Daryl Dixon is a bold departure from AMC’s The Walking Dead franchise, as it follows the titular hero’s adventures in France, far from his former home in the United States. How did Daryl manage to cross the Atlantic in a world overrun by zombies and without any planes? The answer is not straightforward, and Daryl Dixon Season 1 reveals it gradually and out of order.
Only in episode 5, “Deux Amours,” does the show go back to the beginning, showing Daryl’s last moments in America. The full story of how Daryl ended up near Marseille is finally unraveled.
The Walking Dead season 11 concluded with Maggie sending Daryl on a mission to explore the wider world after the apocalypse, and his journey takes him to the farthest reaches of Maine. There, he meets a stranger who offers him gas for his bike in exchange for collecting zombies. Daryl agrees, perhaps because such deals have become commonplace in the zombie-infested world.
However, Daryl soon realizes he has been duped by Pouvoir des Vivants – a sinister group based in France and led by Genet.
Pouvoir des Vivants captures Daryl and forces him to board a cargo ship bound for France, where they plan to use him and other prisoners as zombie bait.
Daryl manages to escape and reach the shore but finds himself in a foreign land with no way back.
Daryl and his American companions are on a mission to capture zombies for Genet, a mad scientist who wants to experiment with different variants. Daryl agrees to do this in exchange for gasoline, a precious commodity in the post-apocalyptic world.
He could have easily completed the task and enjoyed a Halloween feast in the Commonwealth, but fate had other plans.
Daryl’s sense of justice gets the better of him when he discovers that one of his co-workers killed a young boy from their group. He lashes out at the murderer, breaking the rules of their agreement.
Genet’s soldiers seize both men and take them to her island laboratory, locking them up in a cage to feed them to the zombies. Daryl also loses his cherished crossbow in the process.
The grisly secrets of Genet’s nautical research are revealed in episode 5’s flashback, where Daryl Dixon witnesses the horrific experiments Pouvoir des Vivants is conducting on the ship.
While fleeing, Daryl faces a speedy Climber zombie and sees a familiar sight – a zombie head submerged in a liquid-filled jar connected to a mysterious device. The same setup and scientist were seen in Genet’s castle in episode 3.
The experiments seem to involve manipulating the zombies’ appetite for flesh. Two groups are kept in cages on the ship – probably the same ones Daryl and his friends captured in Maine. One cell has a sign that says “feed,” and the other says “fast.”
The prisoners are used as food for the former group, as one of them is thrown into the hungry horde periodically.
Daryl Dixon and his fellow prisoners manage to escape their captors by faking death and smashing skulls, creating enough chaos among the guards to reach a lifeboat. This is the same boat that Daryl is seen drifting on in his first appearance, with a barely conscious protagonist lying on top of him.
The exact location of Genet’s floating lab remains a mystery to Daryl Dixon. He was captured in Maine, and Genet operates from Paris, so the lab must be somewhere in the Atlantic between the two countries.
Daryl eventually drifts south and east until he reaches the coast of Marseille. This means that he must have passed by Portugal, Spain, and Gibraltar, then crossed the Balearic Sea before landing in southern France.
Genet has a lot on her plate as the self-proclaimed leader of France, so why does she obsess over catching Daryl Dixon, a minor offender who escaped from her custody? The answer lies in Genet’s secret project, which Daryl witnessed firsthand when he was on her lab-boat.
There, he saw the horrific experiments she was conducting on zombies and humans and learned the dark truth behind her offer to American survivors to trade fuel for zombie hunting. Genet cannot risk Daryl exposing her plans to anyone, so she makes him her top target.
However, there is another reason why Genet wants Daryl back so badly. During his daring escape, Daryl wreaked havoc on Genet’s boat, releasing her zombies, killing her guards, ruining her test subjects, and starting a few fires along the way.
Genet sees herself as the rightful ruler of France and wants to unite all the survivors under her banner. She gives a speech in Daryl Dixon episode 5, where she clearly defines who are her allies and who are her enemies. She probably thinks that letting Daryl get away with his actions would make her look weak and undermine her authority.
About The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is an American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series created by David Zabel for AMC, based on The Walking Dead character of the same name. It is the fifth spin-off and overall sixth television series in The Walking Dead franchise, sharing continuity with the other series, and set after the conclusion of the original The Walking Dead television series.
Norman Reedus reprises his role as Daryl Dixon from the original television series, alongside Clémence Poésy, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, Laïka Blanc-Francard, Anne Charrier, Romain Levi and Adam Nagaitis playing new characters.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premiered on September 10, 2023, and will consist of six episodes. In July 2023, ahead of the first season’s release, the series was renewed for a second season.
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