Season 1 finale already, this is just such a fast pace! In addition to that you get no time to catch your breath as Fear the Walking Dead starts up the next weekend. This finale episode, just like my opening statement said, goes by in a flurry with all sorts of fast pace. We see a little flash back of some battle on shore during a war, and you can hear the name shouted out Dixon and it jumps to Daryl back in the pit being told he will die.
A few interesting things are going on here, first off it seems obvious to me this isn’t the first time this has happened or that Genet has planned this out for awhile, everyone is in place, and it is a spectacle, the crowd eats it up like they have seen and craved the violence before, like a souped up Woodburry. Daryl has had limited experience with crazy souped up walkers, which we learned from his boat escape, but something that Genet is not aware of, thinking she has this slaughter perfectly planned out.
With the playing field set, the battle begins, Daryl immediately strikes the leg of the walker. Daryl is able to impale the walker and pin it against a pillar but it’s another acid walker and starts eating away at the ax. Daryl retreats and gets one of the French flags and pole and uses that to impale the walker. Genet is extremely upset.
The chips get reset for a second round, Quinn comes out and is the wrists of him and Daryl are tied together by a chain, they think they have to fight each other, but that doesn’t turn out to be the case. This time actually has walkers in all 4 corners and they need to work together. The walkers are shot with the darts of whatever juice amps up the crazy, one of the walkers head explodes after the shot making now 3 on 2. Walkers 2 and 3 are released and for some crazy reason the third walker pounces on and attacks walker two. It wasn’t easy, but Daryl and Quinn are able to work together to eliminate the other two walkers to the delight of the crowd who start cheering Dixon’s name. Daryl throws one of the live walker heads up at Genet on her perch, which obviously pisses her off and she demands that someone ends it, it being Daryl.
Fallou is there and shoots at the soldier who was aiming at Daryl, which creates panic everywhere, topside, with Genet, and down below with Daryl and Quinn who enter the tunnels. Isabelle and Laurent are thrown in jail, only temporarily as Isabelle swiped a key, while Quinn is in bad shape as he gets a burn from a walker on his back, this will come back very quickly as an important point. Quinn is fading extremely fast, he needs a rest, he looks like absolute crap, they both know he won’t make it. The pair agree that he needs to make a sacrifice so Daryl can keep going on to try to save Isabelle and Laurent. The chain won’t break, so they have only one realistic choice, to cut off Quinn’s wrist. The screams get the guards on them quickly, Quinn rushes at them with one arm and an ax so Daryl can escape.
Daryl is able to get top side and he runs into Fallou and Sylvie, he asks them to find some wheels as he goes to find Isabelle. Daryl finds them underground, but they are on opposite sides of a locked door with metal bars. Walker Quinn appears and attacks Isabelle and overpowers her, Daryl fights off a second walker through the bars and then hands the weapon to Laurent and tells him to kill the walker and save Isabelle. After hesitation from Laurent, Daryl tells him God will forgive him which is what he needed to hear and he takes out Quinn.
You think that might be enough for an episode but just wait, Daryl, Isabelle, Laurent and Sylvie, who is returning to our core group, set off to the Nest via a Jeep that Fallou was able to get working. On the journey, it had some car troubles and they had to pull over to fix it. Shortly after Capo, the soldier who wants Dixon dead for his brother, and Genet’s soldiers catch up to them. Genet’s soldiers demand that Capo kill them all starting with Laurent. He refuses, he kills the guards and points the gun at Dixon, and tells him not this time, next time. He sees a locket of the Nest, he tells him a days walk north, not even. He also tells them to burn the truck it is easy to track and he takes off. So Capo has some sort of honor.
Next they come upon the Nest, which is more amazing than I can put into words, it seems to be out on it’s own, with lots of land around it, it does have some patches of water around so I am not sure if it rains a lot or something if it is like an island. But it is on a big rock, with a brick wall around it, and it seems the people keep to the high point of the mountain, but as you would imagine they are not built to fight. We see montage of different activities, Daryl training people to shoot, cooking, prayers, healing, etc.
The leader of the Nest, and Isabelle both try to convince Daryl to stay, mainly by trying to point out that with the way the world is now, how can he be sure that life is what it was half a world away, when he knows what life is like here and they need him. Daryl ultimately decides to try to head back, with the Nest holding a promise to get him home, they set up passage from the coast to the Netherlands and Daryl would need to figure out from there. Daryl leaves without saying goodbye to Laurent, towards the coast to meet a fisherman. He comes across the graveyard of American soldiers who died on the coast of France, and found his Grandfathers headstone, we experience another great teary Daryl moment.
Daryl gets to the coast, sees the boat, and signals it and this place is packed with dormant walkers in the overgrown grass, so he fights through and gets to the sand waiting for the boat when Laurent appears, not sure if it is really Laurent or Daryl’s imagination, with walkers closing in, this part ends with Daryl looking to the ocean and the boat, and back to Laurent.
BUT WE ARE NOT DONE!
Back in the states we see some gruff riding a motorcycle with a Mustang closing in fast. The Mustang is Carol who is in the area that Daryl last told her in a radio transmission a few episodes back. This man is riding Daryl’s bike, Carol is eventually able to overpower him and stick him in the back of her car. He finally says that he traded stuff for it at an outpost a couple miles up the road, Carol says if he is wrong she won’t be back and closes the trunk leaving him.
