The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premiere recap.

Photo: Emmanuel Guimier/AMC/B) 2022 AMC Film Holdings LLC. All rights reserved.

Zut alors! Library! How the Merde did The walking deadHas grizzly loner and leather lover Daryl Dixon ended up in France? Your guess is as good as mine in AMC’s latest spin-off. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, although we can start putting some pieces together by the end of the first episode. With the beautiful, real European landscape and a fearless approach to silence, I think this show is off to a good start. It is different! It also introduces some themes into the Walking dead Canon that piques my interest as a fan of the series’ comic book roots and mythology: Mutiny and Messiah.

But first, let’s start with the man himself. The last time we saw Daryl Dixon, who isn’t the first or second person you pick for a hero’s journey, was in the series finale The walking dead. He left the Commonwealth in search of Rick, Michonne, and possibly answers about the outside world. Judith told him that he deserved a happy ending. The outside world seems to be all he has found.

The truth is The Walking dead Mode, the spin-off begins in media definition with Daryl on a boat that serves as a raft and washes up on the coast of southern France. He stumbles through a deserted coastal town, finds a boat with lost supplies, and within hours has a poncho and a fish on the grill, all while listening to the voice of an Irish survivor whose tapes he’s found. He doesn’t seem to be panicking too much about being in another country. Maybe this has already happened to him in the meantime TWD and now. Maybe it’s just because Daryl is Daryl.

Before he begins his adventure in the big, wide somewhere, he leaves his own message on the cassette. “I went looking for something and all I found was trouble,” he says. This is our first vague clue as to how he arrived on the continent. The next thing we know, he’s doing his best Aragorn impression on a Tolkien-style hike. In the next town he comes across, there is graffiti that says “pouvoir des vivants” – “pouvoir” means power and “vivants” means the living, but the preposition “des” here could be “of”, “of” mean. or even “of,” depending on your intent. Cool saying! Later, he sees less forceful graffiti on a building wall that reads “attention affamés” (“starve”).

Eventually Daryl meets a woman named Maribelle and her father Guillaume. Luckily she speaks English and seems friendly, and he’s babbling in the background some sort of dad-talk about American-French cooperation in World War II. I like that even in a post-apocalyptic future full of zombies, dads are still in the background talking about World War II. They offer to travel with him, but are soon joined by two soldiers. When one of the gunmen threatens Maribelle, Daryl fights back and he and Maribelle manage to hunt them both down. The partnership is short-lived, however, as father and daughter knock Daryl unconscious and grab his supplies when he is barely conscious.

However, they don’t kill him because just as he passes out, a woman approaches and takes him away. Enter Isabelle: a nun played by Clémence Poésy who you may recognize In Bruges or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but seems depressed principle mode on Daryl Dixon. She followed him and put up signs that read “Dieu Vous Aime,” which translates to “God loves you.” Isabelle and her fellow nuns cauterize Daryl’s wound and provide him with a cozy sweater and some adorable suspenders.

As Daryl and Isabelle rise above their siblings and their scars, reminding them that the past is real, we learn more about their abbey. The organization is part of a larger group called the Union of Hope (Union De L’Espoir). Daryl seems suspicious, and honestly I would be too. There are so many dystopian groups and fanatics in the world TWD Universe that you must remain vigilant. The fact that they’re keeping the zombified priest Pére Jean locked up doesn’t help their case. However, that doesn’t stop him from taking a bath, à la The Witcher.

There are no men in the monastery except a little boy named Laurent, who spots Daryl across the courtyard and immediately begins to imitate him. Then he starts talking to Daryl about, of all things, mathematics. Later, Daryl sees Laurent studying poetry with Pére Jean, who the boy says will “rise again.” The American is ready to leave, but Isabelle makes a suggestion. She tells Daryl that they were waiting for him, using as evidence a drawing of Daryl that Laurent had made three weeks earlier. She calls him the “messenger” and claims he is destined to take Laurent to a base in the north because a Buddhist monk called Laurent the Messiah. Difficult! Daryl doesn’t have it. As a skeptic I’m on his side, but as a TV viewer I’m fascinated. The walking dead There were many cults and a figure named Jesus, but no one in the Atlanta area ever claimed to be a real Messiah.

When the holy mission aspect doesn’t work, Isabelle tries a different approach with Daryl. She reminds him that he could use a French companion to find a port and a boat that would take him back to America. She says Laurent is lonely and needs to be with other children and a father figure, not in the abbey surrounded by nuns. “Staying alive is more important,” says Daryl. I know he rejects the call hard at the moment, but he’s right!

Meanwhile, more military men (Isabelle calls them Guerrier, also called Warrior) learn of the deaths of their Maribelle and Guillaume colleagues and find out that the man responsible, Daryl, has been brought to the abbey. The Guerriers are led by a man named Codron (Romain Levi), who is disturbed at the sight of his zombified colleagues. It’s sweet, in a dark way.

As Daryl leaves the abbey, stocked with supplies and a few “borrowed” medieval weapons, the partisans arrive. While searching for Daryl, the soldiers find Pére Jean and put him down despite the nuns’ protests. They try to take Laurent with them, but guess what?! Daryl returns and there is a big fight between nuns and soldiers.

One detail I really appreciated throughout this entire affair was how the abbess recognized the soldier who was ordered to kill the zombie priest. She calls him by his full name, Phillipe Poulin, and begs him not to harm the man who once confessed. What The walking dead The best thing I’ve always managed to do, be it in the host series or in the various spin-offs, is building a sense of community. Little details like these make it so easy to imagine how this French village has become isolated since the end of the world.

After the fight, Daryl is left with Isabelle, Laurent and another nun named Sylvie, who sings a song for her around the campfire. Daryl agrees to take Laurent with him on the mission as long as they also come and take him to a port once Laurent is safe. He also gives Isabelle the slightest information about how he got to France. “I met some bad people,” he says. “They put me on a boat. “It didn’t go well.” Daryl, as always, is a man of few words.

So Daryl Dixon has a new family and a crusade ahead of him. He also has a new enemy in Codron. But wait! There is more. At the end of the episode, we meet some new characters on the boat that we assume Daryl was mapping across the Atlantic. It is anchored in Le Havre, northern France. The captain is confronted by a woman named Madame Genet, who is not happy with the ship’s crew’s progress in what they are supposed to do. They tell of the escape of prisoners, of experiments and a mutiny. Madame Genet has a doctor give her a report, and the doctor says, “Our research is largely destroyed.” Whoever did this has created real chaos for us.” So that’s obviously Daryl. The captain says he was thrown overboard. I’m sorry…did Daryl lead a mutiny on the high seas? What in True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle? No disrespect to the killer nuns and the tween messiah, but I want to see it The Story. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll get a review.

These villains are also scary and I honestly have no idea what to expect. Maybe it’s the zombie emptiness in my life, but I have high hopes for this show. not how The Walking Dead: Dead city, Drawing on our knowledge of Maggie and Negan’s past and placing them in a new environment that was somehow inexplicably connected to both of them, Daryl couldn’t be further from his past Daryl Dixon. It’s a good dynamic. Daryl’s standalone episodes continue The walking dead have always been among my favorites. For a character who really has no desire to interact with other people, he’s endless to watch.

• The title of the episode, L’Âme Perdue, means “the lost soul” in French.

• I’m a little upset that Daryl saw flashes of Judith and Carol while he was unconscious, but not his dog named Dog. What I like best is calling his dog “Dog”. He basically is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (I promise I’ve been connected to dog as a concept and dog before The walking dead revealed that his previous owner and I share a name. We don’t talk about it The Leah.)

• I’m fascinated by the paintings and monuments in the opening credits. The first episode took place mainly in the countryside. Will Daryl soon be cultivated in the city? Stay tuned.

• The little “talk to the hand” gesture Daryl makes when Isabelle tells him about his fate? Iconic! This level of sass is why Daryl has been a fan-favorite character for over a decade.