L'âme Perdue

The season premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is written by David Zabel who's the showrunner of the show, whilst Daniel Percival directed the episode, titled "L'âme Perdue". Timeline wise, TWD: Daryl Dixon is supposedly set before Dead City and after The Walking Dead. Melissa McBride was originally supposed to serve as a producer alongside Norman Reedus and thus returning as Carol Peletier. It changed to her leaving and changed again to her having a small part. I think the reason was because of the tv series being shot in Paris, meaning being away from home for months or how long the production would need her to stay. We could have gotten a show of an iconic duo, but here we are, with Daryl Dixon taking reins in his own show. Norman Reedus gives us a terrific performance and overall a great job, joining him are; Clémence Poésy as Isabelle, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent, Laïka Blanc-Francard as Sylvie, Anne Charrier as Genet, Romain Levi as Codron and finally Adam Nagaitis as Quinn.

Daryl Dixon's arrival to France sets off a violent chain of events that inadvertently puts a young boy at the heart of a growing religious movement in danger.

Some history to know if you haven't seen the series finale of TWD: World Beyond, it shows mutated zombies in France and makes it known to the audience that the virus started there. But down to the episode and its story, the narrative and story is close to The Last of Us with Daryl having to protect and get this pre-teen to a specific spot to possibly save the world. You could call it unoriginal, good reason for it, but it's a plot which works. Mostly. You see, the character of Laurent isn't well written at all and Louis Puech Scigliuzzi doesn't impress me the slightest, and the whole character comes across being out of place and not a child which he's supposed to be. We don't know much about him other than he's looked upon as a Messiah destined to lead humanity to a renewal and is highly intelligent. If we look at highly intelligent people in our world, Einstein for an example, we have one who is super intelligent but lacks traits of someone who's an extrovert and thus comes across a bit weird at times. Maybe Laurent is like that? Someone not meant to be likeable, that's fine by me, but I hope the actor does a better job for the rest of the series. After seeing everyone else and their performances, its sad to see him dragging the show down, for now it's fine though but that can quickly change.

Great establishing shots, the production and art design were fantastic. The mise-en-scene was also quite great, loved the cinematography but then again that's have always been something The Walking Dead have been good at. Everything around the filmmaking were great in my opinion, if there are anything worth criticizing then it's the writing in some minor ways. The set design, costume and makeup department, lightning, composition, and so on. Everything is brilliant. I found the direction to be quite great actually, mostly the visual storytelling. It's a mystery how Daryl Dixon got to France, we don't get every single answer in this episode and I'm fine with that. We know he went on a journey to find Rick and Michonne, we also know he didn't succeed, but how far did he come? Did he actually find the location they are located in? We'll probably find out soon. This series is completely different from The Walking Dead, a new continent and locations to see. I'm really interested in seeing this story unfold. Something I really liked was when Daryl meets two survivors who he trades with and then a group comes, his instincts tells him not to trust this group who seeks to harm these survivors, but in the end it was the ones who he traded with who were the true "bad guys" in the scene. The thing is, these people were probably kind and good people but the things you do to survive in a world like this can make good people into bad ones, we never learn who they were except for that scene. They could easily have families who they sought to provide for. This scene also establishes the threat of The Guerriers or The Cause who are the antagonist group of the show, they are a breath of fresh air, Anne Charrier as Genet is another character and performance which could turn out great as the villain feels like the morally grey Elizabeth Kublek from World Beyond which was one of that shows only highlights, these two women share many traits. Something I loved about the episode is consequences and how someone's actions can change into something worse or good, this time it's Daryl's actions who lead someone from The Cause to hunt him, Codron. I read a criticism towards the weaponry, muskets and so on, I believe it's mostly for style but also a reason for it. I believe they use it because cartridges and shells for modern firearms are too hard to make. Whilst with a musket the only thing you need is gunpowder and iron melted and formed like a round bullet. That's my reasoning, but I also think it's for style. With that said, in the end of the episode when we get to see Genet, we get to see the antagonistic group's higher-ups and they are better armed. They act and are more like a military than an militia like the ones we saw in the earlier parts of the episode.

Aaron Pruner of TheWrap gave it a positive review and noted Clémence Poésy's "standout performance" and concluded that it "is a surprisingly gorgeous, soul-stirring, and riveting watch. Norman Reedus said they were making art with this show. And you know what? He wasn't lying." I agree with this review, her performance surprised me in how human it was, it was a great performance and a well written character I wish we could see lots of more. Norman Reedus knows a show needs a great supporting cast, after all, he was one of those important ones in the supporting cast. Reedus is also really good in this episode, letting him speak much more and well, to truly act and giving us the opportunity to see him act more than his facial expressions and mannerism. About the "art", yeah, this is an spectacular episode and possibly the best The Walking Dead have looked in a couple of years.

I thought the pilot ep. Was okay. It wasn't great, or even good for that matter, but it was okay. I was like why the heck is Daryl so far from the US? You know how far away France is from Atlanta where he started from? I mind that was boggling.

He's going to have to adapt to most people speaking French. And it looks like right from the start he's already made a recurring enemy. I didn't like that there were so few zombies and so few people. But I guess they are probably operating with a smaller budget than TWD did.

When I do see Daryl I also miss Merle! Merle was one of my fav's from Walking Dead. But ep. 1 was okay. I like Daryl and I wish I could see more of him. But this ep. Was a free trial one free ep. Only so it might be the only ep. I see for a while.

5/10.

Wasn't to bad except for the fact that the new "bad guys" found it easier to use weapons from the 1800s and ww2 than use actual guns from 10 years ago (or whenever the show started) that they can actually acquire and yes i know guns run out of ammo but i'm sure it's harder to find muskets and gunpowder than it is to find actual bullets.

(You don't really need to read this paragraph i'm just trying to fill in the minimum character limit of 600 letters.). But the main question is why is daryl in france i hope we get to actually find out why and we don't get left to try and figure it out ourselves by watching theory videos just because the writers were to lazy to tell us.

Overall a fine start for the show imo 7.5/10.

In France Daryl arrives at the coast of France tied to an overturned boat, unconscious, thirsty and hungry. He walks to an abandoned coastal village and finds water in an abandoned motorboat. He spends the night inside; eats a fish and leaves the place with medical supplies and a tape recorder he has found inside the boat. He records a message about himself and heads to cross France to return home. He stops at a supermarket and while scavenging the place, he is attacked by a breed of burner zombies that burns his arm before he kills them all with his harpoon. Along his journey, he stops at a farm, where the young woman Maribelle offers him apple and she introduces her blind grandfather Guillaume, who fought in World War II. Out of the blue, a jeep arrives, and two men subdue Daryl with their weapons and one of them drags Maribelle with bad intention. But Daryl reacts and the men are killed by him and Maribelle. However, Guillaume is not blind and hits Darul with a stick from behind, and then they rob his belongings. Daryl wakes-up in a convent and learns that Sister Isabelle rescued and treated him, including cauterizing his arm to avoid infection. Later she asks him to take the young Laurent with him in his journey, since she believes he would have an important role in the reconstruction of the world. However, Daryl decides to leave the convent. Meanwhile, the dangerous brother of the man killed by Maribelle, Stéphane, finds that he turned into a zombie and Maribelle tells him that Daryl killed him, after he kills her grandfather. Now Stéphane heads to the convent with a team to kill Daryl.

The first episode of "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon" has a strange beginning, with Daryl arriving in France. Then you have a common episode of "The Walking Dead", with Daryl scavenging, meeting bad people and helping good people. The greatest differences so far are the burner zombies and most of the people speaking French. There is no reasonable explanation why he crossed the ocean to go to France, since he does not have any root in this country and don't even speak French. But the action is good and promises to be better on the next episodes. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "L'âme Perdue"

Honestly I was surprised by how good it was. It gave me everything I wanted in a Walking Dead Spinoff. It gave me dialogue that felt real, Daryl feels like Daryl again and a plot that actually connects to the big universe unlike dead city. They did a push a few things but I feel like it will payoff and in the end and the ending of this episode has me hyped. I haven't felt good about a series premiere of TWD universe since TWD and FearTWD. I hope to see more and Norman Reedus and the cast did super well. Oh and the cinematography was sooo good I mean damn!! The only thing I would say that is a negative is if the side characters are not important like in dead city it might lower my rating for this episode.