At San Diego Comic-Con this July, whilst promoting its current third season, it was announced that season 4 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon would be its last. It seems a shame, given the show feels as though it has only just found its true form. However, this third season does still feel somewhat like unshaped clay, with the promise of greatness lying just under the surface, if only it can be placed in the right artist’s hands.
Where we left off
The end of the second season of Daryl Dixon saw Daryl (Norman Reedus) say goodbye to the temporary life he’d made while stranded in France, and reuniting with his closest friend Carol (Melissa McBride), who had crossed the Atlantic to find him.
With Daryl’s ward, child prodigy Laurent off to America with Carol’s pilot friend Ash, Madam Genet and the religious fanatics brought down by Carol and Daryl, and Daryl’s burgeoning romance with Isabelle abruptly ended with her death, only rebel Fallou saw Carol, Daryl and former-enemy-turned-good-guy Codron enter the Channel Tunnel to the UK, to begin their journey back to America.
The three who entered the “Chunnel” found themselves suffering personalised hallucinations as a side-effect of bat guano, which led to Codron vanishing and Carol and Daryl heading off alone to England—which is where the opening of the third season finds them—before moving to Spain for the majority of the season.
Spoiler-free season 3 review
The first episode of the third season acts as an episodic “Chunnel,” bridging the gap between France and Spain with a palette cleanser in England, and it’s by far the best episode of the season. Capturing much of the essence of the flagship show’s fifth season’s popular episode, "Consumed," we focus on Daryl and Carol travelling alone, working together like a well-oiled machine to save themselves and others, with swathes of jeopardy, banter, and heartfelt conversations making up the bulk of the episode.
However, once the pair hits land on mainland Europe, much of that magic is swept away with the tide, and the story sets Carol and Daryl on largely separated paths.
The relationship between Carol and Daryl has always been a “lightning in a bottle” gift that evolved naturally on the main show, and it seemed to be a sound foundation to launch a spin-off from, but the show seems intent on squandering that gift.
Of course, no one expects Carol and Daryl to share every single scene, but given it seemed as though everyone went to great lengths to get Melissa McBride back on board after she pulled out of the show, it seems only smart to capitalize on that.
Reedus and McBride work so brilliantly together, with intimate chemistry and synergy that energizes. Carol and Daryl scenes always stand out from the pack, no matter the material. Daryl Dixon, however, feels as though it begins to find the Carol and Daryl bond a hindrance, and increasingly wants to shake it off.
When Carol and Daryl wash up on Spanish shores, the sweeping nationalist and religious themes of the first two seasons are banished, and the much-mooted “Spaghetti Western” influence takes over, with themes of romantic love and sacrifice coming heavily into play for the people they meet, and raising questions in their own minds.
After encountering young lovers Justina (Candela Saitta) and Roberto (Hugo Arbues), Carol and Daryl find themselves spending time in a thriving Spanish town, and eventually taken in by Roberto’s father Antonio— a broken, shy man with a secret past. Despite Daryl’s insistence that they don’t get involved in the lives of the people around them, first Carol, then Daryl, are drawn into the dramas of their hosts.
Much of the pre-season press has talked of Roberto and Justina’s Romeo and Juliet love story, and the pair are winningly believable as romantic youths, determined to be together, with Saitta especially standing out as a star on the rise. Glowingly beautiful, but also imparting Justina with a warmth and depth that prevents her from becoming just a pretty damsel in distress.
Carol’s connection to the flush of young love is touching and points to the happier, more forward looking Carol we see in this season. It’s a delight to see a Carol who is not bogged down in misery and trauma, having dealt with her biggest loss—that of her daughter Sophia—during her Channel Tunnel hallucinations, and McBride sparkles as this confident, caring and emotionally connected version of her character.
The main plot arc for the season revolves around Justina and the town’s willing sacrifice of their young women to the remaining royalty of Spain, in exchange for medicine, weapons, and protection from the bandits who exist outside the town’s walls.
It’s typical Western fare, though it’s harder to stomach with a 21st-century head. And the issue raises the philosophical question for the season: what are you willing to sacrifice to survive, if what you sacrifice is the very thing that makes life worth living?
When the main story is around the exploitation of young women, it would have been nice to have Carol play a more active part in that side of the story as it unraveled, instead of placing it squarely in Daryl’s hands. But that speaks to a larger issue the show has with the representation of its leading man.
Fans of Dary will be happy that he finally feels much more in character than he has in previous seasons. Seeing the grumpy man, whose concern is only for looking after Carol and getting back to America, and is absolutely determined not to get involved in anyone else’s fight, has echoes of very early Walking Dead Daryl, and plays into Reedus’s strengths.
However, the writers soon fall into the same trap the flagshow’s writers often did—turning Daryl into a cardboard cutout superhero, who struggles to verbalize his emotions. Though we do spend time on his childhood traumas, as well as his more recent ones, it feels very surface-level and fails to lead to any solid revelations.
Daryl is exposed heavily to two different love stories, which seem to resonate with him, but it’s not at all clear what conclusions he reaches. Is he looking to find love and settle down? Is he feeling his only chance at love and family died in France, and he is doomed to walk the world alone? Who can say?
But what can be said is that Isabelle’s ghost hovers over the entire season, with Zabel refusing to let Daryl verbalise whether guilt, grief, or love is what’s most on his mind.
Those Daryl Dixon fans who couldn’t care less about Daryl’s emotional revelations are, on the other hand, wonderfully well fed with incredible walker set pieces.
Characters face both moments of intimate jeopardy and grand-scale scenes of spectacular horror. From water to fire, walkers are the ever-present threat, and—as is fitting for characters who are this deep into the post-apocalypse timeline—a resource that can be utilised in several ingenious ways. There are definitely elements of Mad Max in some of the human threats we see, though it’s clear that the Spaghetti Western influence is what rules the show’s battles between good and evil.
One later episode pays the most homage to the Spaghetti Westerns we’ve heard so much about. Fist fights on top of trains, evil bandits raiding poor folks of their meager assets, and a stranger who rides into town to fight their cause, provide the meat, and season director Daniel Percival provides the gravy.
Percival goes to town with the Western template, evoking much of Sergio Leone’s classics. Low-angle shots between Daryl’s legs to sweeping vistas of Daryl crossing barren, dusty lands on his steel horse work effectively to cast the disheveled star as the cowboy hero just passing through the sandstone town. But one aspect of the genre is overlooked.
Western characters like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’s Blondie or Once Upon a Time in the West’s Cheyenne work as well as they do because they are not entirely good men. Their moral ambiguity is what makes their moments of honor so powerful, whereas Daryl’s honour is oozing out of his pores. There are moments in this season where Zabel and co. are determined to paint him as a literal saint.
For me, Daryl always works better with a strong screen partner—none of whom is better than McBride—and his cowboy side-mission suffers from the lack of a connection to another person that he can talk to. Although things do improve when he is paired with fellow “lone wolf” fighter, Paz.
Alexandra Masangkay is a great match for Daryl, as a woman who has lost her love and is determined to do anything she can to get her back. I, for one, would happily watch an entire show centered around this badass, whip-cracking lover and fighter in the Spanish badlands.
Sadly, the third season continues the issue of Carol’s lack of interaction with female characters. While she does develop a friendship with a woman in this season, their conversations constantly revolve around men. Thankfully, McBride still does the greatest of work throughout, and evokes a gentle sureness in her scenes where Carol tries to peel back the layers of the mysterious Antonio—played with exquisite tenderness by Eduardo Noriega.
McBride is also given far more comedy this season, which she eats up with aplomb. Carol’s wry wit and sharp tongue bite through many scenes, and are particularly a treat in scenes with Daryl, who even manages to raise some smiles himself. The pair’s interactions with Stephen Merchant are also a treat, and show that both can hold their own with world comedy greats.
Essentially, it is the work of McBride and Reedus that stand out in this third season, and their shared scenes—particularly when Carol and Daryl are allowed to actually talk to each other—give the show an energy it seems to lack when the pair spend too long apart.
And though the plot works better than the grander French story, there is muddiness in the writing that stops it from being compelling. It’s hard to know how much of this is because this is the first part of a two-part story, with season 4 providing the answers, or if there is simply a lack of cohesion to the writing.
There is, for instance, a lack of clarity on how we are meant to view Antonio, particularly because he has so many scenes which are play for play exactly the same as previous scenes in the show. With stronger writing, you might assume they were deliberate parallels to tell us something about the character, but as it stands, you're left wondering if it’s simply lazy writing. This is a thought that also leaps out at you when the big twist of the season occurs, playing out exactly the same as one we have seen in the past on The Walking Dead.
The season, overall, comes together better than the previous two and shows us genuine, pleasing growth for Carol, at least.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 releases new episodes every Sunday night on AMC and AMC+.