The closing episode of Daryl Dixon’s energetic and fast-paced second season delivers pay-offs aplenty, as the show’s Gallic sojourn reaches its conclusion with some unexpected (and one or two bizarre) twists. It’s not a wholly satisfying experience, but there are some spectacular and well-executed set-pieces, the tension that comes from knowing that many characters’ fates hang in the balance, and some emotionally charged moments as key relationships reach a ‘will they, won’t they’ point of no return. Au Revoir Les Enfants (“Goodbye Children”) is an episode made up of two separate stories. The first of these explores the race against time to get Ash’s plane airborne and heading back towards the United States. The second part explores how those remaining in Europe decide on and execute their next move as they turn their backs on France.
The build-up towards the final reckoning at the racecourse and the battle to get the plane into the sky are both well crafted by director Daniel Percival. Along with the gunfire and the explosions, there are some impressive, high-impact stunts which combine to suggest that those on board the plane are doomed – until one character makes a life-changing choice. There’s energy and a mounting sense of jeopardy, particularly given the showrunners’ track record of killing off key characters without compunction. Given that the need to protect Laurent has been the overriding concern for Daryl and his allies since he arrived in France, this extended cinematic sequence feels like a fitting finale for his storyline.
The episode outline that Laura Snow produced for scriptwriters David Zabel and Jason Richman could have ended Au Revoir Les Enfants with the life-or-death confrontation at the Hippodrome. Instead, the combatants disengage, and as the tempo slows, Daryl and his compatriots begin to make their way to the French coast. It’s always a surprise to hear British accents in the world of The Walking Dead, but Angus and Fiona – the two travellers offering to guide them to the UK through the Channel Tunnel – reveal something far more astonishing. The pair suggest that Britain has remained in better shape than many other countries because of the prompt action of the military at the start of the outbreak. That might just be some appealing sales patter from tour guides looking for custom, but viewers won’t know for sure until next season.
The sequence that unfolds inside the tunnel is pretty weird, even by the standards of a show about a zombie apocalypse. It’s clear that the showrunners wanted to follow up the ending of Laurent’s storyline with a dramatic experience that would allow both Daryl and Carol to reach some kind of resolution for the emotional angst and grief that both have been beset by. The device that they come up with to achieve this is – quite literally – bat shit crazy. The piles of dried-out guano that the countless bats living in the tunnel have deposited on the floor are disturbed by the group’s footsteps, releasing spores into the air.
As they breathe in more of the miasma, members of the group become disorientated and start to hallucinate as they drift away from each other. Their dissociative episode is made worse when they encounter the bioluminescence of fungal growth that has taken over walker corpses together with the fabric of the tunnel. Several of the group succumb to their illusions, often with calamitous consequences. In their deluded state, and with their guard down, both Daryl and Carol face near-death experiences. But an encounter with an imagined manifestation of her daughter Sophia allows Carol to accept her loss, while Daryl finds vindication and renewed purpose from the approach of an illusory version of Isabelle. Whether you find these moments ”touching” depends on how much you enjoy the inclusion of “ghosts” in the narratives of The Walking Dead.
These endings are clear indications of the writers’ determination to draw lines under the show’s French connections before completing the channel crossing. Many other characters journeys reach their destination finale in the episode. With Fallou deservedly securing a loving partnership with Akila, Codron learning the true identity of his brother’s killer, and others falling victim to bullets or walker bites, there is a sense of the last of the ensemble of French characters coming to their closing act (even if the fate of Codron is left deliberately ambiguous).
Although it’s not commented on by any of the refugees, France is now in a more chaotic and uncertain state. When Daryl first arrived, the Union of Hope and the Power of the Living were locked in conflict over France’s future, Isabelle’s abbey and The Nest were places of sanctuary, countless believers looked to Laurent for their salvation, and the Pouvoirs were building an army of amped-up walkers. As Daryl quits France, the leadership of both groups is in ruins, everywhere from The Nest to the Demimonde is left in disarray – and the myth of Laurent’s sainthood is now as irrelevant as the motivation to mobilise amped-up walkers. Many individuals, armed either with automatic rifles or flaking religious certainties, have been left behind. But, with no one emerging victorious, all sides have lost the battle for both power and unifying principle.
Season Two of Daryl Dixon has been an entertaining and frequently thrilling adventure that’s been able to depict post-apocalyptic France through the eyes of a singular American abroad. Never feeling like a US show that’s been lazily transplanted to foreign shores, this Walking Dead spin-off has felt grounded and immersed in both the culture and the visual aesthetics of Paris, Normandy and all of the bucolic landscape in between. The power struggle for the control of France between the different political and religious factions has also surfaced new and interesting battle lines, intriguing new variant walkers and arresting locations.
But the time pressures that come from the mini-season format have felt more in evidence here than in Season One, as the demands of narrative compression have led to some unwelcome truncation in different characters’ story arcs and plot themes. This closing episode is not, as Norman Reedus had suggested, the Walking Dead‘s finest ever hour. But it is a convincing and appropriately wild way to bring this chapter in Dixon’s life story to a close. Despite its occasional missteps, the show has remained an unmissable watch throughout, and the lure of visiting (at least) two more unseen countries in his company in Season Three will be an irresistible pull. Viva España indeed.
NEW EPISODES of season two of THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON premiere in the UK on Sky Max and NOW each Friday
Read our reviews of SEASON TWO of THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON below:
SEASON 2, EPISODE 1, LA GENTILLESSE DES ÉTRANGERS
SEASON 2, EPISODE 2, MOULIN ROUGE
SEASON 2, EPISODE 3, L’INVISIBLE
SEASON 2, EPISODE 4, LE PARADIS POUR TOI
SEASON 2, EPISODE 5, VOULOIR, C’EST POUVOIR
