Wastelands
Episode ThreeSet two months after the incident at Beaver Creek, Sean and Daniel find themselves working at a cannabis plantation in Humboldt County. They live in campsite in the middle of the forest with the other workers, which include Cassidy and Finn, who were met at the Christmas Market back at Beaver's Creek. While Sean is enjoying the laid back lifestyle with other people his age, Daniel is struggling as he feels left out because he's so much younger than everyone else, to the extent he's found a new big brother figure in Finn. Depending on his actions, Sean is either able to make up with Daniel or continue having fun with his newfound friends, though he does promise to help Daniel work on training his powers.
While working on the plantation, Daniel ends up upsetting the owner Merrill when he keeps challenging the rules and going into places where he shouldn't, which results in no-one getting paid and himself and Sean getting fired. Daniel uses his powers to avoid punishment, which the other workers notice but promise to keep secret, asides from Jacob who seems genuinely unsettled on seeing them. Finn is the most intrigued, and while back at the camp reveals his plan to use Daniel's powers to take back the money that is rightfully theirs. Sean can either go along with the heist or refuse, but it will happen either way.
As it's Sean and Daniel's last night at camp, the others throw a party, where Sean can express romantic interest in Finn or Cassidy depending on various choices throughout the episode. The heist goes underway, and no matter how careful they are, Merrill ends up confronting them before they can reach the safe. During the tense stand-off, Sean has the choice to tell Daniel to use his powers or not, but the end result is the same; Daniel loses control and destroys the entire room, injuring everyone who is there. The episode ends by showing the destruction that Daniel has caused, lingering on a badly injured Sean.
Tropes featured in this episode of Life Is Strange 2:
- Bookends: The episode starts and ends with Sean on his back, looking up at the ceiling.
- But Thou Must!: Even if Sean has a great relationship with Daniel and disagrees to doing the heist, Finn and Daniel will still do it anyway, and Sean will end up caught up in it when he goes after them.
- Character Development: Finn is a lot different from how he appeared in Rules though that could be due in part to Sean getting to know him better and being able to see past the arrogant front to the chilled out and friendly person that he is underneath.
- Big Bad: Merrill, the boss of the cannabis plantation who isn't afraid to hurt teenagers and children to teach them a lesson for crossing him.
- The Dragon: Big Joe, who works under Merrill as his right-hand man. More ruthless than his boss at times.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Merrill talks about his children with Sean, explaining that everything he does is so that they can have a better life.
- Fanservice:
- Hannah is content to walk around the camp topless.
- Cassidy will invite Sean to go skinnydipping in the lake with her, and while it isn't seen in detail, she can later invite Sean into her tent for sex.
- The kiss between Sean and Finn.
- Flashback: Sean has one of himself and Daniel, set a few months before their father dies. They have a fight when Daniel steals a watch from Sean's room, eventually admitting it was because Sean had promised to get him one yet had never done so because he was too busy spending time with his friends. Foreshadowing the events of the episode itself, where Daniel feels that Sean isn't spending enough time with him.
- Foreshadowing: Jacob has a bear in his tent that is missing the same eye that Sean loses at the end of the episode.
- Wham Shot: The very end of the episode pans over the destruction that Daniel accidentally causes, and the final shot of is an unconscious Sean, with a shard of glass sticking out of his eye.
