Review: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon finale ties up France's story but leaves emotional threads hanging

In the pre-season promotion for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol, Norman Reedus repeatedly said he believed the finale was the best hour of The Walking Dead that had ever been made. Inevitably, it isn’t, but it’s a shame because while it cannot compete with the likes of "The Grove "or "Terminus," it’s not a bad episode. “Au Revoir Les Enfant” (Goodbye Children) gives us some vastly needed closure and the promise of a better future.

Much of the first half of the episode takes place at the racetrack where Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) are deciding who will go on Ash’s (Manish Dayal) plane back to the US with Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi). As with so much of this season, Daryl’s motivations for offering to stay behind remain muddy. Is he offering to stay behind out of nobility, or does his repeated statement that he was wrong to want to go home mean he’s decided France is where he belongs, even without Isabelle and Laurent? It’s frustrating to be this far into Daryl’s story and still not know exactly what it is he wants, or want lessons he has learned.

While the group at the plane settles the argument (Carol must go on the plane because she at least knows how it flies), we follow Codron (Romain Levi) and Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) on a side-quest to a former hospital for supplies, alongside newcomer Akila (Soraya Hachoumi ). These scenes would have been so welcome earlier in the season. The former enemies get time to bond, make jokes about French healthcare and Fallou makes his own love-connection. Coming in the finale, it feels distracting (I kept wondering whether Akila appeared before and I’d forgotten her? Where did she come from?) and feels very much like too little too late.

It does drive the plot forward, though. The pair are confronted by Sabine (Tatiana Gousseff) and Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou), revealing that after the death of Losang, Jacinta is picking up the torch and determined to fulfill the prophecy (showing that Laurent is immune to walker bites). They escape thanks to Akila (with a fantastically disdainful muttering of “Men!”) and must warn the others Jacinta is on her way.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol finale review, "Au Revoir les Enfants"

The location of Laurent and the plane, it turns out, has been leaked by Anna from the Demimonde, who traded the information for the chance of getting the plane to return to her own home. It’s another sudden backstory drop-in, which feels like the writers suddenly becoming aware that they had made the French characters 2D cut-outs and were hurriedly colouring them in before the curtain falls.

Jacinta’s arrival at the racetrack forces Team Plane to hurriedly prepare Ash’s plane for instant flight, and they try and lift off amidst a high-octane chase and shootout. It’s much more comfortable fare for the show, and though it doesn’t reach the thrills of the earlier Nest scenes, it provides some high tension and gratification when Ash manages to get the plane airborne. (Please come back, Manish Dayal, you are a joy on screen!) It's a shame that neither of the show’s big bads — Genet and Losang — made it to this point in the story, and our lack of emotional connection to Jacinta costs the show as Laurent flies to freedom. That said, the Medusa-effect — when one religious leader is cut off, five more will rise — means that Laurent would never be safe there, as long as he was seen as the chosen one.

Of course Carol gets out of the plane at the last second, and the pan to her empty seat works well because of Melissa McBride’s previous absence from the show. It’s totally believable (if you haven’t been following the behind-the-scenes shenanigans) that Carol could have been a guest star in this season, returning to the US with Laurent to wait for Daryl’s eventual return. I’m delighted that’s not the case and hope that as the show progresses into the third season, some of the emotional imbalance will be redressed. Particularly given Daryl’s cool response to Carol showing up and decision to stay behind.

There’s a sense that the writers are afraid to have them share emotional scenes at this point for fear that the characters will give too much away about the nature of their relationship. Even when we see Carol and Daryl ride the stolen motorbike through France, we don’t get any closeups, as though the show is scared of looking too closely at what’s going on between them. And it’s a shame, as it would have been a lovely call back to the first episode of season 10 when we saw Carol blissfully riding pillion on Daryl’s bike before they talked about running away together.

Carol and Daryl begin their journey home

Instead of running away, they are still keen to get back home to the U.S., and Fallou facilitates that by finding a pair of Scots who are willing to guide them through the Channel tunnel (train tunnel that connects France to England beneath the English Channel) to England. As a Scot, I would like to state how offended I am by the representation of our people as hard-drinking, hard-cursing, English-hating louts…or I’d like to, but honestly, Angus is a pretty fair representation of a lot of Scots, and his repeated use of the F-bomb is hilariously accurate. (I would like to add that the Scots and French do love each other, as we share a bond known as “The Auld Alliance.”)

As the group camp overnight Carol and Daryl finally have a brief talk, with Daryl at least reassuring Carol that they will stay together when they return home (though it’s not entirely clear what exactly he means by that. It’s almost a throwaway line which is odd given it seems like he’s promising to never leave her, and should have had greater emotional weight). It is also nice to see Codron and Fallou (who gets an insta-romance with Akila; one which has more chemistry and believability than Daryl and Isabelle’s) get the spotlight. Levi and Ebouaney have been such tremendous additions to The Walking Dead Universe and I’m delighted they both (seemingly) live to fight another day. And of course, the romance gives Fallou “a reason to stay” in France, a nod to the words of both Didi and the Mother Superior in the first season, who told Carol and Daryl respectively that “reasons are everywhere” to believe in love and hope.

Inside the Channel Tunnel, the show pulls together the best of the season in a dramatic mix of walker action, human betrayal and internal demon-confronting as the group succumbs to the hallucinogenic effects of bat guano. Codron, Carol and Daryl all confront the object of the guilt currently tormenting them, with differing results. Codron sees his brother Michel, and after fighting with Daryl runs off after him. Daryl sees Isabelle, who returns just as she was the first time she and Daryl met, to save him, get him to continue fighting, and give him hope...before she turns into fireflies and fulfills her Tinkerbell ending. And Carol sees both herself as a walker and as Sophia, the ghost who has been beside her all season.

Earlier, Carol had confided tearfully to Daryl that she could no longer see Sophia’s face, only that of the walker-Sophia who came out of the barn at Hershel’s farm. So when she sees and embraces a healthy Sophia it is a satisfying closure that has felt a long time coming for the grieving mother. Watching Carol let go of Sophia, along with her own suicidal thoughts, is the emotional full stop I have wanted to see for years. And of course, McBride is magical in her performance. The level of depth in understanding her character has brought some desperately needed substance to this show which can’t seem to settle on its emotional center.

This is never more clear than the anti-climax as Carol and Daryl reunite, exchange “are you ok?” queries and put on gas masks before walking into the distance. I desperately wanted Daryl — having let go of Isabelle and Laurent — to express what it is he has learned about himself, where he feels he belongs, and exactly what it is he wants. But the muddiness remains, despite the Rolling Stones’ "You Can’t Always Get What You Want" playing as they head to England.

It’s the second time the refrain “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need” occurs in the episode; we hear it at the start as Daryl sings it along with Laurent. It’s clear that Laurent wanted to stay in France with Daryl, but what he needs is to go to the U.S. with Ash. It’s clear Ash wanted to stay at his homestead but what he needed was to go to France and pick up a new son. But what did Daryl want? Was it Isabelle? Was it Laurent? Was it a new life in France? None of these questions have been answered, and it leaves an unsatisfying emotional hangover.

However, the song does seem to be making one thing clear: whatever Daryl wants, what he needs is Carol, and whatever their relationship may be or become, it’s the heart of the show, and the one thing that makes sense in this France mess. Having Carol by his side is Daryl’s future, and that’s something I can absolutely agree on.

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