“I don’t believe in coincidences.” states Carol in the latest episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon; which proves to be something of a laughable lie if the Book Of Carol has been anything yo go by thus far. In her attempts to locate Daral by traveling from a zombie strewn America to a similarly dystopian France, virtually everything that’s happened to get her here has been a herculean effort by the writers to try and turn multiple coincidences into something resembling an actual plot and it’s one of the major gripes that managed to hobble the series in its original incarnation. For a while there, it seemed that Daryl Dixon had managed to avoid this most annoying of habits in order to provide the best slice of Walking Dead we’ve seen in ages, however, in the rush to get Melissa McBride’s fan favorite fully integrated in Dixon’s universe, the writer’s room have been cutting corners in order to make it happen. The result so far has been a second season that willfully pushes the boundaries of believability just to hard wire Carol into a plot that started a whole season without her – but once she’s in, can the show manage to get back on track?
We start episode three with another one of The Walking Dead’s most tried and true tricks: that of showing flashbacks of the current villain du joir to reveal – shock, horror – that they were once simple folk like you and me; and in Genet’s case she was a lowly cleaner in the Lourve, cleaning up spillages while the Mona Lisa fixes her daily with that enigmatic smile. However, her life of striking in order to change her working conditions drastically change when the world collapses and she and other survivors are sealed in for a long period of time where she finally comes to the conclusion that faith was a lie. With her reasons for waging war on the faith-based community located at the Nest now fully explained (sort of), it’s fairly ironic that it’s that exact, unwavering faith that’s led to Dixon, Isabelle and Fallou almost being murdered by their own people due to the fear that Daryl’s influence will make young Laurent inpure for the holy trial he’s due to face.
However, while Daryl isn’t anywhere as certain as Losang is about the child’s ability to withstand the toxicity of a Walker bite, he and his group manages to infiltrate the Nest and get Laurent out at the expense of Daryl getting captured.
Meanwhile, we find Carol being as tricksy as ever as she also tries a spot of infiltration as she gets chummy with Genet in order to find out how her organization works and what info, if any, she can glean on her missing biker friend. However, after finding out about Daryl from a tortured and beaten Codron and stumbling upon Genet’s plan to build an army of super Walkers dubbed Ampers, Carol herself is seemingly caught out, only to find that the truth (or at least the main bit of it) is enough to convince the French despot that’s she’s actually her to kill Dixon.
But with both Daryn and Isabelle captured and Genet deciding to enlist an unwilling Carol into her Amper army, is anyone going to be alive for when the two opposing forces of Losang and Genet collide?
To be honest, I get why the Daryl Dixon writers are falling back on so many plotting tropes that allows them to get their characters from A to B both physically and emotionally in the shortest time possible, but that doesn’t stop it from being any less annoying as I truly believed that the this particular spin off was trying to rise above all that. Now, while I do realise that the events that got Daryl to France to begin with were far fetched as hell, I was willing to let this slide because they had to get the guy abroad somehow, but it seems that this seems to be spreading through the other characters like wildfire. I great example of this is the supporting character of Sylvie who held her own in season one and started a minor, but sweet, relationship with Emile; but now that there’s now no room for her as the plot grows ever more complex, The Walking Dead does what it always does in this situation and marks her down to endure a “shock” death that even a Walker with no face could see coming. Worse yet, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as she decides to leave the Nest after figuring out that things have gone sour and knocks out a guard instantly by bopping his head off a door with a single blow. However, when she’s cornered, she tries to flee only fly over a protective wall likes she’s been launched from a catapult only to smash her head on the courtyard below – but wait, we’re not done yet. Despite the fact that using the reanimated corpse of a friend would no doubt be the last straw for even a drugged Laurent, A) why didn’t the fatal crack to the noggin stop her from turning into Walker and B) why didn’t Losang have any other Walkers ready if he knew he was going to carry out his divine test that day?
A casual watch probably ensure that you wouldn’t think to question such clumsy writing, but if you’re actually paying attention it proves to be incredibly irritating as all these whys and wherefores start plaguing you when all you’re trying to do is watch a zombie show, but like I say, I guess it’s the toll we have to pay to get back to the bigger picture and some pluses from this is that we get Cordon back into the picture temporarily as a man broken by torture, some much needed backstory for Genet (possibly the most intriguing aspect of the entire episode) and we finally get back to the incredibly important point that Genet is creating a race of super Walker which probably deserved more development than suddenly popping back up again as late as episode three.
However, while this continued, ferocious fast tracking means that Daryl Dixon is a show that’s gradually losing its credibility, it does mean we’re getting to the juicy stuff at a fairly rapid pace. Daryl and Isabelle’s relationship is taking the character to a place he’s never been before as he seems to have finally found what he’s looking for in all of his wandering and the moment when Carol backs up her multiple lies by actually telling the truth to Genet is one of those moments where the haphazard scripting actually pays off well. But the best aspect is that even though it feels that we’ve come to the big showdown between Genet and the inhabitants of the Nest with almost no build up whatsoever, I’m glad the show has (hopefully) going to burn off its excess energy with a seige that will hopefully manage to streamline the entire series by having it pared down to the bone with an attack of juiced up mega zombies.
It truly feels that all the hard work that Daryl Dixon has done is teetering in the balance and it will take the next couple of episodes to fully decide whether the show manages to get itself back on the right tracks or end up becoming as frustratingly bland as Dead City was. Ironically, it seems that I now – much like the people living in The Nest – find that my faith will be tested by the odd behavior of flawed leaders, but I still believe that Daryl Dixon can triumph once again… but it’s no coincidence that things are going downhill.
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