The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Recap: Raison D’Être

Photo: Stéphanie Branchu/AMC

Back in the old days of The Walking Dead, character deaths had a real novelty to them. Similar to Game of Thrones during its peak, all bets were off — no character was too important to die except maybe Rick Grimes. Remember how it felt to watch Sophia stumble out of that barn in season two or to watch Lori bleed out during childbirth in season three? Death had a real impact, and it usually wasn’t predictable.

At a certain point in this franchise, watching beloved (or just likable) characters die became numbing, with only the occasional loss really cutting through and leaving an impact. But I have to admit, I’m pretty surprised by the pair of major character deaths that happen in “La Paradis Pour Toi,” with two episodes left to go in the season (and an additional season already announced). Not only is this series’ second lead and love interest now dead, but so is its main villain.

There’s a lot to unpack here, even just in the first 15 minutes. As expected, Carol manages to survive Madame Genet’s firing squad, playing dead before making a break for it and taking off in a UTV-carrying Codron. She leads the newly turned pack of superpowered walkers directly into the Nest, followed close behind by Genet and her troops. Codron sacrifices himself to stave off the walkers for as long as possible, leaving a message: “Tell Dixon I did it for the boy.” I remain slightly unconvinced by this man’s full-on redemption arc, which came about pretty abruptly, but good for him.

The obvious highlight of the episode is the big tear-jerking moment we’ve been waiting for: Daryl and Carol’s emotional reunion. But they don’t have much time to catch up before Carol delivers the bad news about Isabelle, who has been stabbed in the gut by Losang after refusing to give him any information on Laurent. The way she slowly dies at Daryl’s side, getting his assurance that he’ll take care of Laurent and murmuring that she can “see the fireflies” as her final words, is a bit overly sentimental. But it’s still sad to lose a character who has been here since the beginning of this show, especially at the hands of such a petty man.

With the battle over so quickly and Genet already in control of the Nest, the episode slows down to deal with the next steps; after all, Daryl and Carol deserve some time to breathe and catch up during their search for a once-again missing Laurent. His and Fallou’s tracks lead them to the home of an old couple named Didi and Theo, who briefly hosted the child and his guardian before they headed off to Paris. In that short time, they really bonded with their guests, and they form a similar attachment to Daryl and Carol when they spend the night. Unlike the Greenland sperm harvesters a couple episodes back, these strangers feel relatively trustworthy; it’s nice that, for once, we can rest assured they won’t try to kill, eat, or otherwise harm our traveling heroes, though, of course, we can’t completely trust them.

It’s pretty interesting to see Carol’s reactions to the life Daryl has built here in France — she giggles at him saying French words like “dépaysant,” and she’s eager for gossip about his relationship with Isabelle. But there’s also some insecurity and almost jealousy there, a fear that Daryl won’t return to the Commonwealth with her. Didi, like Daryl, was once emotionally torn between the world she lost (her family, all of whom died) and the one she found with Theo. In her case, there was no choice — if she didn’t find the courage to open her heart again, she might go on suffering for the rest of her life. But Daryl is still in a phase of rejecting love in his life; he was afraid to tell Isabelle how he felt about her, and now he’s afraid to take on the responsibility of parenting Laurent.

This is a theme Daryl Dixon hits over and over, but it’s usually pretty compelling: People need to find something to go on living, whether it’s a concrete goal (fixing a pocket watch or plane) or a more abstract one. At a certain point, many of us are put in the position of choosing between seeking out happiness or letting ourselves get stuck in an endless feedback loop of grief and stagnancy. Didi’s story of embracing joy is actually pretty inspiring, especially after Carol learns that she lost children, too. If you’re sick of this type of scene after so many seasons of watching Carol grieve, I don’t blame you, but there’s something simple and moving about watching Didi assure her, “I got through it. You will, too.”

Daryl and Carol manage to easily hide during the first visit from the Guerriers, but they’re less lucky the next day — thanks to Theo, who ratted them out to Madame Genet’s men in an effort to “pick the winning side.” (His family used to sell carrots to the Nazis, then to the Americans after they won World War II.) Theo, I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you! To his credit, he does change his mind after Didi’s sharp reproach, poorly lying to Genet during a tense Hans Landa-esque interrogation. But he is quickly punished for his actions: The only “good guy” who actually dies from the resulting search is poor Didi. As for Genet and her troops? They’re all killed. It’s fitting that Genet would lose her life to the super-serum that works so well on the walkers, and the effects are enjoyably gross: eyes turning black as her face itself erupts in multiple places.

Perhaps the announcement that Daryl Dixon will be moving to Spain for season three should’ve clued me in to the fact that most, if not all, of the main Daryl Dixon cast — that is, almost anyone without their name in the title — wouldn’t make it in the long term. But the end of season one seemed to promise that we’d remain in the same general location with the same set of characters for a while, and I at least figured Isabelle and Laurent would end up joining Daryl and Carol for whatever came next — perhaps with the Union de l’Espoir and Pouvoir des Vivants still around in some capacity. Wrapping up much of that story here is pretty bold, but it’s all a bit much for one episode. It does feel like this season’s story in general is probably better-suited to eight or ten episodes than six.

But it’s also not over yet. With Genet gone, her underlings are persuaded to form an unlikely alliance with Losang and Jacinta, uniting two opposing factions with the common purpose of finding Laurent and reaching the “promised land.” Again, I’d like a little more insight into how the actual villagers feel about this idea and how much control Losang actually exerts. But it’s a promising thread to leave for these final two episodes, paired with the loose end of Ash waiting to take Carol and her “daughter” home. This episode might not reach the heights of The Walking Dead at its best, but in terms of shock value and plot momentum, some of it comes close.

Un Petit Plus

• The actual action at the Nest is pretty fun, though it gets a tad confusing with all the walkers and soldiers on both sides. That’s three different groups Daryl and Carol have to worry about, and part of me wishes the episode played up that chaos more.

• I like that this episode clarifies some of Isabelle’s evolving feelings about her faith: She recognizes that Losang uses faith as a way of controlling people just like Père Jean, whom she now understands as a false prophet.

• “I wouldn’t worry so much about the future. You don’t have one.” Damn, Genet.

• Losang really has a way of seeing anything he does as “God’s plan,” doesn’t he?

• Very much dig the neighborhood that Theo walks through with Daryl and Carol, with old walkers still stumbling around their yards behind locked gates. Theo’s friend with the faulty memory is also a nice touch.

• When Genet says, “Have you ever known that kind of loss?” Carol just darkly smiles.