This was a very enjoyable episode because we got a small glimpse into another country at the onset of the turn. With dancing and music, Isabelle looked like she was in Grand Theft Auto Vice City. She was a pickpocket, taking cash, watches, and credit cards. Things start to get spicy in the club, so she takes a pill to level herself out (after taking some nose sugar earlier in the night). Things start escalating quickly outside and in the substation, with walkers quickly overtaking the living. Some guy who I never even bothered to learn his name comes and picks up Isabelle in a car, who insists she needs to go home to pick up her sister. They depart, and it turns out that she is pregnant. The guy wants to ditch her, but Isabelle uses her pickpocket skills to swipe the keys and takes her to the nuns’ abbey. But along the journey, the sister is bitten.
She is ready to give birth at the abbey, but she passes first and turns into a walker. It makes sense why all of the nuns think that Laurent is special, and he might be, because he was born to a walker and not a person. It will be interesting to see if he does have unique abilities to other children. The closest we have been to this before was with Judith, but Lori died because of the actions of the birth but never turned because Carl wouldn’t allow it.
Besides the flashbacks, for better or worse, this episode was what we call in video games the side quest. The wagon breaks down, the horse has to be left behind and later dies, and the group is captured in unfamiliar territory. They have to help this group to get an item they need to continue the quest. This group had the feeling of the Vatos in the flagship, just with an age-role reversal. Instead of the young ones protecting the elderly, the older children protecting the younger ones.
One significant future development is the lone surviving soldier from episode 1 returns to the abbey to look around. He found Daryl’s recorder and discovered the map with the destination, Paris, so he has an end goal for revenge, and I sense we will see him soon.
If time is an issue, I would say this episode was very missable for the overall series, but you get to see Daryl doing awesome Daryl things. Fighting a foe, in this case, a man who lives in a castle and stole all the items in town, to walkers, to interacting with young children, to surprising everyone around him. If you love watching Daryl perform his strengths, this is a great stand-alone episode.
For me, I got the most enjoyment from seeing how things started and progressed in other parts of the world. So, seeing how the early stages in Paris were satisfying to me, I hope we get to see more of this.
