The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon takes an emotional detour in its fourth episode

“One thing’s for sure, we’re not in Ohio anymore,” Carol (Melissa McBride) says in “Le Paradis Pour Toi,” the fourth episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. It feels like a timely Wizard of Oz reference, as Carol and Daryl (Norman Reedus) finally reunite in this episode, and the result feels like Dorothy moving from the black-and-white of Kansas to the full Technicolor of Oz. Their interactions bring a spark to the show that illustrates why fans like these two characters interacting, and why they were given a spinoff in the first place. Though the irony is, this shift appears to be the end of Daryl’s fairytale ride, not the start.

Genet’s (Anne Charrier) attack on the Nest has felt like a long time coming, and the episode’s opening action sequence as she unleashes her walkers and warfare on the religious hub feels a lot like a season finale. Of course Carol avoids becoming a super-soldier walker by hiding in the crowd — her special skill — and the fabulous maroon leather jacket she wears stops the killer serum dart from piercing her skin, allowing her to flee from the new walkers around her.

Codron (Romain Levi) is used as bait for the walkers, strapped to the back of a buggy which Carol takes control of. It’s a nice new twist on the “leading a horde” trope that the original Walking Dead show has used in the past, and seeing the wind in Carol’s hair as she drives through the exploded entry to the Nest — knowing the last time she led a horde she was contemplating suicide — is an exhilarating start to an episode.

Review: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol, Episode 204, “Le Paradis Pour Toi”

Less exhilarating is Isabelle’s interrogation and eventual death at the hands of Losang. It’s so disappointing that the complexities she was written with initially seemed to fall by the wayside. Her back and forth with Losang about faith and Laurent’s “specialness” falls flat because that aspect of her character has been so under-developed in season 2. Clemence Poesy does her best with the words she’s given, and Joel de la Fuente continues to do great work, showing us how surprised Losang is at his own capacity for violence horror as the Nest falls to Genet.

The Union of Hope and Pouvoir’s clash finally brings us the long-awaited reunion of Carol to Daryl, which is satisfying and sweet, though not groundbreaking. There’s a nice visual metaphor as the two of them fight through walkers towards each other, both unaware of the other's presence until they are the only two left. Norman Reedus always excels in his emotional scenes with Melissa McBride and the same is true here. The confusion that gives way to uncertainty, and then to sheer relief, is incredibly tender, and you can truly feel the weight of their connection in the shot which pulls away leaving them tearfully embracing as chaos reigns outside.

To then cut away to Isabelle in her dying moments is jarring. Two scenes which should be emotional peaks of this season happening within a two-minute time period dilutes the impact of both. We should have had time to sit with Carol and Daryl as they reconnect verbally, and Isabelle’s death should not be a brief stop in the middle of Daryl and Carol’s journey. It’s an odd tonal choice and drains both moments of their full impact.

Even stranger is the way Daryl treats Carol as they flee the Nest and go to look for Laurent. His brusqueness and coldness to the woman who just traversed the world because she was worried about him is, frankly, bizarre. Of course he is occupied with finding Laurent and shocked by Isabelle’s death, but Daryl rushing ahead of Carol and refusing to engage with her gives the impression of a man irritated by her presence. Surely anyone who was even remotely happy to see this other person would be staggered with emotion and gratitude that this person risked everything for them? But Daryl only seems irritated, as though she was asking him to cut his vacation short.

I have mentioned before that there is a feeling at times in season 2 that there were two separate shows going on simultaneously, and that's never more true than in “Le Paradis Pour Toi.” There is this feeling that Daryl is existing as two wildly different versions of himself at once, both devastated, and wildly unbothered, by Isabelle’s death.

Carol and Daryl find refuge with an older couple

The way Daryl downplays who Isabelle was to him, to Carol, makes it feel like he is ashamed of his connection with her, and his words sound much like a cheating husband, insisting “she meant nothing to me and I was thinking of you the whole time.”

Perhaps that makes sense as we find ourselves in Oz, or the trope-filled second half of the episode which takes place almost exclusively in the farmhouse of a sweet, elderly couple. Having discovered that Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) and Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) have left the cave where Daryl had arranged to meet them, Daryl tracks them to a village fortified by an avenue of walkers spiked on farm equipment. There they find Theo and Didi, a pair of twinkley-eyed pensioners who had hosted Fallou and Laurent before sending them on their way, and who now want to do the same for Daryl and Carol. Or rather, Daryl and Isabelle, because Laurent had told Theo and Didi who would come looking for him. For… reasons… Daryl and Carol decide not to correct their assumptions that Carol is Sister Isabelle.

There’s no plot reason which necessitates this, though it allows for some lovely moments of comedy (particularly when sailor-mouthed Carol exclaims “Jesus!” at the taste of Didi’s truffle eggs). The mistaken identity seems to exist only so that Carol can hear from Didi that Laurent thinks Daryl is in love with her (Isabelle) and for Didi and Theo to think Carol and Daryl are a couple in love, afraid to act on their feelings. The entire stay at the couple’s home plays out with multiple will-they-won’t-they tropes, including Carol and Daryl watching awkwardly as Theo and Didi slow dance to “their song,” “Le Paradis Pour Toi” (from the title), and Theo comments on Carol and Daryl’s “old married couple” dynamic. It’s great fun to watch, and welcomed by those who, like me, who would love to see Carol and Daryl together romantically, but it’s a whiplash from Daryl’s romance with Isabelle which was thriving (for him) mere hours ago.

There are nice parallels we are obviously meant to draw from Theo and Didi for Carol and Daryl’s future, particularly when you consider that the casting call for Theo and Didi asked that the woman would be open to having her hair cut short, much like Carol’s. This is what they can enjoy if they let go of their pain and find happiness in the simple joy of “rae love.” These scenes also predict a promising future for the spinoff. If the (currently filming) third season evokes the spirit of this latter part of “Le Paradis Pour Toi,” it’s got a lot going for it. The easy comfort and chemistry that Reedus and McBride have in the dullest of scenes together will take the show far, and if it is littered with the kind of exchanges they have in this episode — where heartfelt moments, tension, and emotional exploration are mixed with light-hearted bickering and silliness — it will be a captivating foundation for further seasons.

Of course, all that has to be mixed with life-threatening action, and Genet’s inevitable arrival at the farmhouse takes us from this character detour back to the plot highway. Having Genet’s final face-off be with Carol was a winning choice, as Charrier and McBride worked so well together in the previous episode. And it’s typical on-the-nose stuff to see Genet become the literal monster she was inside as Carol shoots the dictator with her own serum. It felt as though we’d only scratched the surface of Genet as a character, but it’s clear as we head towards the latter part of the season that all of the French baggage is being packed up ready for Carol and Daryl to move on.

Genet’s arrival (Carol and Daryl having been betrayed by Theo) feels like a lesson on why the pair find it so hard to live like Didi and Theo; they know the cruelty and brutality of the real world will always break into their peace sooner or later. And sooner or later they will lose one another forever, just as Theo loses Didi thanks to his foolishness. But it feels like perhaps the lesson that they are both learning in France is, isn’t that all the more reason to grab that happiness knowing it can all be taken away any second?

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.