AMC’s The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon introduced viewers to new characters and Daryl Dixon’s (Norman Reedus) new beginning in France. In the second episode of the first season, “Alouette,” viewers are introduced firstly to Isabelle’s (Clémence Poésy) life before the apocalypse happened. It’s already known that Isabelle will be a valuable character in this series. For a recap, Isabelle found Daryl. She is now a nun in her community.
There’s an understanding that Isabelle is someone who likes to enjoy life and likes to party. Before the apocalypse, at least. As she walks out of the club to smoke a cigarette, she hears a commotion, screaming and yelling, coming from different people. There’s a shot where a bus is in view, and people are running and being attacked inside of it. She has her first interaction with a walker, whom she mistakes for a real person.
After the scene with her facing the walker, it takes the viewers back to the current time. Isabelle and Daryl are looking at a map. They plan to go to Paris. Although Daryl wants to take a certain passage, she doesn’t, which gets explained more in the next scene. At the very start of the apocalypse, Isabelle and Quinn (Adam Nagaitis) go to her place so she can pack her things. He tells her that they can stay at a friend’s home in Paris. At this point, it’s unclear to know the relationship between the two of them.
Going back to the present time, Daryl and Isabelle are with Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) and Sylvie (Laïka Blanc-Francard) on a wagon, proceeding on their travels. As they get off the wagon, walking to find somewhere safe for them to stay for the night, they hear whistling. An arrow to a bow comes shooting out, aimed at Daryl, but misses. He goes to find who was there and as he does, he gets pushed to the ground, seeing that they were kids wearing what looks like gas masks.
The four of them get taken to an unknown community, which is fully guarded. The now-guarded community was once a preschool. Daryl is on his knees, as they howl and bark like dogs. A young girl comes to them asking the nuns to say a prayer and they tell her that Daryl is an American. She shows them around the community, which was populated mostly by children.
Dinner time comes around and the leader, Lou (Kim Higelin), asks if Daryl can lead them with a prayer, saying grace. As Daryl drinks his soup, sipping the rest from the bowl, all of the kids laugh and copy him. After dinner, they all watched a show on the television, which was only possible because one of the kids was riding a bike to keep the show going. At bedtime, Daryl and Isabelle talk.
There’s a scene that takes everyone back to Isabelle and Quinn. It’s now clear that Quinn is Isabelle’s romantic partner. Quinn tells her that they can’t take her sister with them on their trip to find somewhere safe, because she’s sick. But, Isabelle leaves him, taking her sister with her as she drives off. She couldn’t trust Quinn when he promised her they’d take her sister somewhere safe.
Back in present time, Laurent is starting to spend time with more kids his age, but he doesn’t fit in that well. The kids run off, wandering off to somewhere. Laurent goes into the woods alone, finding a dead horse. As Laurent is doing his own thing, Daryl and Lou are walking around the community. As they look down, under a bridge, they notice there’s a crowd of walkers surrounded.
Back in the past, Isabelle and her sister finally find somewhere safe, the Abbey of St. Bernadette, which is where Isabelle was when she found Daryl. The woman introduces the two sisters to a young girl, who happens to be Sylvie. Isabelle’s sister was bitten, but they don’t know what will happen to someone who is bitten.
Daryl locks Lou in a room because it’d be safer for her to be in there rather than take a chance of her getting hurt or attacked by a walker. He finds medical essentials and packs up everything that may be useful, but as he starts packing, he hears someone talking. He finds a boy and as they start to leave, someone shoots at them. Daryl finds the man who was shooting at them, bringing him outside.
As the man goes for the gun, Daryl does too and they both fall into the crowd of walkers. The stranger yells for help as he starts getting eaten by the walkers, while Daryl is fighting for his life. He shoots gas tanks that he had found, which fell to the crowd as well, which makes most of them die. Lou and the boy come to save Daryl, shooting arrows at them. After coming back and packing their things, Daryl, Laurent, Sylvie, and Isabelle part ways with Lou and her community.
After the scene, Codron (Romain Levi), who was introduced in the first episode, finds Daryl’s recording that he made when he first made it to France. He also finds the map that they used to make the path of their journey to Paris, which means Codron will be following them there.
This episode was slow, but informative, especially on Isabelle’s past and what her life was like right before the world changed. There were a lot of different characters introduced, which were all side characters, like Lou. Isabelle’s sister was pregnant during the beginning of the apocalypse, which will play more of a part in the storyline. There wasn’t much action in the episode, like the previous one. It will be interesting to see how the storyline will expand in the third episode. The main question that this episode leaves the viewers with is, is Laurent Isabelle’s nephew? Is he who her sister was pregnant with?
Rating: 7/10