Much like death and taxes, one of the only other constants in life is waiting for a new season of The Walking Dead with the usual mixture of hope and dread. However, for its first season at least, Daryl Dixon managed to bring a ray hope to one of TV’s most up and down shows. Shifting the usual bouts of undead fuckery from America to France and throwing in some left field choices like a potential child savior and some religious overtones, the first season turned out to be some of the best stuff the show had done in ages.
However, season 2 turned out to be something of a case of “be careful what you wish for”, as the reintroduction of fan favorite Carol left the show once again lapsing back into old bad habits like using vast amounts of plot armour and rushing through important twists. But as Dixon heads into his third season, there’s promise of the show rising from the dead yet again as the powers that be have enforced yet another location change from France to Spain. Can the change get Daryl and Carol back in the right track? Its time to bring the (S)pain.
After surviving their trip through the chunnel and temporarily losing their minds to the fumes of toxic bat poop, Daryl and Carol have managed to make it to England as part of their next step toward trying to get back home to America. However, upon reaching London they are initially surprised to find that the streets seem to be virtually devoid of Walkers only to discover that lots of them have been disguised by growing vines thanks to a long period of inaction. Taking refuge from the swarming plant covered corpses, Daryl and Carol accept that this Walker siege may finally be the thing that ends them until they are rescued by the gawky and awkward Julian Chamberlain.
The self professed “last man in England”, Julian seems overjoyed to finally have company that actually has a pulse and the group celebrate with freshly caught rabbits and some booze. However, when Julian lets slip that he owns a boat and had previously planned to sail away from England with his friends before they all perished, the Americans once again find fate doing them a solid (Carol stumbled across a plane and a fucking pilot without even trying last season) and persuade their host to come with them on a voyage on the high seas.
Of course, if the previous two seasons of the spin-off show have taught us anything, it’s that Daryl should really stay the fuck away from boats as it’s how the dude ended up in France in the first place…
After a storm knackers their voyage home, Daryl wakes on a beach in Spain to discover Carol injured and her wound getting infected, but now that he’s once again a stranger in a strange land, can Dixon keep his friend safe before any locals come sniffing around? And what’s become of Julian?
Starting a brand new season with what is essentially a bottle episode might sound like the worst thing The Walking Dead could have pulled right now, but with all things being equal, Costa Da Morte (Coast Of Death) proves to be a much needed palate cleanser for the show after a rather muddled second season. Yes it’s slow and yes, virtually everything that occurs before Daryl gets washed ashore again is technically inconsequential, but it feels like the writers and showrunners have taken an extra episode just to use a trip to merry old England to wash the lingering taste of France out of its mouth. Clémence Poésy’s Isabelle and Louis Puech Scigliuzzi’s Laurent are given cursory mentions but apart from providing whimsical memories and goal respectively, Daryl Dixon has literally gone out of it’s way to put France in the rear view mirror ASAP.
You can tell because ultimately, the entire trip to England feels incredibly unnecessary other than adding another stop gap on Daryl’s world tour and ketting the showrunners flex their budgetary muscles. Don’t get me wrong, it cool to see what’s become of Blightly since Brexit – no, wait… sorry, the Fall – and the sight of so many ruined landmarks makes up for some annoyingly twee details that just feel like shooting fish in a barrel (cue Walker trapped in a phone box and your typical crack about the steering wheel being on the wrong side). However, there’s nothing really here that couldn’t have been done back in France which leaves the scenery change feeling mostly negligible. Of course, having the swarm of Walkers drawn away by the chimes of Big Ben is admittedly cool, and it’s always nice to see the face of Stephent Merchant being all sociably awkward (cue laboured conversation about Cockney rhyming slang that not even I could follow), but as The Walking Dead puts yet another new face onto some of its old writing flaws, it’s tough to see why the show is bothering.
For a start, we’re once again given an example of the type of plotting seen in a below average RPG video game that sees our heroes once again stumble on a character that not only may be the last living man in England, but also coincidentally has a boat in working order that he just so happens to be too timid to use on his own. I’ve let this trope slide in the past (probably too many times) but seeing it dragged out once again as it comes complete with a single serving attitude with the character (he dies before the end of the episode, leaving us utterly unshocked) is just the show once again proving that it’s mostly out of ideas. Elsewhere, the episode pulls off the impressive trick of rushing and dragging at the same time. While the fact that Daryl and Carol manages to get from Dover to London a day then to Spain in a single episode means that the show is technically streaking through it’s plot – but if that’s true, why the Hell does virtually nothing happen for the entire hour the show is on?
It truly seems that once again, The Walking Dead is doing that infuriating thing where it speeds through the important stuff (Must. Get. To. Spain.) and then pumps the brakes in order to deliver long, drawn out, clumsy attempts at being profound or deep. However while the plot suggests that Daryl Dixon may very well be more season 2 than season, there’s still that one thing that keeps it watchable – the union of Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride. While season 2 willfully sacrificed all the good stuff that season 1 had built just to get the two back together, seeing Carol and Daryl get right back to that playful brother/sister shtick they do so well is almost worth the trouble; but considering that Carol gets nerfed by the end of the episode thanks to a head injury and fever, I wouldn’t count on it lasting.
The leads carry it, but a strangely subdued start to Daryl Dixon’s third season means that there’s plenty of opportunities for the show’s worst habits to flourish and not amount of ruined London cityscapes and ivy entwined Walkers can hide it. However, while this episode feels more like a drawn out prologue rather than a full blown premiere, there’s still plenty of time for the Spanish vibes to kick in a breathe life into the rapidly tiring Walking Dead husk.
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