‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Season 2 Has A Weird Ending

Everyone is big sad in “Au Revoir Les Enfants”, the Season 2 finale of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. And that leads to a weirder, more contemplative ending than I was expecting, and one that I’m not sure is necessarily all that satisfying. The worst thing happened here in Episode 6 that can happen to a viewer of a post-apocalyptic show – I started nitpicking.

I haven’t been shy about singing this show’s praises, especially since Episode 3 raised the stakes. I thought it reached a peak in the penultimate episode and hype was high for the finale, which is… just fine, I guess. But it had me going “Hang on, what?” more times than I’d like.

Laurent’s Escape

Credit where it’s due, the first half of the episode isn’t half bad. We learn pretty quickly that Sabine has hitched her wagon to a surviving Jacinta, and that between them they’re racing to track down Ash and his plane before Laurent can escape. After cornering Codron and Fallou and not getting what they want, they apply pressure on Anna to lead them to the airfield instead. All roads must converge, after all.

Naturally, Daryl and Carol are both trying to heroically stay behind so that Laurent can escape with ash, and “Au Revoir Les Enfants” gets to have its cake and eat it here by having them both remain behind. Initially, it’s decided that Daryl will stay since he has been on the ground longer and Carol can help out with the plane (Ash is still sulking, by the way), but during the ensuing firefight, Carol somehow gets off the moving plane without anyone seeing her and teleports several hundred yards back to ensure Laurent gets away.

It’s a nice moment in theory, but how are Ash and Laurent getting to the Commonwealth? Is everyone just going to take their word for where they’ve come from? Ash has zero survival skills – will Season 3 pick up on this subplot and have us following them around while Ash almost gets them killed every week? I’m not feeling that.

And, seriously, how did Carol get off the plane?

A New Destination

The gang ventures into the Channel Tunnel in Daryl Dixon Season 2

With Jacinta dead – she got bitten by a walker after being betrayed by Anna and then shot herself in the head when Laurent got away – there’s no real threat to Carol, Daryl, Fallou, Akila, and Codron other than distance. They need to get to America to hook back up with Ash and Laurent, but they’re going to have to take the long way around.

This means heading to England through the Channel Tunnel with the help of a Scottish couple that Fallou suddenly knows named Angus and Fiona. (Question: Why do they need guides through the Chunnel? It’s a tunnel!) This is one of those moments that had me asking awkward questions. Where have these guys been until now? Why hasn’t the tunnel ever been considered before? It feels like too much of an ass-pull for me.

I’m not sure I love the relationship between Fallou and Akila either. The night before they leave, the gang sits around drinking and Fallou tells a story about how, at the start of the outbreak, he saved the life of his racist neighbor’s child, and Fallou could apparently “see gratitude in his eyes”. The guy left without so much as a “thank you” – gratitude in the eyes wouldn’t have been enough for me. Where’s the gratitude everywhere else?

Anyway, this story about how the apocalypse helped to end racism – combined with the fact they’re ostensibly parting ways the next day – compels Akila to plant a smooch on Fallou. It must have been a good kiss, since he decides not to leave through the Chunnel with the others and instead remain behind in France with his new beau. Fair enough.

The Channel Tunnel

Carol sees Sophia in Daryl Dixon Season 2

The gang venturing into the Chunnel is a new direction for Daryl Dixon Season 2, quite literally I suppose. What should be a nine-hour trek through the tunnel instead becomes a nightmarish, horror-tinged murder-fest, since this is The Walking Dead. But it’s also a bit weird to take an ending in such a radically different direction.

The Chunnel was once manned by the British Army, who had erected checkpoints along its length. But they’re all dead, having quite clearly killed one another for initially mysterious reasons. Here’s the thing, though – the circumstances aren’t very mysterious. Fiona makes a point of saying that bat guano, which the tunnel is full of, can be hallucinogenic. Several of the dead British servicemen were wearing gas masks, and several of them were left behind under a tarp. What do our intrepid explorers do? Walk straight past them into a bioluminescent horde of funky hippy walkers.

Promptly, everyone starts hallucinating while trying to fight off the glowing walkers. It’s a nice visual set-piece, granted, but it annoyed me. This is only a problem because everyone was stupid enough to walk right into it. Hardened survivors should have taken the gas masks as a bit of a clue. And, of course, everyone hallucinates whatever relevant thing they need to see to complete their character arcs. Daryl sees Isabelle, who gives him a pep talk. Codron sees his brother, Michel. And Carol, obviously, sees Sophia.

During the kerfuffle, Codron thinks Daryl kills Michel – again! – and tries to kill him, eventually bolting off further down the tunnel. Daryl fights his way back to the checkpoint, kills Fiona and Angus, who’re trying to steal the masks, and finally has the good sense to get himself some clean oxygen. Carol, meanwhile, sees young Sophia from the barn scene in Season 2 of the main show, then a walker version of herself in a wig, and then a slightly older, non-walker Sophia, which helps her to get over her death and move on. Again, it’s a nice thematic moment, but I’m really not sure this is how hallucinogenic toxins work.

Anyway, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 ends with Daryl and Carol, now sensibly wearing gasmasks, venturing further into the tunnel, looking for both Codron and England. By this time, Ash and Laurent are – hopefully – back in the U.S., so whether we’ll see them in the already-confirmed third season or not is anyone’s guess. It’s an odd note to leave things on and I wish the show would have stuck the landing better, but never mind. It at least gets another go.