The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — 5 things The Book of Carol got right (and 5 it got wrong)

It’s safe to say that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has had something of an identity problem. Initially conceived as a “roadshow” set in the US and centered on the characters of Carol (Melissa McBride) and Daryl (Norman Reedus), the show then moved to France and lost McBride. The first season then built a new premise around Daryl stuck in France and contemplating a new life with nun Isabelle and her “chosen one” nephew Laurent. However, when McBride then returned to the show for the second season, it’s clear the decision was made to then pivot back to the original concept, but set in Europe.

These massive changes have left the show — and especially season 2, subtitled The Book of Carol — something of a jumble as the old version of the plot was phased out to make way for the new one. Despite this messy premise, the show did still manage to pull together some compelling pieces of storytelling, create dynamic action sequences, and explore some of the character’s deeper emotions. So let’s take a closer look at what exactly The Book of Carol got right, and got wrong.

5 things The Book of Carol got right

Carol

The best decision this show ever made is not just getting Melissa McBride back on board, but also making her an executive producer. During promotion, she spoke about her input this season, which comes across clearly onscreen. Having Carol confront and truly deal with her original trauma which began her massive character metamorphosis into the hero she is — losing her daughter Sophia — is long overdue. Seeing Carol speak openly about Sophia, her other losses, and her state of mind are all things that the character deserves, and which McBride absolutely needed to play onscreen.

There wasn’t one element of Carol’s story that wasn’t written and performed brilliantly. Even her horrific lie about looking for Sophia worked, as it illustrated the depth of her desperation. She's willing to put herself in that position knowing the guilt of the lie couldn’t remotely touch the guilt she feels for losing Sophia in the first place.

Carol was her empathetic, sassy, ingenious, courageous and devastating best, and it was a joy to be back in her company.

Ash

Carol’s new friend and pilot was an absolute breath of fresh air in season 2. Ash was a man stuck in the past, forced out of his hermit-like life by Carol’s magnetism and his own kind heart. Manish Dayal was magnificent as the sweet, gentle, broken father who found his world completely opened by this new friendship. Partnering hardened and cynical Carol with such a warm and innocent man created fantastic chemistry between the pair, which the actors embraced with a light touch. In a fictional world which so often highlights the worst of humanity, giving us someone who is exactly who they seem to be and is full of forgiveness and unexpressed love adds the hopeful balance that such a dark show needs.

I am so glad that Ash got to live (I had totally written him off from as far back as the trailer of season 2, given that hopeful people are always the first to go in this universe), and even happier he got what he needed: a new adopted son and a reason to live. I hope he makes another appearance down the line. If we can believe that plane of his can cross the Atlantic twice, there’s nothing saying he can’t do it again to come and find Carol and Daryl on their travels.

Scenery

When talking about moving the show to France, the scenery was always one of the first things that the show’s creators mentioned, and it truly is the aspect of the location they get absolutely right. The utterly dazzling locations, from the catacombs to Mont St Michel to stunning vistas in the French countryside, really give The Book of Carol a grander, more poetic feel than the original Walking Dead show ever had.

From Daryl and Isabelle’s sunset kiss on the beach in front of the nest to Carol and Daryl’s bike ride past Paris’ tourist attractions, every location shot looked filmic and was sublimely captured. Even the CGI-devastated cities were well-executed and gave a classic twist to the urban vistas we’d grown used to. And on a more intimate scale, the farmhouses and stone-built villages that Carol and Daryl found themselves in do feel uniquely French, lending a believability to the characters who live — or lived — there.

Casting

The Book of Carol was packed with compelling secondary characters who were all depicted expertly by their performers, to the point that it’s incredibly sad to be leaving them behind. However little they were given, every actor made their character feel realistic and compelling.

Anne Charrier gave film noir glamour and grace to Genet, who displayed a regal supremacy and an absolutely human connection to her country. Clemence Poesy gave Isabelle a serene strength and softness, expertly inhabiting both of Isabelle’s identities as party girl and nun. Eriq Ebouaney gave the series a feeling of gravitas and richness as rebel leader Fallou. I absolutely could believe that many would follow this man, look to him for guidance and reassurance, and put their trust entirely in his word. Laïka Blanc-Francard gave a lovely, delicate performance as Sylvie, the young sheltered nun who fell in love for the first time and became a brave, righteous defender of what is right. She’s a captivating light on screen, and I imagine her career will take off after this.

Perhaps best of all was Romain Levi as Codron, the brutal soldier who turns protector and friend. Levi came onscreen in season 1 an obedient soldier and callous killer helping to hunt for Laurent. When he encounters the innocent Laurent and finds a faith in humanity he never knew, Levi deftly conveys the change in his heart. His emotional scenes begging Laurent for forgiveness and bonding with Fallou were highlights from the latter episodes of The Book of Carol. I am so glad he (seemingly) lived to fight another day, especially as Levi is also a joyous delight in interviews.

Comedy

When Norman Reedus first talked about the spinoff, he often repeated that it would be “lighter” in tone, and it was something a lot of fans looked forward to. The Book of Carol delivered on that lightness in the form of Carol’s humour and Daryl and Carol’s banter. Melissa McBride has incredible comedy chops, and Carol’s scathing, dry wit was peppered flawlessly through her scenes, from casually informing Mick’s friend that their friend was in a car trunk with an hour of oxygen left, “give or take,” to her deadpan declaration that she doubts she’d find Daryl in a kitchen.

One of Carol’s greatest abilities is to make us sob with heartbreak and snort with laughter at her caustic take-downs of fools, and The Book of Carol leaned into it so well. Her funny bones are so strong they rub off on Daryl, and make even the overly earnest Daryl funny. Their scenes with Didi and Theo, with Daryl barely controlling his laughter at Carol pretending to be Isabelle, and telling Theo’s friend that Florida was on their bucket list, adds brevity that really lifts his character. While Carol and Daryl are epic as a fighting duo and emotive as supportive best friends, their “old married couple” bickering is the most welcome dynamic on The Book of Carol.

5 things The Book of Carol got wrong

Daryl

Or “Darren” as some online fans were calling him. Considering that the show is named after him, it is absolutely astounding how badly the writers got Daryl. Almost every aspect of his character that fans hold dear was undermined, trashed, or forgotten. Most essential was the idea that the man who’s most defining characteristic was loyalty would decide that he could give up his old family (Carol, Judith and RJ, Maggie, Aaron) after spending mere weeks with Isabelle and Laurent. Having his relationship with Laurent be stronger than his connection to Judith is especially insulting to anyone who has watched since Daryl held Judith hours after her birth, and dubbed her “Ass Kicker.”

Even the multiple times Daryl makes promises to Laurent that he will come back, that he will see him again, do not seem right coming from the always-truthful pragmatist Daryl. In season 10 of The Walking Dead, when Judith expressed similar concerns, he was honest that he could not promise to always be there for her, but still managed to give her comfort. Why wouldn’t he do the same with Laurent?

Daryl's romantic relationship with Isabelle was also wildly out of character, for reasons I talked about at length here, and completely rewrote everything we have known about Daryl and the length of time he takes to form a romantic or sexual connection.

For me personally, however, the biggest flaw in Daryl’s writing comes in his scenes with Carol after their reunion, but I’ll get to that.

Misogyny

There is a horrific streak of misogyny that runs through this season; almost every single female secondary character died even though it was absolutely not required for the plot. While Genet, as the big bad, would understandably die, there was no need for Sylvie, Anna or Didi to lose their lives.

Genet’s motivation seemed to be frustration and retribution on behalf of the under-classes and how they were treated before, and during, the zombie apocalypse. The death of her husband in front of her seemed an unnecessary inclusion, but suddenly makes sense when you hear showrunner David Zabel explain in the “Inside the Episode” special that — in his mind — Genet was just “a simple woman” who wanted to have babies with her husband, and went mad when that future was taken away from her. I cannot express how horrific I, and other female fans I know, find that reductive, sexist and trite character motivation.

The entire nun element of the show also reeks of male fantasy service, considering both women immediately cast aside their vows in order to kiss men they have just met, and then — like all virgins who have sex in horror movies — must die for their sins.

Isabelle

I am so sorry, Isabelle, you deserved better. In the first season of the show, Isabelle was a compelling, complex foil for Daryl; a woman with a past who had found hope and faith at the end of the world and believed her nephew could save humanity. But she was also a woman who had let that idea blind her to the danger she was putting Laurent in, and was manipulative and cruel to the man she felt could help them. In season 2, she was reduced to a woman Daryl kissed, and then she died. The fact that you can remove Isabelle from season 2 and that every single plot point (bar the kiss) would play out exactly the same shows the lack of agency and significance she had in The Book of Carol.

That Isabelle didn’t have a single interaction with Laurent in this season is a crime, as is her “fridging.” The second a romance with Daryl was confirmed, her fate was sealed. There is no way she could live given that Daryl would be moving on with Carol; he couldn’t be seen to leave his new girlfriend behind. It’s one of the many reasons the romance was such a hideously bad idea, because instead of leaving for a new life in the U.S. with Laurent, Isabelle is a lovelorn nun met with silence when she declares her love, reduced after her death to an amorphous source of guilt for Daryl.

I wrote here that the most insulting part is that Isabelle's arc in season 2 wasn’t even an original idea; it was simply a nun-themed carbon-copy of what happened with Leah, Daryl’s time-gap girlfriend from the main show.

Daryl’s romance

Even outside of the fact that her romance with Daryl signed Isabelle's execution order, and that Daryl became romantically involved with a woman who had compared him to his abusive father, from a writing point of view, the romance was the absolute worst decision they could make. It achieved nothing but made almost every single group of fans unhappy; which, given how divided The Walking Dead fandom is, is quite the achievement. 

Carylers — those who want to see Carol and Daryl together romantically, and arguably the core audience of the spin off — felt miserable and betrayed to see Daryl have a romance with someone he had known for mere weeks, in the very show they believed would focus on Carol and Daryl’s relationship. Those who believed Daryl was meant to be with Connie were devastated he had seemed to have forgotten her and had no plans to return to her at the Commonwealth.

But perhaps most self-defeating was that those who liked Daryl's romantic relationship with Isabelle were angered that it consisted of one kiss, followed swiftly by her death. The existence of the romance at all betrays much of what we know of Daryl, waters down the things that made him special, but throws it aside so quickly and easily. And having him be able to joke and laugh about Didi and Theo thinking Carol is Isabelle just hours later is equally destructive.

Creating a plot that will be so divisive and controversial that you also know has no long-term impact in Daryl’s ongoing story or development is absolutely baffling.

Carol and Daryl

Although The Book of Carol nailed the pair’s comedic, bantering scenes, it absolutely dropped the ball on Daryl’s reactions to Carol’s arrival in France.

While the moment of their reunion was moving, immediately afterwards Daryl is cold, cruel and neglectful of Carol, ignoring her attempts to connect with him as they walk away from the Nest. Of course he would be upset over Isabelle and anxious to find Laurent, but why on earth would he be treating Carol like an annoying, buzzing fly?

The long-awaited reunion between the pair was built up in promotion with taglines like, “to find home is to find each other” and “bonded by one soul,” yet once Carol was there Daryl reacted to her presence as if she’d just crossed town to hang with him, rather than cross the Atlantic during the apocalypse. Why would he not be expressing utter amazement and gratitude for all she did and risked, just to be by his side? Rather than the eventual, casual “I’m glad you’re here” that we got.

It feels as though this is a symptom of a bigger issue that exists with the creatives not knowing how to portray Carol and Daryl’s complex, deep relationship. Showrunner Zabel has said that the relationship is completely platonic, yet scenes such as those with Didi and Theo imply something else, which was picked up both by “shippers” and those actively against shipping. Showing us that these two characters will always choose each other over everyone else, that their happy ending is being with each other, but refusing to consider that their connection may be (or evolve to become) romantic dramatically hampers how their relationship can be depicted or furthered. It creates an emotional inauthenticity and reduces the impact of the character’s bond. It feels as though Zabel and co. were afraid to show Daryl be too overly enthusiastic about Carol’s amazing feat because it would seem too romantic “true love” coded, which tells you something about why that avenue should be considered.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.