TWD: Daryl Dixon Premiere Recap: Did You Make A French Connection With The Franchise's Fifth Spinoff?
Your initial reaction to Sunday's premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon might have echoed its protagonist's take on the doomed French abbey that he visited: "Dead priest in a closet and a creepy kid? No thanks." But if you stuck with "L'âme Perdue," you might have agreed with us that once the series got going, it also got pretty gripping. (TVLine's review here.) Read on, and after recapping the episode's major developments, we'll discuss in the comments.
'KILLER NUNS, HUH?' | As the fifth Walking Dead spinoff began, Daryl, as we already knew that he would, washed ashore in France. Perhaps to underscore the fact that he was no longer in Kansas — er, the Commonwealth — he quickly ran afoul of a fresh strain of walkers whose touch burned his skin. (Mon Dieu!) At least people hadn't changed, only their accents: Granddaughter/grandpa pair Maribelle and Guillaume soon thanked Daryl for protecting them from villainous Genet's guerriers (soldiers) by fingering him as their killer to Codron, the guerrier who eventually came looking for the missing men.
Yeah, OK, so maybe it wasn't such a good thing that people hadn't changed along with the time zone. Daryl did make at least one nice new acquaintance, Sister Isabelle, who saved him from Maribelle and Guillaume and took him back to the aforementioned abbey to tend to his wounds. There, he learned that the sanctuary was part of the Union of Hope, a pan-religious group whose members were spread well beyond the walls that protected Sister Isabelle and her fellow nuns. Well, that were meant to protect them, anyway.
'YOU ARE THE CURE FOR A SICK WORLD' | By and by, Daryl met Laurent, a wise-beyond-his-years orphan boy who'd been raised by the nuns. Sister Isabelle maintained that he was preternaturally sensitive, and as if to drive home that point, he unwittingly quoted Judith Grimes, telling a homesick Daryl not to despair. "You deserve a happy ending, too." He wouldn't get it today, however. Instead, he'd discover that Laurent's mentor Père Jean was the aforementioned "dead priest in a closet." "We are waiting for him to rise again," Sister Isabelle said of the walker. Mm-mm, hard pass. Daryl was outta there.
Desperate, the nun confessed that she believed Daryl was "the messenger" intended to deliver Laurent in one piece to the port at Le Havre. And his safety was important because... ? A Buddhist monk had had a vision that revealed the youngster as "the new messiah to lead the revival of humanity." Cue the thought bubble above Daryl's head reading, "Jesus." If he helped the nuns and they were wrong, he'd still have helped a child get to a better place, Sister Isabelle pleaded. And if they were right... well, wouldn't he prefer to bet on hope? Nah, said Daryl. But no sooner had he hit the road than he spotted Codron and his henchmen headed for the abbey.
'CREW IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THEIR CAPTAIN' | The sisters armed themselves against Codron, who was especially ticked that brother Michel had been one of the two guerriers felled in the Maribelle/Guillaume/Daryl fracas. But sadly, the "killer nuns'" medieval weapons were no match for the soldiers' guns. Codron would even have taken Laurent to train for Genet, had Daryl not intervened. The baddie escaped with his life but not without doing a whole lot of damage. As Mother Superior breathed her last breath, she implored Daryl to help Sister Isabelle and Laurent. "Reasons" to believe, she said, "are everywhere."
In the end, Daryl confided in Sister Isabelle that some evil-doers had put him on a boat, and it hadn't gone well; that was how he'd wound up in France. Since escorting her and Laurent to Le Havre would also take Daryl himself to the port — and potentially a way across the ocean — he agreed to be their shepherd. It wouldn't be easy, of course. In fact, at that moment, the big bad wolf — Genet — was in Le Havre, intimidating the ship captain on whose watch Daryl had escaped and apparently led a mutiny during which most of the valuable research on board was destroyed. At best, she'd be able to salvage some of the "test subjects." Clearly, she was not going to rest any more than Codron was until Daryl had been made to pay.
So, what did you think of the premiere? A bit slow to start, maybe, but once Daryl had someone to talk to besides himself, intriguing and extremely promising, no? Grade the episode in the poll below, then hit the comments with your reviews.