SPOILERS AHEAD!
Written by: David Zabel
Directed by: Daniel Percival
Episode Title: “Dead In The Water”
AMC’s first episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has officially premiered, starring the return of Norman Reedus as the titular character, this time travelling to a desolate and post-apocalyptic version of France.
Naturally, fans of the franchise have been wondering how Daryl got to France in the first place, and what awaits him there, among the many more mysteries surrounding season one… that’s right, season two’s happening and it’s already in the works.
Related: ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Season 1 Full Early Non-Spoiler Review
Dive into what happened in the first episode of Daryl Dixon as well as our official review, below, but be warned… there are spoilers… and plenty of them. So, if you haven’t watched the first episode, we strongly advise you to do so.
Daryl Dixon Season 1, Episode 1 Recap
Just as teased in the trailers, this new spinoff series to The Walking Dead begins with Reedus’ Daryl Dixon washing ashore on a mysterious beach, which we soon discover is located in France.
It’s no surprise that Daryl almost instantly starts scavenging for food and supplies, he is a survivor after all and it’s been proven in the past that this is a character who knows how to look after himself in the wild.
However, France has something new to offer, something that takes Daryl by surprise during the opening scenes of the episode. Burners, the new variant zombies that literally burn your skin with acid when touching you.
Yes, that’s right, variants debut as soon as the series gets going. We’ll talk about that further down the article in the review section.
As Daryl continues to roam France, he discovers two French people, one woman who can speak English fairly well, the other being an old “blind” man.
It doesn’t take long until it is revealed that these two French people are actually just tricking Daryl, the blind man not even being blind at all.
While tricking Daryl, bandits also enter the scene but are quickly killed by Daryl and the woman he met moments before, which is initiated by Daryl saving the woman from said bandits.
The woman and old man kindly repay Daryl… by knocking him out and stealing all of his supplies. Karma quickly finds them, the karma being Romain Levi’s character, who is coincidentally the brother of one of the now-dead bandits.
Levi’s character is also a bandit, who is now on the hunt for the “American” aka Daryl, with one of the reasons being revenge… villain alert?!
Later in the episode, Daryl is rescued by nuns, one of whom is played by Harry Potter star Clémence Poésy. Daryl soon finds himself in a somewhat secure convent where he finds a huge stash of old weapons, which Poésy’s character reveals the “killer nuns” have been using to train with.
During Daryl’s stay at this convent, he meets a young boy called Laurent. The nuns claim that this boy is a future messiah and tell Daryl all about a prophecy of sorts, not long before asking him to take Laurent across the country to an unknown location of extreme importance.
Long story short, the nuns tell Daryl that Laurent is some kind of cure, however, it sounds as if they mean in terms of being a Messiah, and not a literal cure.
Things seem safe for Daryl at this moment, but things quickly turn sour as the bandits enter the convent while on their hunt for him. It all quickly turns into a full-on fight, which ends in almost all of the bandits and nuns dying.
Cordron (Romain Levi), who is one of the bandits that attack the convent, manages to escape after being bested by Daryl and the “killer nuns”.
Daryl leaves the now unsafe convent after this, alongside Poésy’s Isabelle and Laika Blanc Francard’s Sylvie, with Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to embark on a journey to get the young boy to this unknown location.
Daryl Dixon’s first episode ends in Le Havre in Northern France, where the real person in charge is seemingly introduced, a mysterious woman who is seen asking a group of boatmen what happened on their ship.
The ship’s captain tells this mysterious woman that there was a mutiny, but the man who started said mutiny went overboard and was “presumed dead”.
“Presumed? By who, by you?” the mysterious woman asks, to which the captain says “His name was Dixon,” and the woman orders her thugs to find him.
Main villain alert?!
Daryl Dixon Season 1, Episode 1 Review
It should be noted that I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead with full knowledge of what’s happening in this universe. I’ve watched the entire main series and all of its spinoffs, including World Beyond (which is a must-watch for TWD family).
That being said, this new spinoff’s premiere episode kicked things off just the way I thought it would, full of mystery with just the typical amount of teases as usual.
It’s so refreshing to finally begin getting some variants again, as they were teased during the later episodes of the main show’s final season. The “burners” are our first real look at some French variant zombies, which World Beyond viewers will remember being heavily teased during its post-credit scene.
Some scenes do drag on a bit, with some being rather dialogue-heavy, but other than that the episode provides a beautiful new landscape. Gifting fans what other parts of the world look like in this zombie-filled universe.
This series may not be the best place to start for new audiences, as all of the new spinoffs seem to be focused on delivering for the die-hard fans aka the “family”. Reedus even took to social media recently to confirm this by stating he “always wanted this to be OUR show”.
Rating: 4 out of 5
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1, episode 1 is now streaming on AMC+ with new episodes airing each following Sunday.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1, episode 2 premieres on AMC+ on Sunday, the 17th of September, 2023.
This review was written during the 2023 WGA (now resolved) and SAG-AFTRA (ongoing) strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series/movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
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