Do you remember the glory days when The Walking Dead used to be able to balance all of its virtues in virtually every episode? Remember when you’d tune in every week and were treated to gripping character stuff, innovative world building, gripping action and the kind of cool, inventive, batshit crazy zombie shit that you only used to see during the gory, glory days of the 80s – well, remember no more, because Daryl Dixon’s continuing, single-handed efforts in bringing new life back into the Walking Dead franchise has resulted in it’s most balanced (and possibly it’s best) episode to date.
For those still suspicious that the show has managed such an impressive turnaround in its sixth (!) incarnation, I can assure you that I’m totally serious and that a visit to the City of Lights has helped this study of humanity in the face of the dead to shine the brightest it’s done in years.
After a quick stop in Angers that results in nothing more than a traumatic experience that strongly involves a horrific performance of Ravel’s Boléro, Daryl, Isabelle, Laurent and Sylvie revert back to their plan A and turn up in Paris to wrap up their dual quests to get the seemingly “special” Laurent to a holy order for protection and Daryl back to the US of A. Once there, they find that gay Paris is still quite a fully functioning community despite the animated corpses shuffling about the place. Firstly, they settle in with a community run by the benevolent Fallou that gives them all the shelter they need and then Daryl and Isabelle head out in an attempt to secure the former either a boat back to America or a radio from the underground nightclub known as Demimonde.
However, in a curious quirk of fate that seems to always happen in a zombie apocalypse, the boss of Demimonde turns out to be none other than Quinn, Isabelle’s old flame from her pre-zombie/pre-nun days – but an even more awkward revelation is soon at hand. It turns out that Quinn was the one that got Isabelle’s sister pregnant in the first place and thus is Laurent’s actual father.
However, while this raises some obvious problems – especially as Quinn suddenly has gotten all parental all of a sudden – a percolating side plot arrives without warning to complicate matters further as the brutish Codron arrives, looking to avenge his brother’s death at the hands of Dixon. In the ensuing chaos, Laurent overhears the particulars of his birth and flees in a fit of adolescent anger as Daryl engages in another brawl with his bitter enemy.
However, in a country were Walker variants bleed acid, it seems like Codron’s bosses may be responsible thanks to some sinister experiments they’ve been performing on living corpses.
With my continuous gushing about how Daryl Dixon has brought greatness back to The Walking Dead, I’m worrying that I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but what the hell am I supposed to do, especially in the face of the latest episode: Paris Sera Toujours Paris (Paris will always be Paris). Simply put, it’s magnifique and right off the bad, it’s yet another glorious return to the days when the franchise delivered innovation both in works building and outlandish gore while the character stuff as solid as a concrete elephant.
This is laid out right from the first scene where Daryl and Isabelle stumble across a lunatic who has taken the time to build a orchestra formed entirely of mutilated Walkers and it harkens back to a time when the show still had enough room to breathe to stick in a cool, unrelated, Walker scene that would out and out rule. I literally could stare at this nightmarish, macarbe installation all day with Walkers reduced to writhing torsos with horns rammed down their gullets or disembowelled with their entrails hooked up to various percussion instruments as their mutilatior waves a baton around like a conductor. Story wise, the image has nothing to do with anything, but in a time of bloated casts and multiple, competing settlments, it’s something the show rarely has time for anymore, but such moments in the past has usually led to The Walking Dead’s most memorable and awesome segments – and it has again.
Outside of the jaw dropping, gore slopping opening, the rest of the episide continues running at prime efficiency by gifting a dystopian Paris with more, impressive world building in one episode than Dead City managed with Manhattan in six. Instead of casting the capital city as the usual inhospitable death trap, Paris is surprisingly welcoming (in Walking Dead terms, at least) with people able to wander around with relative ease despite the occasional instance of walker hordes being present. As a result, we are able to have a city that not only is incredibly dangerous for all the usual reasons, but also still boasts Fallou’s rather picturesque community and the Demimonde, which shows that a zombie occupation wasn’t enough to stifle the city’s bohemian spirit as drag acts and acrobats perform on stage.
So, that’s cool Walker shit and imaginative world building ticked off the list, now, what else? Oh yes, we also have friction between our leads that splits our zombie killing fellowship that doesn’t feel forced even though the reintroduction of Quinn is about as far fetched as a Walker suddenly dancing the Watusi while using its entrails as a skipping rope; however, we’ll let it slide on grounds of good intentions as it provides some genuinely solid drama. Elsewhere, we have Isabella returning to he old apartment, only to have her conflicted emotions stirred up even further when she runs into the little girl who used to live next door that pays off a moment from a flashback from the previous episode – hint: she’s not in the best condition and it riffs nicely on past, child related Walkers from the show’s history.
We even get some good villain stuff too, with the hulking Codron resuming his campaign of vengeance against Daryl despite Dixon whupping his ass a second time – however, the really interesting stuff comes from a single scene where Codron’s boss, Genet, is shown to be pulling some Franken-Walker crap as her mystery experiments seemingly give a zombie super-strength before its head pops like a piñata filled with bloody mince.
In closing, while this third episode simply delivers what we once used to get from The Walking Dead on a weekly basis, the fact its giving us this now is nothing short of a revelation. Shit, we even get a cameo from Delicatessen’s Dominique Pinon! So I guess noe that we’re three episodes in, it’s now 100% official – Daryl Dixon can no longer be classed as a fluke and should be hailed (possibly by a zombie orchestra) as putting a spirited new bounce into the continuing stride of the Walking Dead.
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