(Warning! This post includes Spoilers!)
We all finally know what happened to Rachel Amber. Unfortunately, the outcome was what most people came to expect in terms of what happened to Rachel. In my opinion, while I was playing through the episodes, once we found the note Nathan wrote about Rachel in the Dark Room, I came to assume that she was still in there alive and just locked away for whatever reason. But sadly, that wasn't the case...
In episode 4, once Max gets back from the alternative reality and helps Chloe put all their clues together, they discover an abandoned barn holding old Prescott documents about the farmland and at first, seemed to hold nothing special. Until Max decides to dig through the hay. She finds a padlocked door which looked brand new compared to the barn. The best friends find a way to break the lock to the door and walk down some steps to find a big iron door, which needed a passcode to get in.
In order to get into the door, you must remember back when you were collecting the evidence and clues from Nathan's dorm room. On a small piece of paper, there are a collection of numbers. All the numbers are written in blue ink except for a 3 digit number in red ink. That one is the one to open the 'Dark Room'.
When I finally got into the room and saw all the water and cans of food, I thought that maybe Rachel was in there and that they were just keeping her there because she remembered what happened to her where people like Kate couldn't remember anything from the experience. But as we went further into the dark room, you could clearly see that no one was there and no one was being kept there.
By looking at the room, you could see that they would take random people and drug them so they didn't know what was going on and then took photos of them. Max searches through a cabinet and finds all the red folders that were shown in various moments during the episodes. They found Kate's file along with Rachel's and an empty folder that was labelled "Victoria". Chloe and Max looked at the pictures of Kate and saw what she was like and how drugged up she was. Then they moved to Rachel's folder. Hers were slightly different. She seemed very awake and angry in the pictures but was still tired up. Also she wasn't in the dark room, she was in another location outside. The final picture of Rachel, was of her in a dug up hole with Nathan laying next to her. Max response to this picture was "This is so staged." Chloe begins to panic. Rachel doesn't look alive in the last photo but she holds on to her sheer desperation to see her again, alive.
Chloe recognizes the place where the final photo was taken. It was the junkyard. They take off and head for the junkyard. This part was just truly heart breaking, you can tell that Chloe knows what she is going to find and I'm sure everyone knows too. They find the area and begin to dig with their bear hands. They soon find a small glimpse of Rachel and they know it's her because of the clothes she is wearing. Chloe is distort and cannot bear to look at her best friend's body. She begins to truly cry and yell Rachel's name and saying "Why her?! I loved her so much! Who does this? What world is this?!"
After that, they go to the Vortex Club party and try to find Nathan. Max also has the option to warn Victoria about the whole situation. They don't find him there but receive a text from Nathan saying "There won't be any evidence left, once I'm done." They run back to the junkyard and Chloe is ready, gun in hand. They run to Rachel's 'grave' to find the body still there. Chloe is in a daze still looking at Rachel.
Suddenly, Max gets a needle in her neck and begins to pass out. She tries to rewind but the drugs are quick. With the last of her strength, she yells to Chloe. But it is too late. She notices too late and is shot in the head, right in front of Max.
Powerless, Max looks up at her attacker for it only to be her hero and idle, Mr Jefferson, looking down at her just as she fully blacks out.
The episode ends there.
So much came out of this episode and it is the most tear-jerking episode out of them all so far. This episode was definitely worth the wait and delivered so many answers from previous episodes. I always saw speculation about Mark Jefferson being creepy and weird in his methods of teaching in photography and his style. But never did I think he would go this far to get the photos he wanted. It is also obvious that Nathan is in on all this and has a very similar photo style to Mr Jefferson's.
Big question is, What Happens Next? Max is captured and about to be drugged up according to the teaser to Episode 5: Polarized. This episode has been the most emotional and the most crushing episode. Every moment was just completely emotional and just over all feeling of sadness towards the end of the 5 part series.
I cannot wait for the next episode and really do not know what to expect for the final episode...
Hope you enjoyed and Happy Gaming!
