Paris Sera Toujours Paris

I'm liking the show overall so far because I really like Daryl. But I feel like this episode and the previous one have the same problem. Both episodes have a community that seems just completely illogical to exist in the apocalypse. In the previous episode there was a pre-school who somehow survived. This episode has a nightclub with electricity and everything powering lights and mics in the catacombs beneath Paris. How does a preschooler fight off a zombie? How does a community survive in the middle of Paris? How do they get food? How are they getting water? It makes the zombies seem very trivialized. Like these pre-schoolers have survived. These people are surviving so easily that they are running a nightclub. There's a dude who made a zombie orchestra...Like it really trivializes the struggles that Rick's group went through. If a pre-schooler can survive so easily, why couldn't the characters in the walking dead? Overall I'm liking Daryl and his relationship with the female lead and the kid, but I wish the writers would think more about how these communities can exist in the walking dead universe.

I have been a fan of the original show since the start. While some of the others such as fear and Tales have there plus and minuses, this one has but one good quality, Norman Reedus. If it wasn't for him, I would have given up on this show a while ago. Problem number one, boring as heck. They are trying to put far to much substance into a show about zombies. I don't care about most of the characters, a lesson that TWD has taught us several times. Two, I don't believe that I should need to know French in order to watch this show. Most of the interactions are not subtitled and they loose me with what little plot they have. They need to call this Walking Dead Europe, please watch our show.

Oh so after 12 years, Paris underground life is still on; that is terrific but likely not possible. We have seen in TWD that all ressources are gone but not in Paris, France. Of course not. Champagne and candies for the kids. Energy and water are free but not for everybody. Funny to see that the upper class leave in the basement and the lower class leaves outside.

The new bad guys are caricaturals as hell. We don't believe any minite that these people could have survived the fall. They just over act and this is really anoying.

But do not worry God will help the good ones to prevail against the bad ones.

After a brief stop in Angers, including a bizarre zombie orchestra performing Boléro, Daryl's group finally reaches Paris. There, after a poignant encounter with a little girl - now a zombie - who used to be Isabelle's neighbor, they meet a community led by a man named Fallou. With their help, Daryl seeks out information on a ship that can return him to America, which leads the group to the Demimonde nightclub and a reunion with Isabelle's ex-boyfriend Quinn. Quinn reveals that he is Laurent's father and demands that Isabelle and Laurent stay with him in exchange for his help. Daryl rejects the deal and prepares to set out on his own after an argument with Isabelle, leading to Laurent running away after overhearing them. Codron meets with Genet, who agrees to let him lead the search for Daryl while her people continue experimenting with walkers. Pouvoir attacks Fallou's community and Isabelle searches for Laurent, while Daryl falls through a roof following a brutal fight with Codron.

Continuing Daryl's mission to return home, he and his companions need to cross Paris. As soon as they arrive, we meet a group that has developed in the outskirts of the city of light. I'm really enjoying the way the series is portraying Paris, which since the last episode has been approached as a character apart from the series, showing that the city functions - obviously differently - even after the end of the world. The scale and proportion that the technical aspects are taking in this spin-off are exceptional. Simply cinematic. As for the new group shown here, it's what I say every episode: another generic community that doesn't add to the story, except for making Laurent help a grieving woman, which further enhances the belief that the boy is the new Messiah. The leader of the community even shows to be an interesting character, leading the group to a place where Daryl can get the boat to return to the United States. This character was a great addition to the series' cast, and I genuinely hope he returns in future episodes.

Upon arriving at this new location, we discover that Isabelle's ex-husband, Quinn, is Laurent's father, which means he had a relationship with both sisters. I didn't expect anything from this character to reappear (since he was shown as a supporting character in the previous episode) and even less that he would be the boy's father. On the other hand, it seems that this hook left will play a relevant role in the development of the relationship between Isabelle and Laurent, as she now has one more thing to hide from the boy. Hopefully, this will have an impact on the plot and not just be an irrelevant revelation that leads nowhere.

Another scene that caught my attention here in this episode was the moment Isabelle returns to her old home with Daryl. The dialogue and similarities between the two characters create a chemistry between them in a surprisingly quick way, but enough to make us attach to them. With this character's growth and The Walking Dead's history of killing off characters just as they're growing, unfortunately, it is possible that her death will occur at the end of the season.

The scene of the walkers falling from the building and resisting shows the danger of the variants, which have been the great attraction of this series. However, what stands out most in this sequence is the walker child Aimeé, who was Isabelle's neighbor. Before the world fell - as shown in the previous episode - Isabelle didn't want to talk about what was happening to not scare the girl. When we see Isabelle leaving the building to leave Paris, she is looking at the little girl, and her concern about what could happen to the girl is clear - and it happens. This even shows a different approach since we rarely see walker children in all the productions of the universe. Here we see again the issue of experiments with the variants, now with an agile and strong walker, who can easily break free from chains. It is still uncertain whether these variants will actually become troublesome at some point or if they will remain only in these isolated samples, but it is really exciting to see these new walkers, and this ends up giving a breath to the franchise.

But overall, the feeling is of an arbitrary story. If in the first episodes we had those medieval inspirations, now everything here has a foot in the contemporary, especially in the nightclub block. The series' language is random, even in the way the characters' journey is not well delineated, because at one moment they are going somewhere, at another they change their minds, one moment Daryl wants a radio, the next he wants to help Isabelle get a photo of her sister... I understand the appreciation for a more intimate chapter, but better dialogues and a dramaturgy with weight are lacking for the conversations between Daryl and Isabelle to gain emotion.

Furthermore, I am having difficulty understanding the characters' arcs. Daryl seems like a visitor on the adventure, doing what they ask of him and serving as a leader whenever danger comes, but we haven't had any development that advances or makes us reflect on the character's traumas and past events, or any element that shows any kind of evolution. It's the same old Daryl. As for Isabelle, she is a compilation of generic elements from the franchise, and Laurent, well, so far this chosen prophet metaphor doesn't make much sense, and these suggestions that he is special are insufficient to create any dramatic interest in the story.

The third episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is written by Coline Abert, whilst Tim Southam directed the episode, titled "Paris Sera Toujours Paris". The episode continues where the previous episode left us, with the group en route to Paris and making their way to the settlement which will help them before being able to move on. Through the antagonist Codron, a character I'm starting to like more and more which means the writing is good, we get to see more of the antagonistic group which is important for the grand story. If you compare him to The Croat in Dead City, then this character is much more three dimensional and he has that special thing which makes an antagonist great. He isn't evil for the sake of being evil, can we even call him evil? In a world like this. We see more of Anne Charrier as Genet through Codron, Romain Ievi is great in the role. Other performances I liked were Isabelle Norman Reedus and Clémence Poésy, also Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent. This character is slowly growing on me, perhaps it's his chemistry with Norman Reedus which makes it so good. I read how Norman got a say in who would be cast, I get why. We also get to meet a new character and his establishment, Adam Nagaitis as Quinn: The owner of an underground nightclub in Paris called the Demimonde. Or not as new as we saw him in flashbacks in the previous episode, a character I thought we would never see again but I'm happy I was wrong. Quinn has the potential to be a good character!

The group arrives in Paris, Isabelle confronts her past while getting closer to Daryl; Codron seeks help from the leader of a growing nationalist movement called Pouvoir, putting the Union of Hope and Laurent under dangerous scrutiny.

Great establishing shots, the production and art design were fantastic. The mise-en-scene was also quite great, they set up each shot so perfectly and I think the steadicam and the lens choice is perfect for the show. The cinematography is truly amazing. I love how they've finally arrived in Paris, a city I visited back in August and seeing all the landmarks in this show and simply the way they shot it, made me smile. Everything around the filmmaking was great in my opinion. The pacing is good and I would say it's nicely edited. The set design, costume and makeup department, lightning, composition, and so on. Everything about the filmmaking is great, direction too.

This was actually a pretty good episode, not as great as the previous two though, but hey that's completely alright. With three episodes left, the show needed a slow burner for building up towards the final three. The Walking Dead have always been about the characters, which is the true reason it's called The Walking Dead, because of the quote said by Rick Grimes. That's why an episode like this is great to me, giving us time with characters and seeing them grow, it's important. Daryl Dixon has been with the main show since the first season, here he is on his own show and still growing as a person. This episode focuses on Daryl and Isabelle, two great characters. It's great drama. For the last remaining episodes, all characters and groups/establishments have been introduced, now the sole focus can be to tell the remaining story. There's one thing I really disliked and found to be some TWD S11 and Fear kind of writing, the ending. It left a sour taste in my mouth, it's nothing big. Overall, the writing was good, Coline Abert is fairly new to the industry but two things I loved about her writing was the dialogue and knowledge of Paris, her being bilingual is probably the reason for that. Loving the authenticity and the French dialogue throughout the show.