Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two: Episode 5 – Above and Beyond features, in its episode synopsis, the phrase "the world may never be the same." My reaction to it was… probably not what Telltale was going for. Omens of cataclysm and perspective-shifting developments are difficult to take seriously when they apply to a multiverse where the laws of both nature and physics are revised and rewritten on the fly. Not to mention, where things have a feeling of utter inconsequentiality.

Compared to the rest of Telltale’s recent backlog, this has always been a more family-oriented, low-stakes bit of interactive storytelling. As of this writing, I’ve spent more time with Jesse and the Order of the Stone than I have with any other Telltale characters, and the cynic in me has long since won out. Charming as they may be, I just don’t care about this world or its characters anymore. But it turns out, knowing this going into the final episode of a run might have actually worked to the game’s benefit. Episode 5 – Above and Beyond is a mildly entertaining finale that neither elevates nor sinks what came before it.

When we last left our heroes, they were on the last leg of their journey back to Beacontown. After a series of misadventures that took them through the likes of a derelict temple, a gauntlet of deadly trials, and jail, they’re finally back. Of course, things are pretty bad: Romeo is running Beacontown disguised as Jesse, and his leadership skills are about as good as you’d expect, considering his character. He’s entirely unsympathetic; a petty, murderous man-child who is impossible to understand, much less redeem. And he only exists to torment our heroes, which in turn builds to a catharsis when he’s finally brought low.

So it’s up to Jesse and pals to seek out any remaining friendly faces, convert them to the cause, and come up with a plan involving the special contingency – the "word of passage" discovered previously. The resolution of this arc left me unsatisfied; one particular individual comes to a character-redefining epiphany so abruptly and inorganically that I was just shaking my head through the entire scene. But I knew it was coming, given the relatively toothless nature of this series. So whatever, I guess.

Everything that you expect to happen in Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two: Episode 5 – Above and Beyond does indeed happen. Certain plot elements come full circle, characters once thought missing or dead return as dei ex machina, and a handful of binary choices determine the fates of both the hero and the villain of the piece. If you’ve been keeping tabs at all on where each major and minor character stands in relation to Jesse, you’ll have a good idea of where it’s all going to end up by the time the credits roll.

Thankfully, there aren’t any extended building sequences. Unfortunately, the final combat encounter with Romeo is the worst the series has to offer. It’s a tedious, janky, profoundly unfun slog that wears out its welcome seconds in, but goes on for minutes. It’s so poorly-designed that I actually saw a Game Over screen. I’m operating on the assumption that the entirety of Season Two was developed at once, so I’m going to implore Telltale one final time: no more of this combat, please.

By all means, if you’ve enjoyed this series up to now, you will likely continue to enjoy it. At this point, though, that should have always been the determining factor. Telltale’s episodic release schedule gives the player the ability to opt out, but I still strongly feel that it undermines their games and negatively impacts how people evaluate them as a whole. I don’t feel this is the case of Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two, but only because I didn’t much care for it from the start.

Where it matters most, I would say that Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two is one of Telltale’s weaker efforts. While its mastery and application of the classic Mojang aesthetic is as winsome as ever, it isn’t a particularly compelling continuation of a story that wasn’t all that great in the first place. It’s long since run out of steam, and it feels like it’s just kinda… there. If that’s good enough for you, more power to you. It isn't good enough for me.