In anticipation of watching The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon I binged all 11 seasons of the original show. The decline in quality is palpable in the later seasons and while still enjoyable, The Walking Dead grew so large, had so many characters and was so splintered that it became impossible for it to tell the small, human stories that had made the earlier seasons one of the best dramas on TV.
With Andrew Lincoln’s departure early in season nine, The Walking Dead had a Rick Grimes-shaped hole to fill and increasingly, the writers, showrunners and fans looked to Norman Reedus and Daryl Dixon to fill that hole. By the end of the series’ run, Daryl was just about the only reason to keep watching.
Now, The Walking Dead continues to expand, however, each of the new spin-offs is wisely narrowing its focus and returning to the smaller, more personal stories it’s best known for. First with Dead City and now with Daryl Dixon. Where Dead City remains in North America and explores more of Negan’s past and his and Maggie’s fractious relationship, Daryl Dixon is a brand new beast.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
Set in France, away from North America, The Commonwealth and “Rick’s Group”, Daryl Dixon gets to set a new tone as we watch our favourite, crossbow-wielding badass arrive in a foreign land and face new threats…and some old ones too. Daryl Dixon opens with Daryl washing ashore atop a life raft with the how and why he arrived there a mystery. As Daryl makes his way up the beach, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Reedus’ appearance as Sam Porter Bridges in Death Stranding. The visuals of the opening moments of Daryl Dixon convey an otherworldly sense and reinforce that Daryl is alone.
As he makes his way through an abandoned fishing village, Daryl remains alone. He stumbles across a fishing boat and finds a recording from a fisherman. Cleverly this recording sets the scene for The Walking: Dead Daryl Dixon as it establishes that the virus, Walkers and devastation have spread everywhere and nowhere is safe. Taking the recorder, Daryl records a message and we hear him speak for the first time, 5 and a half minutes into episode one.
“My name’s Daryl Dixon. I come from a place called the Commonwealth. It’s in America. I went out looking for something and all I found was trouble. If I don’t make it back, I want ’em to know I tried. Hell, I’m still trying.” Daryl keeps moving and we get a gorgeous montage of him crossing the French countryside. It’s not until almost 9 minutes into the first episode that we even see anybody else on screen with Daryl.
The slower pace of the opening of the first episode is deliberate and continues through the season. It gives you time to adjust to the new location and to understand that this is Daryl’s show. He’s the core and this is his story. Over the course of season one’s six episodes The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon does expand but only just enough, never threatening to become unwieldy or introduce too many new concepts or characters. In each episode, we meet a new group or sometimes two who have a place in France’s post-apocalypse and within Daryl Dixon’s story. These groups and their impact on Daryl, both positive and negative, and his impact on them drive the story forward.
The first episode establishes the major plotline of season one; Daryl’s quest to return to North America and his family. After running afoul of a local militia group, he meets a group of nuns who have survived the apocalypse and shelter in a church and its grounds.
From the nuns, Daryl learns there may be ships travelling in and out of Paris and that he may be able to return home from there. The journey north is long and difficult and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) convinces Daryl to escort her and Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to Paris. Isabelle is convinced Laurent is destined for great things and considers him the messiah of the new world. The season teases something wild and unseen in The Walking Dead thus far about Laurent but the mystery remains by the end of episode six. Daryl’s run-in with the militia sets them on his tail as he crosses France and leads to an eventual showdown which includes a sequence that’s sure to get The Walking Dead fans on their feet.
Being set outside the United States poses an interesting challenge to The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon; guns. Sure, there are guns in France and Europe but nothing like the US. Daryl Dixon’s rather elegant and delightful solution is to feature muskets, flintlocks and other guns that fire with gunpowder. Characters talk about powder as though it’s a precious resource and take greater care when firing as shots are far more limited. The Walking Dead was sometimes criticised for featuring too many guns and too much ammo, but the same criticism can’t be levelled at Daryl Dixon. It’s far more focused on up close and personal violence when it needs to be.
Having the series set in France, where the virus originated, also allows The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon to play around with some Walker variants. Boilers burn a person’s skin when they touch it and can seemingly spread the infection that way. There are also faster, stronger, rage-fuelled undead which are basically turbo Walkers. These variants may or may not be naturally occurring which is another mystery season one sets up but leaves dangling.
Across the first six episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon we get to watch as Daryl finds a new, temporary family and becomes entangled in their lives, their hopes and their dreams. Fans have always rooted for Daryl Dixon because he’s a lovable underdog and because at his core he’s a caretaker and a caregiver. He longs for family and after the loss of Merle and then Rick, Daryl is looking for his place in the world and his family. In France, he finds something in that vein and it’s brilliant to see Norman Reedus slip back into character as Daryl like putting on a comfy pair of jeans.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Daryl Dixon, though only having six episodes feels truncated. Dead City’s six-episode run worked well because it told a story that was well-trodden ground for The Walking Dead. While Daryl Dixon’s story isn’t exactly “never-seen-before” it’s got a lot to establish in a relatively short amount of time. And so, some plot points and story beats feel a bit rushed and sometimes undercooked.
However, all is forgiven when the season is shot and acted so beautifully. The mystery of Daryl’s arrival in France is touched upon, but the explanation is one of the storylines that feels particularly rushed. Here’s hoping season two gives us even more information. Excitingly, I’m pretty sure at one point during the season there was a teaser for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. I can’t be sure, but it certainly seemed like there was an easter egg for fans looking forward to that show.
Until Daryl Dixon, Dead City was the best thing about The Walking Dead in years but, sorry Negan and Maggie, Daryl’s got you beat. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is The Walking Dead at its very best. Human stories and moments are told amidst the end of the world. It’s tight, focused and fast-paced but with enough room to breathe so that the story and characters have a chance to shine. If any character from The Walking Dead deserved to have their story continue it’s Daryl Dixon. And here, Normal Reedus is phenomenal.
Fans of Reedus and Daryl are in for a hell of a ride and just know, there will be tears. The first season of Daryl Dixon reveals so much and expands upon what we already know of Daryl that you can’t help but fall more in love with him, I just wish there were more than six episodes because it’s going to be a long wait for season two.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season one is a phenomenal start to a new series and goes to show that the best of The Walking Dead is still to come.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon will be streaming exclusively on Stan in Australia. Episode one will be available on 11 September 2023. New episodes will arrive each Monday.
All six episodes of season one of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon were provided for this review.
