Summary
Daryl Dixon turns up the action in “La Dame de Fer”, but it does sacrifice some character coherency in exchange.
“La Dame de Fer” is, I think, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon finally taking the gloves off a little. Sure, previous installments have had their fair share of action, but Episode 4 really does feel like we’re closing in on a finale with a lot of subplots and character dynamics that are going to require some payoff – and another week of sightseeing won’t get us there.
So, this episode takes the rough with the smooth. It gives us Daryl basically impersonating Joel from The Last of Us – if torture was cool there, it can be cool here, right? – and kicking all kinds of ass, undead and otherwise, across the length and breadth of Paris. But it also has some confounding character decision-making that is clearly just intended to get us where we need to be in the short term.
And, to be fair, there is a spot of sightseeing. Let’s unpack it all, though beware of spoilers, obviously.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
At the end of Episode 3, Daryl fell through a roof, but “La Dame de Fer” starts with him and Laurent underground in quite a predicament. Luckily, despite Daryl being separated from the youngster by a set of iron bars and a locked gate, Laurent’s otherworldly, presumably divine nature causes the walkers to safely ignore him.
When Daryl splashes awake underwater, we realize that he was imagining the above. Apparently, if you say something often and seriously enough, just about anyone will believe it.
For what it’s worth, I’m not sold on Laurent being the second coming, and I don’t think we’re supposed to be. The idea is about belief, not reality. Laurent is important because almost everyone still living in Paris believes him to be, and that’s enough.
Why does Genet want Laurent?
Genet, for instance, knows this to be true. She is as devout in her belief of Laurent’s importance as the small community she and Codron interrogate for Daryl and the boy’s whereabouts, but she pays no mind to his apparent divinity. He has become a symbol of hope – “false hope”, she calls it – and, in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, there’s no use for such a thing. Genet believes that eradicating Laurent will eradicate that hope, presumably so that she can control people in its absence.
I sometimes think Daryl Dixon is too clunky for its own good. In Episode 4, Daryl makes his way back to Isabelle and the others, and on the way, he runs into the dude who carries pigeons around, and there’s a kind of dopey scene in which the guy gets killed through his own idiocy. It’s mainly just an excuse for Daryl to whoop a Frenchman with a Morningstar and an unearned emotional moment when, in his death throes, the man asks Daryl to help him free the birds.
A better use of Daryl’s violent side comes later when he and Isabelle try to prevent Laurent from being kidnapped by Quinn’s men in the shadow of the ruined Eiffel Tower and end up taking one of the would-be kidnappers hostage. Daryl repeatedly shanks him while recounting a story about a tortured pig from his childhood, which he later claims to have made up.
Daryl comes across as deranged in this scene, which is at least more interesting than the noble savior archetype he had to become in the bit with the pigeon dude. He also, when he goes to rescue Laurent, leaves the guy to be torn apart by walkers with a cheery “Bon Appétit!”
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 1 Episode 4 Ending Explained
But Daryl Dixon remains hesitant to have its title character fully embrace being nuts, so after he beats up Quinn and rescues Laurent, he somewhat mysteriously leaves the former alive and well. This, I think, is to facilitate an ending turn in which Isabella decides to remain in Paris with Quinn, while Daryl takes Laurent on the next – and presumably final – step of his journey.
It’s all well-paced and often strikingly shot, and the score is very on-point, but it’s hard not to feel like Daryl Dixon Episode 4 sacrifices some logic and character coherency in favor of the “cool factor”. That’s not the worst thing in the world, since Daryl is primarily known and liked for being cool anyway, but it’ll be intriguing to see how it all shakes out in the final two episodes.
