'The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon' Finally Reveals How Daryl Got to France — and It Was Worth It (2024)

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Episode 5 of The Walking Dead: Daryl DixonThe Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, gives us high production value, our favorite The Walking Dead character Daryl (Norman Reedus), and the post-apocalyptic setting of a nostalgic France, all while becoming the most viewed premiere season in AMC+ history. Alone and wary, Daryl washes ashore among the dilapidated buildings of a French port town, but it isn't until Episode 5 that we find out how he actually got there to begin with. With Genet's (Anne Charrier) admission at the end of Episode 1, it was clear that Daryl had been imprisoned by them on their boat, and thus they either had a team working in America or were working with a community already located there. Episode 5, "Deux Amours," confirms this theory and adorns it with a little more detail, flashbacks and all.

How Did Daryl Dixon Get To France?

At the end of The Walking Dead, Daryl says goodbye to the Commonwealth and embarks on a solo journey to find Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira). His travels take him to the coastal town of Freeport, Maine, where his staple bike has run out of fuel. He comes across a lone traveler who offers to take him back to the community where Daryl can earn a couple of liters of ethanol. The fuel is traded for walkers: no elderly, no children, and no one under 5'4" is allowed in the community. Naturally, Daryl ends up becoming one of the most efficient scavengers of the unruly pack, earning him a proposition from one of the less skilled hunters. After bonding with the young man over wood chopping, Daryl manages to radio Alexandria and talk to Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride). Carol's cameo involves what could be a huge revelation masked by a weak signal transmission, leaving us and Daryl with the burning question: "Who came back?"

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The next day, Daryl discovers the reanimated corpse of the young man he was helping among the captured walkers and promptly begins a fight with the hunter, consequently breaking one of the few rules the compound had (no violence and no sexual deviance). Both the hunter and Daryl are led blindly aboard Genet's ship. Turns out that this group was providing walker and human test subjects for Genet's experiments. In a thrilling action sequence, Daryl eventually escapes his confinement and jumps off the ship in French waters. This backstory is cohesively intertwined with the present timeline, progressively increasing in intensity until it culminates in the image of Daryl being silhouetted by a fiery explosion alongside his situation in the present day, where he's faced with the veiny and adrenaline-like walker, thanks to Genet's experimental serum.

Daryl Dixon Finally Takes the Spotlight in His Own Spinoff

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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Was Filmed Across France

In some sense, Daryl's travels did feel like a waste of screen time; it somewhat hindered the main story at play and was a bit anticlimactic since we already had an inkling of what happened. Up until Episode 5, Daryl had been the least interesting part of his own spinoff. Although being taken back to the roots of the apocalypse, discovering a child messiah and witnessing the new types of walkers is exciting, we were missing and craving that major Daryl element. Placed in the forefront of Episode 5, his storyline is finally expanded upon. Before this, we had only really seen him reluctantly helping the people he met. Despite doing that very thing in his backstory, his ruminations on his time in America also facilitate a deeper bond with Laurent. Correlating Laurent with his niece and nephew in the Commonwealth, Daryl navigates the delicate line between tough love and forgiveness.

During his time at the walker-scavenging compound in Maine, his compulsive need to help the underdog inspires a momentary bond between him and a young man, resulting in a heart-sinking moment when we see that same young man as a walker. Daryl's compassion and efforts working to no avail is a scene we have seen many times before in the original show, and even in the first episode of Daryl's spinoff. It counterbalances the newness of the show, but also grounds us in his idiosyncratic warmth and prepares us for his upcoming stunning action sequence. As he escapes from imprisonment, we follow the graceful yet brutal action sequence that The Walking Dead franchise is known for. It's as if they're just reminding us how adept Daryl is at fighting before launching him into a gladiator-like arena with a super-powered walker and taunting us with: "Well, can he survive this?" Considering that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon was renewed for Season 2, the answer is probably yes. But it's the thought that counts.

Could Carol Become Part of 'The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon' Season 2?

For fans of the Carol and Daryl dynamic duo, there's hope! The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon was originally going to include Carol, but because the filming was going to be in France (and far from home), McBride chose to stay closer to her family. But Mcbride's voice cameo in Episode 5 introduces exciting implications for the spinoff and The Walking Dead universe. As the static in the transmission obscures the name of the person who "came back" to Alexandria, multiple possibilities immediately come to mind. Either Rick or Michonne are the most obvious answers, but that depends on the timeline of their own spinoff, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Morgan (Lennie James) could have returned to Alexandria since, at the end of Fear the Walking Dead, he expressed his intentions to also search for Rick. Even Maggie (Lauren Cohan) could be a possibility, rallying for help after Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) is captured in Manhattan at the end of The Walking Dead: Dead City. Any of the potential candidates could possibly have downstream effects on Daryl's spinoff.

Aside from universal ramifications, McBride's cameo may hint at Carol's inclusion in Season 2 of Daryl's spinoff. Since it is already the penultimate episode, it is unlikely she will appear now, but there is hope for future Daryl-Carol moments. It was also very fitting that she should appear in Daryl's mini-backstory. The episode is already drenched in a sense of familiarity, with Daryl taking the spotlight, his generous actions, his more violent sequence, and a revisit to the forest-green American setting. McBride's distinct voice added to the familiarity and comfort of this episode, completely contrasting the explosive ending, with Daryl stuck in the middle of it.