The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol picks up where season one left off, following fan-favorite characters Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride). They both confront old demons while she fights to find her friend and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causing tension at the Nest. Additionally, Genet (Anne Charrier)’s movement builds momentum, setting Pouvoir on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France’s future.
What We Thought:
Like most people I gave up on The Walking Dead a few seasons before it ended. These spinoff shows take a little bit to understand if you didn’t watch all the way to the series finale, but I had seen Season 1 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon so jumping into Season 2 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol was easy enough. I didn’t know where/how Melissa McBride’s character of Carol had finished off in The Walking Dead, but at the end of the first season of Daryl Dixon it did show her alive and on the move in the US looking for Daryl.
Like the first season, The Book of Carol has a huge religious element to it. Daryl is in France trying to protect a boy who might be the key to getting the world back. There’s a secluded area with the religious type and there’s another area with a woman leading a group who are the “bad guys” of this series. Carol finds someone with a plane and is able to make it from the US to France to find Daryl. Of course things don’t go smoothly and through six episodes there are deaths and reunions. The religious element is something I just can’t get used to in a series about the undead.
My biggest issue is that Carol literally finds Daryl in a matter of days. France isn’t the biggest country in the world, but it’s far from small. She has no idea where he is and then she’s able to find him with very little inconvenience. She has a run-in with the woman and the bad guys and is able to locate Daryl because of it. Of course that brings a battle and people dying. With all The Walking Dead shows we are supposed to root for the “heroes” of the show when it’s actually them who bring violence wherever they go. Carol looking for Daryl allows the bad guys to track down the religious people just like it always happened in the original The Walking Dead series no matter where they went.
I like Norman Reedus and I liked the Daryl Dixon character when I did watch The Walking Dead, but after two seasons it’s getting time to put away the character. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol ends with an opening for a third season and I believe they already filmed it, but I do hope it ends there. The spinoffs really just feel like a continuation of the original series because it’s all characters from the original series (Daryl, Carol, Rick, Michonne, Negan, etc.). With only six episodes it is an easy watch and I binged it over two days, but it’s time to let go. Diehards who want to still see Carol and Daryl together will enjoy it and it’s not terrible or anything, but it just feels like a last ditch cash grab to milk what’s left of the fandom.
The Nerds Templar 