THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON – The Book of Carol

3 stars

Acorn Media International. Blu ray. Out Now

The expansion of The Walking Dead ‘Universe’ continues with Season 2 of the Daryl Dixon spin-off. Whether that is a good thing or not is open to question but this has already been picked up for a third season.

He is still in France, with the community at Mont Saint-Michel, training up Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to protect himself – after all he is considered important, some sort of possible messiah figure, that will save humanity (not sure how that will play out as things progress).

However, as you may glean from the subtitle of this season, this is about bringing Daryl’s old compatriot Carol into the storyline, however she is still Stateside. She befriends Ash Patel (Manish Dayal), who just happens to have a small plane. Carol persuades him to attempt to fly to France by claiming her daughter Sophia (who we know is dead), is over there and she can search for her. Yes, you thought Daryl ending up in Paris was a stretch – now via a somewhat incredulous plot contrivance they are going to wing their way to Europe, without the aid of air traffic control and navigational aids.

Meanwhile, as society is trying to get back to some kind of normality (as in the OG show), different factions arise trying to seek some kind of control over others.

Laurent is kidnapped – with Daryl and some of the others mounting a rescue. His captors plan to test the youngsters immunity by having him publicly bitten! Will Carol manage to hook up with Daryl once she reaches France? Will Laurent be rescued?

This latest outing explores echoes of fascism and also religious zealotry but did feel a bit meandering and, like the original series, it is starting to have too many characters to keep up with and care about. The focus here is much more on Carol, perhaps inevitably – this does mean that old grumpy faced, long haired Daryl is sidelined in the show that bears his name. The main thing that works in its favour is the setting in France, giving it a new spin, with some great locations including The Louvre and the Catacombs in Paris. It will be interesting to see if it can sustain things with a third season.

Steve Kirkham