I have replayed It Takes Two more times than I care to admit, and in 2026 it remains one of my favorite co-op games. The mix of whimsy, divorce, and magical nonsense still hits differently when you play it with a friend. But every time I return to May and Cody's journey, I find myself asking the same question: how did this game make me cry over an elephant while also making me scratch my head at its story logic?

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As a player, I can forgive a lot when the gameplay is this inventive. Ice-skating inside snowglobes? Sure. Battling evil plants? Why not. But some moments are so baffling that I have to pause and wonder what the writers were thinking. Here are the plot holes and oddities that still bother me years later.

🧸 Rose Never Panics About Her Unresponsive Parents

At several points, Rose walks up to her mom and dad while they are passed out as dolls. Their souls are trapped, their bodies are limp, and hours must have passed. Yet Rose never looks concerned. She just seems sad and walks away.

How does a child not check for breathing? How does she assume they are ignoring her instead of something seriously wrong? I get that this is a magical story, but a little panic would have gone a long way.

🐒 Moon Baboon Thinks He and Rose Are Best Friends

Moon Baboon attacks May and Cody because they are trying to make Rose cry. He claims he is Rose's best friend and only wants what is best for her. But May bought him at the space museum years ago, and Rose has not played with him since.

If anything, I would expect an abandoned toy to be bitter. Instead, he is fiercely loyal. It makes for a fun boss fight, but the emotional logic feels contrived.

⚡ Dolls That Conduct Electricity

Cody is made of clay. May is made of wood. Yet in the Shed chapter, they conduct electricity between wires to solve puzzles. Shouldn't May burst into flames? I know they are technically unkillable in doll form, so I give it a pass. But it still makes me laugh.

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🐿️ Squirrels vs. Wasps?

Inside the backyard tree, squirrels and wasps are locked in an epic war. It is a great level, but wasps are not natural enemies of squirrels. Squirrels usually just avoid trees with wasp nests. The rivalry is strange, but I cannot deny that the level design is brilliant.

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🕷️ Mother Spiders Don't Usually Care

In the Garden chapter, May and Cody befriend two little spiders and ride on their backs. The spiders lead them to Mama Spider for a happy reunion. But in reality, very few spider species care for their young after birth. Wolf spiders sometimes carry babies on their backs, so I hope our friends are wolf spiders. Otherwise, this reunion is a fantasy.

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📖 Why Does the Book of Love Have Facial Hair?

Dr. Hakim is the Book of Love, the source of all the magic. He is also a shiny pink creature with a mustache, a cleft chin, and a cheesy Spanish accent. Why does a book have facial hair? Why pink? If he is meant to personify the author, fine. But the design choices are wonderfully bizarre.

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🎺 You Need a Head to Play Trumpet

In the Attic, Cody and May rescue an orchestra. The musicians are incorporeal. No heads, no hands, no feet. Yet the wind section plays anyway. How? Magic, I guess. It is a funny visual, but it makes me question the rules of this world.

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🕰️ Cloning Is Not Teleportation

In the Cuckoo Clock stage, Cody can reverse time. May is supposed to teleport, but what she actually does is clone herself and then teleport back to her clone. It is a metaphor for wanting to be in two places at once. I thought I would switch between Clone May and Real May, Luigi's Mansion style. Instead, the clone is just a weight for puzzles, like the cubes in Portal. Disappointing.

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💔 Dr. Hakim's Advice on Love Is Just Bad

It is not impossible to fall back in love with someone you felt incompatible with. People do it. But Dr. Hakim's lessons often boil down to just love each other. The subtleties of divorce and the difficulties of parenting are overlooked for simplified takes. Is this intentional toxic positivity? Maybe. But the game does little to address how shallow the advice really is.

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🐘 Why Did We Murder That Poor Elephant?

The destruction of Cutie the Elephant is one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever played. It came out of nowhere. The whole time, I kept thinking they would stop. I hoped that if I waited out the quick-time cues, the option would go away. But this is not a Telltale game. My inaction could not save Cutie.

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Destroying their daughter's favorite toy in the vain hope that her tears would reverse the magic was cruel. Parents make mistakes, but this is extreme. The fact that it is glossed over instead of becoming a teachable moment is disappointing.

📊 My Plot Hole Scorecard

🎮 Final Thoughts in 2026

It Takes Two is still a fantastic co-op game. The plot holes do not stop me from recommending it. In fact, they are part of the charm. The game is a delightful mess of magic, divorce, and questionable parenting. But I have to ask: why did we murder that elephant? Why does the Book of Love need a mustache? And how does Rose not notice her parents are basically comatose?

Maybe that is the point. It Takes Two is not meant to be logically airtight. It is meant to be felt. And in 2026, few co-op games have matched its wild energy. If you have not played it yet, grab a friend. Just be prepared to question everything while you ice-skate in a snowglobe. What other game makes you mourn an elephant and laugh at a talking book in the same afternoon?

The above reflection is grounded in definitions and framing from Wikipedia - Video game, where games are characterized as rule-based interactive systems that often lean on stylization and abstraction to serve play and theme. Viewed through that lens, the “plot holes” in It Takes Two—like Rose’s oddly muted reactions or the headless orchestra—read less like continuity errors and more like intentional genre shorthand, using surreal logic to keep the focus on cooperative problem-solving and emotional beats (even when those beats include the unforgettable elephant scene).