(Spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead)
Though the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead concluded a little over two years ago, the franchise hasn’t ended quite yet. In the spring, we saw the conclusion (?) of the story of Rick Grimes and Michonne in The Ones Who Live; are still waiting for the second season documenting the further adventures of Maggie and her ally/enemy Negan; and now have two seasons about Daryl Dixon’s struggle to return to the Commonwealth after being stranded in France.
For an accurate look at the successes and failures of the second season of Daryl’s journey, it might warrant a look back at why the main series had such a decline. Many fans of the series might attribute it to the infamous death of Glenn at the hands of Negan in the premiere of the seventh season. Others might say it was the death of Carl in season eight, or Rick leaving the show in season nine. And those events certainly didn’t help, as the show continued far past its peak of popularity, and continued to lose its central characters because the actors wanted to take a break, as they had been working on the show for nearly a decade at that point. Despite the show losing many of its most popular characters for various reasons, die-hard fans of the show will say now that the writers are afraid to take big swings and kill off characters, which was sort of the appeal of the series since the very beginning (series creator Robert Kirkman has used the phrase “anyone can die at any moment”, a way of keeping audiences on their feet).
The first season of Daryl Dixon followed the title character escorting a young boy named Laurent across France in an effort to fulfill his “destiny to become the messiah”, helping bring the scattered people of France together. During their journey, they encountered a large militia group called Pouvoir (translated to “can” in English), led by a woman called Genet, who are hell-bent on uniting France under their personal order.
While the season benefitted from fantastic visual effects and mesmerizing cinematography (including the franchises’ best use of digital photography since the switch from 16mm film after season ten), its’ story was very derivative of The Last of Us, and left audiences on a cliffhanger that felt a bit unnecessary.
The second season finds Daryl, Laurent, Isabelle, and the surviving characters safe at the Nest, a thriving religious society that sees Laurent as the messiah. Losang, the leader of the Nest, believes Laurent to be immune to the Wildfire virus (not unlike Ellie in The Last of Us), though it is yet to be confirmed. Meanwhile, Carol befriends loner Ash, and manipulates him into flying her overseas so that she can reunite with Daryl. Hell begins to break loose as Daryl foils an attempt to test Laurent’s immunity, and Carol enters the fold, prepared to do anything to protect her last surviving friend.
One of the immediate positives of the season is the return of Melissa McBride as Carol, who had one of the best arcs in the main series. She is incredibly believable in the role of a mother who can’t recall her dead daughter’s face, and plays off of Norman Reedus very well. Reedus as Daryl always has a standout presence to him, and he has proven to be a competent leading actor. The returning characters from the first season, including Laurent (played by Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, who befriended Reedus on set), Isabelle (played by Clémence Poésy, of Harry Potter fame), Fallou, and Genet, benefit from additional time to be fleshed out as characters.
In terms of story and action, there are no dull moments as the plot hits the ground running in the first episode. It has a much faster pace to it than the first season, and that will be a positive for many. There are several large action sequences, many of which retain the surprisingly visceral, gritty fight choreography from the previous season. The special effects and cinematography are very impressive, and there are a few gnarly walker designs at hand.
Unfortunately, watching new Walking Dead stories doesn’t feel the same as it did in the original few seasons. Those seasons, while occasionally having slow pacing, were a serialized look at a group of people surviving in the zombie apocalypse. Yet around the seventh season, the series took a much more action-oriented, more plot-based approach, where more defined story arcs were taking place. On paper, that sounds like a great direction to go in, but at this point in the franchise, characters like Daryl and Carol have developed extreme plot armor. Because the season has such a defined story that’s being told, it has more blockbuster sensibilities to it, like Carol finding a man with a plane and finding Daryl in France mere days after her arrival. While that’s the story that we as the audience wants to see, it just feels too easy.
That is the biggest negative with this second season. It is so focused on telling a large-scale story that it doesn’t devote enough time to the journey required to get to each of its big moments. For some, a fast-paced season is great. But when it is stacked up with what the franchise was meant to be, it just feels different.
Smaller nitpicks include the villains of the season. The start of the third episode features an origin story for Genet, but she is replaced by Losang as the primary antagonist. Losang just isn’t fleshed out enough as a villain, and just kind of shows up in places (editor’s note: I had to look up the character’s name because of how few times it is said onscreen.) when he is needed to propel the story forward. The character has some charisma to him, but he isn’t very memorable as a villain.
Another minor issue is the setting of the Demimonde Club, a returning location from season one. The Demimonde is an underground club with flashing neon lights, live rock bands, alcohol, and is populated by some of the most clean-shaven apocalypse survivors in history. It looks like something out of John Wick, yet how they are able to sustain the constant flashing lights and find all of the makeup is never explained. The casual viewer may not care much, but it does strain some credibility and requires some suspension of disbelief to function correctly.
Despite all of this, the season is very well worth watching for fans of the series. It has a fantastic final twenty minutes that does invoke the glory days of the series, and makes some of the problems with the first season less offensive.
In July, Daryl Dixon was greenlit for a third season, and Dead City season two will premiere this Spring. This season of Daryl was nothing if not solid, and serves as a reminder that the franchise might still have a few drops left to squeeze out.
