The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Review: Once-Promising Spin-Off Reverts to Its Comfort Zone

Deep into Season 2 of The Walking Dead's fifth spin-off of six, Daryl Dixon, I thought of a comparison that others may have previously made but was new to me: The Walking Dead franchise has become a gory version of Star Trek. At this point, both franchises are for diehards only, but there are enough diehards to justify continuing to make multiple shows that offer variations on the theme. There is no reason for anyone who has not been following all of the assorted Walking Dead properties for the past 14 years to watch Daryl Dixon Season 2, which is subtitled The Book of Carol, so this show can really only be evaluated on the merits of its place in the late-period Walking Dead universe. And by that metric, it's just OK. 

Daryl Dixon Season 1 is one of the best seasons of a Walking Dead spin-off, along with Season 3 of Fear the Walking Dead and the limited series The Ones Who Live, and was actually pretty exciting when it premiered last year. The show was doing some things notably differently. Its French setting gave it a fresh look and feel; there were elements like a zombie orchestra, a Moulin Rouge-influenced nightclub, and weapon-wielding nuns that gave it a jolt of strangeness; and Clémence Poésy's performance as Isabelle, a nun devoted to the protection of a very special boy named Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), was one of the most grounded and emotionally authentic performances in the Walking Dead franchise in years. Unfortunately, that novelty has worn off in The Book of Carol, and the show returns to the same thematic well The Walking Dead always comes back to: grief over losing one's family and finding a new family to keep living for. It's like a zombie that can't leave the location where it reanimated. 

6.0

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

at AMC

Like

• Satisfying action sequences
• Clémence Poésy's grounded performance

Dislike

• The endlessly repetitive nature of the storytelling

At the beginning, Season 2 follows two threads. It picks up where Season 1 left off, with Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) in France, living in a sort of religious commune at Mont-Saint-Michel with people who think Laurent is the chosen one who will deliver them from the apocalypse. The crusty old biker from rural Georgia is skeptical, of course, but he has grown to care about Laurent and Isabelle too much to leave them. Meanwhile, across the ocean in Maine, Daryl's old friend Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) is on a mission to bring him home. Carol meets a pilot named Ash (Manish Dayal) with whom she connects over the pain of losing a child — Carol is seeing visions of her daughter Sophia, whose unfathomably bleak death in The Walking Dead Season 2 is one of the show's most famous moments — and gets him to help her travel to France. 

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But after a strong premiere directed by Greg Nicotero, The Walking Dead's makeup effects guru-turned-executive producer who's back behind the camera for the first time since the flagship series' finale, the six-episode season starts to drag. Carol and Daryl have reunited after separations so many times over the years that building a whole season around it doesn't feel high-stakes enough. That feeling of having seen this many times before is the heart of Daryl Dixon's problems. As a franchise, The Walking Dead is locked in a cycle of repetition. Characters get separated, and then they reunite. Characters make connections, and then one of them dies, and the survivor has to keep on surviving. Then in quiet moments, they talk about their grief with another survivor who has also lost loved ones. The Walking Dead only has a few moves, and nothing seems to be able to shake it out of its comfort zone, not even the end of the flagship show and this spin-off's move to another continent. Even when the franchise reinvents itself like it did in Daryl Dixon Season 1, it eventually reverts to the mean. Wherever you go, there you are. 

But even if the season isn't great overall, it has its moments. There are some fun action set pieces in unexpected locations, and some satisfying character moments for Daryl. Clémence Poésy remains a bright spot for the same emotional authenticity she brought to Season 1. And the show's interest in religion is unique for The Walking Dead, as characters grapple with spiritual concerns befitting its setting in convents and churches.

While it's nice to see Melissa McBride again, this show's conception of Carol is odd. The emotionally volatile character typically vacillates between extremes of hardcore aggression and depressive self-pity, but here she's more in the middle, which makes her seem sort of detached. The way her eyes well up with tears every time she has a strong feeling is jarring, because she doesn't seem to be feeling much the rest of the time, especially when compared to McBride's dialed-in performance on The Walking Dead. 

If you're a diehard, though, The Book of Carol may give you what you want. After all, the show is made for you. If you're looking for classic-style Walking Dead, with Carol and Daryl camaraderie, creative kills and zombie action, and #TWDFamily, you'll find it. But you won't get anything more. 

Premieres: Sunday, Sept. 29 on AMC and AMC+
Who's in it: Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Clémence Poésy, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, Joel de la Fuente, Anne Charrier
Who's behind it: David Zabel (showrunner), the creative team of The Walking Dead
For fans of: Carol and Daryl
How many episodes we watched: 6 of 6