Review: The Book of Carol Episode 3 brings all the players closer together

As Carol (Melissa McBride) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) get closer to reuniting in France, the religious and militaristic factions in the area also come closer to meeting in the middle, as similar-but-different tyrannical, murderous cults. This amping up of the action in the Nest — with the impending "test" to prove Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) would survive a walker bite and and Carol’s infiltration of Genet’s (Anne Charrier) group — gives the story more cohesion and forward motion than the fractured first two episodes, where the French storylines were often the least interesting ones.

Genet’s story opens the episode. We learn more about her past working as a janitor at the Louvre. Her disdain for the visitors who don’t appreciate the art to her satisfaction gives us a hint of the Genet she would become; it’s interesting to see a female dictator’s “villain origin” focus on rage and frustration of the working class, rather than the usual more personal fodder. Although, of course, she has to have a (totally unneeded) tragic lost love story too, as she witnesses her husband chomped to death on the other side of the Louvre window. The “profit over people” story (how does the French healthcare system work anyway? I must Google) was sufficient to give us a rounded picture of Genet’s motivations, as well as her relationship with Sabine (Tatiana Gousseff), her right-hand woman.

Meanwhile, Losang’s (Joel de la Fuente) right-hand woman Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou) has gone full-steam ahead with the ceremony that will prove Laurent’s “specialness,” and Losang now seems comfortable with his role in it all. This cult always appeared dangerous to me, so it’s frustrating that only Daryl repeatedly refused to drink the Kool-Aid; the other smart characters like Fallou somehow didn't see that this would all end with Laurent’s life on the line. Thank goodness Sylvie (Laïka Blanc-Francard) comes to her senses and stands up for her pseudo little brother Laurent, giving her life to protect him. Poor Sylvie, we barely knew ya, but at least you got to kiss a boy.

I jest, but the optics of both Sylvie and Isabelle (Clemence Poesy) abandoning their vows the second they meet a handsome man are not great. There was absolutely no need to make them actual nuns. Making them devotees of the religion — like Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) and his people — would have worked just as well without the creepy, porny elements of nuns so overcome with attraction to men they throw their beliefs and wimples to the wind.

Isabelle’s loss of faith should have been front and centre in the last half of Episode 2 and in this episode. Her faith has put her nephew in imminent danger; that should be addressed onsccreen. That she doesn’t even get to discuss it with Laurent is tragedy enough, but that her screentime is instead largely devoted to her romantic interest in Daryl does the character a huge disservice.

Thankfully, the bad writing of female characters does not extend to Carol, as she sets about finding Daryl in Maison Mere. The three different stories she tells about who Daryl is to her are increasingly entertaining and show her chameleon-like adaptiveness. We don’t know what version she’s told English teacher Remy (Francois Perache), but we know Remy repeatedly refers to Daryl as “your Daryl,” and draws a parallel between their relationship to his with his husband. It’s possibly the first hint that we'll be exploring more fully just why exactly Carol crossed the world for this man.

The allusions to Carol as the Mona Lisa (“A secret in her smile. Something withheld”), and the artwork's use as a metaphor for both Genet and Carol are neatly done, particularly the beautifully framed shot of Carol and the iconic piece of art, both sharing the same enigmatic smile. This is one of the scenes where it feels like the writers truly understand how the audience feels about Carol, her complexity and beauty, and are giving them a nod and wink that they “get it.”

They certainly get how much the audience love action Carol, though it’s a shame we didn’t get more of her on the white horse. The imagery of Carol — a middle-aged, grey-haired woman — getting to be a white knight action hero is a very welcome change from the norm, and one that I hope the series continues to lean into once she’s sharing the screen with traditional hero Daryl.

There’s no hiding the Nazi analogies in Genet’s setup, and the experiments leading to the super-aggressive walkers. Genet wants an army of walkers that she can control, and is blind to the similarities between the thing she is fighting (treating the workers like they are invisible and less than) and the means by which she's trying to reach that outcome.

Carol and Genet come clean with each other

Carol’s dismissal of Genet’s vision of peace (“A war to end all wars? I’ve heard that one before”) does a fantastic job of showing the ultimate difference between the women, though it’s evident they could easily have been each other, and in another world, the best of friends.

The scenes between Carol and Genet are some of the best this season (and highlight McBride’s dry comic delivery). Two power-house actors with outrageous chemistry getting dialogue which allows their characters to reveal bits of themselves they normally hide, writers who can see where the juiciest meat lies. Hopefully we'll see more of Carol and Cadron together, as the pair's meeting seemed full of promise, and not just because he finally gave her the clues she needed to locate Daryl.

While Carol seems to be making French friends, we return to the romantic relationship between Daryl and Isabelle. Both having been captured in the chaos after they put a stop to Laurent’s ceremony. They end up in cell by cell (or shower cubicle by shower cubicle) awaiting to get tortured by Losang for information on Lauren'ts location.

When Isabelle asks Daryl to tell her a story to comfort her, Daryl retells how she has changed him, helping him “find something” in a place he thought he only wanted to leave. He goes on to describe the fireflies she’d see in Ohio as “lots of Tinkerbells in the sky.” And when he asks if Isabelle knows who Tinkerbell is, the metaphorical light is switched on to reveal something of Isabelle’s role in Daryl’s story.

Review: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol Episode 2, "L'Invisible"

David Zabel, the showrunner on this Walking Dead spinoff, has painted Daryl as Pan in Neverland. Just like the Lost Boys (remember the whole Lost Boys-esque episode with the school of kids in season 1, which prominently featured Robin Williams) the longer he stayed there, the more he forgot about his family back home. Isabelle says Tinkerbell “saved Peter Pan,” and it’s clear Isabelle is Daryl’s Tinkerbell, saving and protecting him.

When Isabelle tells Daryl “je t’aime” (I love you), just like Peter does in Hook, Daryl doesn’t say it back, and the Tinkerbell analogy is complete. In Hook, the kiss Tinkerbell and Peter share only serves to awaken Pan’s memories, and remind him of the family he has left at home. Daryl needed to find himself again, but, like Robin Williams’ Peter, he needed to go to Neverland to do that.

This scene bookends the opener with Genet and her husband; both couples are separated by a wall, both couples reach out their hands to each other, both couples fear this may be the end. Though Genet’s husband said he loved her back, deepening her tragedy.

While Daryl and Isabelle hold hands around the wall between them, we see that they are clinging to the one thing they have, and desperately trying to have hope for an unclear future. It’s a moment that reflects the wider issues in the episode: Losang and the Union of Hope were clinging to Laurent as their reason to believe; Genet is clinging to her belief that she can bring unification via her murderous methods. Both characters are blinded by their own reality, yet manage to give speeches to Daryl and Carol respectively that seem to be what they need to hear.

Losang accuses Daryl of being “a man alone,” “nothing to cling to, a life spent simply reacting,” while Genet recognises Carol as a woman who has been deeply hurt, and who needs to let go of that pain; “men seem to have no problem doing it.” Both Daryl and Carol are challenged to look at their lives and question if perhaps they need to take a risk and do things differently if they are to move forwards. As Losang says, “only by risking everything can we find the meaning of true faith,” and in the last moments of the episode, as Carol faces becoming one of Genet's super soldier walkers, it's certain risking everything is absolutely what she's done.

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