Roush Review: Ooh La La! ‘Daryl Dixon’ Breathes New Life Into the ‘Dead’ Franchise
Review
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
Vive La Mort.
If nothing else, the latest spinoff from the Walking Dead universe reminds us that terror is a universal language. Filmed on location in France, Daryl Dixon sends its shaggy title hero (the ever-brooding Norman Reedus) on a treacherous journey through a zombie-infested landscape where he’s once again a reluctant hero. Like Dorothy in Oz, he only wants to find a way back home from this strange new world, but first he must deliver new acquaintances to a promised land.
How did he even get there? “A bunch of bad decisions,” he tells the alluring nun Isabelle (a soulful Clémence Poesy), who tends to his wounds after an encounter with a ghoul spouting toxic blood that burns on contact. (This mutation is explained, along with Daryl’s perilous voyage from the U.S., over the limited series’ six taut episodes.) Though the convent’s Mother Superior contends Daryl “belongs out there with the faithless and the violent” — she’s not wrong — Isabelle sees a wounded pilgrim, a lost soul with the strength and moral fiber to successfully escort peace-loving 11-year-old prophet Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to a sanctuary called the “Nest.” She might also recognize a kindred reformed spirit, with flashbacks revealing her less holy origins.
In keeping with the locale, Daryl is also at the center of a Les Misérables–style subplot (sans music) in which a guerrier (soldier), who’s part of the army of autocratic leader Genet (Anne Charrier), stalks and hounds Daryl like a revenge-fueled Javert, blaming him for his brother’s death. Will poor Daryl ever catch a break?
Emmanuel Guimier/AMC
The good news is that Daryl Dixon is a considerably more gripping experience than the disappointing Dead City spinoff from earlier this year, which wasted too much effort trying to convince us, and our surrogate, Maggie (Lauren Cohan), that former villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) never really meant it when he was bashing skulls. Daryl, of course, needs no such justification, and with a fresher environment and intriguing supporting characters who feel less like instant zombie fodder, the series breathes new life into what was beginning to feel like a terminally played-out franchise. (Like Dead City, this has already been renewed for a second season.)
Several of the set pieces are gruesomely thrilling: a monster-filled moat, a gladiator pit, a swarm outside a damaged Eiffel Tower. And there are haunting echoes that, unlike his own young-ish home country, this ancient land has “survived many apocalypses,” as Daryl learns while navigating Paris’ creepy skull-lined catacombs.
Throughout, I kept seeing Daryl as a new-age Rick (Humphrey Bogart’s character) from Casablanca, asserting that causes aren’t his thing while perpetually coming to the rescue of the show’s many underdogs, inadvertently affirming their faith in humanity. When young Laurent queries him, “What do you believe in?” Daryl gruffly answers, “Pulling my own weight.”
He certainly achieves that goal here.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Series Premiere, Sunday, September 10, 9/8c, AMC/AMC+
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon where to stream
