I guess no matter how enjoyable and well-made The Walking Dead franchise manages to get, there will always be one thing kinda holding it back. There’s no way The Walking Dead universe will ever truly shock or surprise you. I know that’s a strange way to set the stage for what I really mean to say about the penultimate episode of the season 2 of Daryl Dixon. I suppose I just meant for you to keep that in mind before I personally ranked this episode as one the top 10 in the history of the entire franchise. With the season finale a week away, Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol has gone all out both emotionally and narrative-progression-wise. And it’s actually so well written and edited that even though one significant thing is stacked over another throughout the episode, it doesn’t feel like they were in any hurry.
Spoiler Alert
Ash is in trouble
Carol might’ve lied to Ash about the purpose behind her flying to France, but she cares about him enough to keep him from risking his life by joining her on her search for Daryl. Considering what’s gone down ever since, she definitely did him a favor by taking him along. But even then, it’s not like Ash was entirely safe in the garage they stuck their plane in. Hunger alone might’ve been the reason he’s had to walk around in the strange country crawling with Walkers. Now that she’s got Daryl with him, Carol’s understandably worried about how to explain that to Ash. But given how she’s more anxious about hurting him with the truth than coming off awful, Carol’s come to really care about Ash. Unlike Carol and Daryl, Ash isn’t really a seasoned Walker-killer. So it makes sense that he’s completely overwhelmed and terrified when a hungry horde chases him down the street. Getting in a car that won’t start at least provides him protection for a while. But Ash is far from safe. If the horde flocking around the car wasn’t bad enough, the head wound he’s just gotten is making him woozy.
Daryl and Carol rescue Ash
Laurent and Fallou didn’t have to worry about a safe haven after all. Caught up in the infighting and the all out war, Genet and Losang both forgot about L’Union’s camp, the place where we were first introduced to the faithfuls in season 1. That’s where Fallou took Laurent when Genet attacked the Nest. Since L’Union’s basically a congregation of some of the best people who’ve survived the apocalypse so far, the majority of them have forsaken Losang now that his vile truth has come out. And because that now makes them the army fighting against Losang and everything he stands for, Laurent couldn’t have been surrounded by better, more protective people. But these people are good, not self-destructive. They know their boundaries and limitations well enough to refuse to help Carol look for Ash. But they do send them Anna’s way. Remember Anna from that rad nightclub Demimonde? She took the reins of the place after Quinn’s death in the last season. And since this is the place you go to if you need information on just about anything happening in post-apocalyptic France, that’s where Daryl and Carol end up. Anna’s soft spot for Laurent is what makes her so chatty when Daryl asks her if she knows anything about the other American in France. And Anna would’ve told him if she knew. But even though that’s a bust, Carol sniffs out a lead from the red cans she sees Anna’s men bringing in. After Genet’s death, some of the Guerriers have sided with Anna. So when one of them mentions Maison Mere, Carol figures that that might be where Ash currently is. Her hunch pays off when we see that the car that Ash got into to guard himself against the Walkers two days ago is in fact in the grounds of Genet’s old HQ. But while they do mow down enough Walkers to get into the car, that just means that they’re now all trapped inside that dead vehicle with hardly any ammo left. That’s where Daryl’s experience with the superfast results of Genet’s ghastly experiments comes in. There’s a case-full of Genet’s super-Walker serum in the car. Daryl making super-Walkers to take care of the regular Walkers is a pretty cool way for us to find out that the serum-affected Walkers can annihilate the slow ones. Ash is really lucky to be able to get out of this situation with only a concussion.
Losang’s hunt for Laurent
I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m all in for Daryl Dixon season 2 choosing Codron as the unlikeliest survivor. He’s come a long way from working for Genet and hunting for Daryl in season 1 to voluntarily going through hell for the safety of Laurent in season 2. And you know what Codron’s spiritually charged conversation with Laurent in this episode reminds me of? To me, Codron’s actually very similar to Daryl. They both started out terrified, lonely, and hotheaded at first. They both put their very flawed and disturbed brothers first and picked fights with good people for them until they met people who believed in them and changed the courses of their lives. For Daryl, that person was Rick Grimes. And for Codron, it’s Laurent. That’s why he’s now ready to put his life on the line for the kid who reminded him that, even in a broken world, his choices matter. And that’s why Laurent’s unbelievably lucky to have Codron protecting him when Losang, Jacinta, and their loyal Guerriers show up looking for the boy. It’s very satisfying to watch Losang have his questionable interpretation of faith challenged when Fallou reminds him what faith really means and how needing proof is the first sign that it has dwindled. And while Losang’s too far gone for that to have any effect on him, it does help Codron and Laurent sneak out as their footsteps are drowned by the applause of the truly faithful.
Did Daryl kill Losang?
Anna probably wasn’t expecting Daryl to return with another favor to ask. She’d already done him a solid by keeping his and his friends’ location a secret in a business where she could get things in exchange for such information. By the time Daryl returns to Demimonde to ask Anna for fuel for their plane, Codron’s already taken shelter there with Laurent. Laurent means so much to Anna that she basically forces her groaning employee to exhaust their fuel supply to help out Daryl. But before they can make their way out of Demimonde, Losang and Jacinta have infiltrated the club. Anna and her employees distract them for long enough to buy Daryl and co some time.
For a high-tension final showdown, the penultimate episode of Daryl Dixon season 2 takes us back to the gloomy catacombs. That’s the only path Daryl, Codron, and Laurent can take. But the catacombs are certainly not the most advantageous ground for them to face off against Losang and his people. When Losang and Jacinta follow them with their men, Daryl and Codron part ways hoping that’d make Losang and Jacinta split and look for them individually. In a situation that dire, dividing the enemy is the only way to weaken them. Fortunately, Losang and Jacinta play right into their hands–Jacinta goes after Codron, and Losang, the more seasoned fighter, takes on Daryl. As Laurent hides and contemplates how it’ll break him to lose Daryl, the two men who’ve grown to love him put their lives on the line and defeat their adversaries. Codron fights with a knife wound in his chest while Daryl gives Losang a strange death as he bashes his head in with, well, a skull. But the bad news is that there’s a possibility that Jacinta isn’t dead.
In the ending sequence of the penultimate episode, Laurent faces an important decision. It hasn’t been long since he’s lost Isabelle, and no matter how brave a face he puts up, it’s certainly broken his heart. So it makes sense that he’s scared of going to America with Daryl because he’s actually scared of loving Daryl. Funny how the same fear was what was making Daryl indecisive just a while ago too. But Daryl’s overcome that fear, and with his reassurance, so does Laurent. There’s a major hitch though. Ash is already not doing too great, because Carol’s just told him the truth about her lie. Frankly, I think Carol should’ve kept it to herself. Thinking that he was doing something meaningful by flying a worried mother to another country in a post-apocalyptic world actually got Ash over the rut he’d been stuck in ever since his son died. I know Carol’s lie was shocking, to say the least, but revealing it to Ash really doesn’t help him. But they’ve got a bigger problem at hand. In the closing scene, Daryl, Carol, and Laurent get to know that the plane can’t carry the four of them. I hate to be the bringer of bad possibilities, but if I go with my gut feeling about the aforementioned predictability of the show, I think some harm is going to befall poor Ash in the finale. How else would Daryl, Carol, and Laurent fly to America?
