesis made by me by analysis and completing the whole series of The Walking Dead.

    • I heard somewhere that Actually the bite isnt what kills the people.. its because theres way to really treat the wound & it sets up infection & thats what kills them.. but then again it is the walking dead.. everyone is infected no matter what

  3. I want to believe what Brave Knight is saying but it’s kinda complicated. In the Walking Dead series you can see that Negans people got inside Hiltop and traumatized people with knifes/guns that had walker blood on them and then they turned in their sleep. I know that is different in the series and maybe difeerent in the game but I don’t know, nothing makes sense to me….

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.