‘Daryl Dixon’ Finally Gives Us a Fun ‘Walking Dead’ Spinoff

The zombieverse was a much different place when AMC’s The Walking Dead jerked and growled to life back in 2010 at what seemed like the crest of a wave for the genre. There was still ample room to grow, with takes both serious (28 Weeks Later) and comedic (Zombieland) in the recent rearview mirror and World War Z still on the horizon. The Last of Us had not yet set the storytelling standard for the zombie apocalypse on TV. The time was right for a hit series with twitching legs, and AMC’s durable franchise seized the day.

Flash-forward 13 years, and what was once somewhat novel is now grizzled IP. Walking Dead spinoffs abound, from Fear the Walking Dead to The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Every year seems to bring more efforts to keep the undead alive. The latest is The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which takes one of the franchise’s original protagonists (still played by a glowering Norman Reedus) and gives him a sort of European vacation, or at least lets him wash up alone in France, which, despite its rich cultural heritage and fine epicurean ways, is no less zombie-plagued than anywhere else. Mon Dieu, the walkers are everywhere, even in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Appropriately grim and a little slow out of the gate, Daryl Dixon wastes little time telegraphing its Serious Intentions, as the proudly unkempt, battered-but-only-slightly-bowed Daryl encounters a flyer on the side of an abandoned country road: “Dieu Vous Amie” (or God Loves You). Soon, after ending up on the wrong end of a brutal exchange with some locals – people get so touchy in a zombie apocalypse – he finds himself convalescing in a convent, where he meets party girl-turned-nun Isabelle (the wonderful Clemence Poésy, who has done yeoman’s work in everything from In Bruges to The Essex Serpent). Isabelle and her sisters are dedicated to a young priest who, well, ain’t what he used to be. They’re also hell-bent on protecting a precocious adolescent, Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), whose circumstances of birth lead them to believe he is the Messiah.

It all feels a little familiar: the thorny embrace of end-times faith, the centrality of a reluctant Chosen One, the gruff outsider who just wants to get home. Daryl Dixon quickly turns into a tale of the road (not to be confused with The Road), with all paths leading to Paris (mais bien sûr). That’s where Daryl hopes to hop a boat back to what’s left of The Commonwealth, and Isabelle hopes to bring Laurent to fellow believers and a place of safety. Of course it doesn’t work out that way, at least not without a lot of splatter and grief. Things change, but making big plans during a zombie apocalypse remains a recipe for disappointment.

These zombies are more nimble than previous Walking Dead models; perhaps they received top-flight performing arts training in French schools back when they were alive. But their heads cave in just the same when met with a bullet or sharp/blunt object, and needless to say there’s a lot of that. Body count remains the red meat of the Walking Dead world, the squish and splat that accompanies the walking dead’s transition to the certifiably dead. It’s hard out there for a zombie; to quote the original Night of the Living Dead, they’re all messed up. For the living there remain pockets of indulgence, including a decadent underground nightclub complete with a drag performer, run by Isabelle’s sketchy old friend Quinn (Adam Nagaitis).

The best reason to watch Daryl Dixon is not Reedus, as the taciturn title character, but Poésy, who has an uncanny, implacable quality that serves her both in flashbacks, as a grifting, soul-deadened hedonist, and in the present, as a true believer who still keeps both feet on the ground. Isabelle is a deliciously complicated creation, more so than the other survivors and bands of outsiders here, many of whom feel like refugees from similar projects. That said, there are nice touches here, including the fact that many of the French actors are allowed to speak their native language with subtitles, the kind of authentic detail all too rare in big-ticket entertainment (take Michael Mann’s upcoming movie Ferrari, in which American stars in Italy speak English with Italian accents. Huh?). That’s one great thing about successful IP: It can make its own rules, even as the remains of civilization come crumbling and gasping to the ground. 

From Rolling Stone US.