Summary
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 ends with the expected setup for Season 4, but it does so without a clear path for how the story might logically continue.
So, Daryl and Carol’s tour of Spain is going to continue, since the ending of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 throws a pretty serious curveball into the mix by quite literally setting fire to their only means of making it home. On the one hand, whatever. Nobody seriously expected them to sail away to America unscathed. But on the other hand, what next? When the first season ended, it did so with a pretty clear indication of how the story could continue. Same with the climax of the second season, given the change of setting. What I wonder about Episode 7, “Solaz Del Mar”, is what there is left for Daryl and Carol – not to mention Roberto, Justina, and Alberto – to do in Spain.
And this is to say nothing of Cadron, who rather improbably turns up in the cold open and happens to discover Laurent’s Rubik’s cube, tipping him off that Daryl and Carol are nearby, and then we get a glimpse of him at the end of the finale, too. I’m not a stickler for plausibility, but come on. Cadron managed to track the two of them from London to Spain, a place they only arrived at due to a shipwreck caused by an unforeseen storm, and then happened to stumble on the same square inch of coast. I’m not having it. Although he presumably arrived by boat, which could prove useful in Season 4.
Burning Down Tradition
After a great episode taking down a train and another pretty cool one making an ill-fated rescue attempt, Daryl and Paz finally make their way to El Alcazar in this finale. Fittingly, they arrive during the matching ceremony that determines whether the girls sacrificed during La Ofrenda will be married off into luxury or forced into slavery (not that there’s a great deal of difference). This not only provides a convenient cover to sneak inside, but also a thematic reminder of the archaic tradition they’re literally attempting to burn down.
All this – which includes the evening’s macabre undead entertainment being turned loose by Daryl – is let down by a couple of things. One is that Daryl has taken on the air of an unstoppable badass superman, so there’s never any real sense that he won’t be successful. The show has now prioritised making him look cool over any other consideration. The other is that Guillermo has been off-screen for most of the season and isn’t especially interesting as a villain. Some of Paz’s flashbacks to being tormented at his hands while she was younger are supposed to do some heavy lifting in this regard, but it doesn’t take.
Perhaps the real villain is circumstance. Elena, after all, has a son, Pablo, conceived in these horrid conditions, so you’d think that might compel her to choose safety at the cost of moral compromise. But it doesn’t work out like that. Daryl and Paz are able to topple the lingering Spanish monarchy without much fuss, and Elena has no issues in leaving with them. The same goes for everyone else who was being held prisoner there.
No Man Left Behind
Antonio’s heroic self-sacrifice in the penultimate episode allowed Carol and Roberto to get clear of Solaz and take shelter in Valentina’s lighthouse, but it was always obvious they were going to go back. Carol had become much too attached to Antonio, and despite Roberto’s lingering resentment over the news of what happened to his mother, you can’t leave a good man behind.
Fede, who is torturing Antonio and manipulating his mother, Dona Marga, believes he can wrest back control of Solaz by pinning the blame for all their misfortunes on the meddling Americans. He still has enough loyalists to quell dissent. And he sent some of them to retrieve Roberto from the lighthouse, shooting Valentina in the process, which is discovered by Daryl and Justina when they return.
Even the allies that Carol thinks she has aren’t really allies, since Gustavo hands her and Antonio over to Fede. Fede’s iron grip on Solaz means that Gustavo’s sick wife can’t be medicated without his allegiance being pledged. Carol’s heroic rescue effort ends up looking like it might get her, Antonio, and Roberto killed.
Burn the Boats
Naturally, Daryl and Justina save the day. Daryl’s 100% rifle marksmanship comes in clutch, and Justina delivers the long-awaited truth bomb. Fede sacrificed her to El Alcazar and lied to everyone about it. Everyone’s disgusted, even his own mother. The slap she gives him is more painful than a bullet would have been. It’s only through Justina’s mercy that Fede ends up in the dungeons and not in a grave.
But Fede, ever the manipulator, uses the pain his mother has experienced over previous losses to once again manipulate her, convincing her to release him off-screen. Any ambiguity that might have existed around whether she went through with it or not is immediately quelled by the fact that he turns up at the beach to attack Daryl and co., just when it seems like they’re all going to sail away together. The brief fight that follows doesn’t go Fede’s way, but it does set fire to the boat, leaving the gang stranded in Spain.
But as mentioned at the top, now what? All the antagonists have been dealt with. There are no lingering mysteries to solve. The ending of Daryl Dixon Season 3 all but guarantees Season 4, but to what end? Some of Daryl’s misadventures in Spain have been great, but you can have too much of a good thing. We’ll just have to wait and see.
