Well the title of this show is a nightmare, Is this season a Daryl show? Is this season a Carol show? The answer is yes, no matter which way you want to look at it after viewing episode one and the preview. Another thing that is quite evident, is they want us to hate Carol, if we haven’t already, with how this episode was laid out.
Daryl Dixon in France
As the current story is really two entirely different stories we will start with Daryl Dixon. Daryl has been training Laurent how to defend himself, we know he has been training him for two weeks. We don’t know if he started training him immediately after the end of Season 1 but I would think we are looking at a month tops after the end of Season 1. This exchange showed us a few things, one that Laurent has learned how to kill walkers but is still a bit green, and he says something that I think will come up later in the show. He says the kids at the school told him, ‘home is where the ones you love are.’ Something like that would be a natural pull for Daryl to get back to the States.
They are both summoned back by Losang. Daryl arrives back to a meeting where Losang tells the group that three of their friends have been captured in Paris by Genet, including the someone who helped get them out of Paris and the guy that Sylvie likes. Daryl suggests they need to act fast to free them because if Genet doesn’t get information out of them she will just off them. Losang preaches caution and wants to throw the last punch and not the first one. In some one on one conversation Losang asks Daryl to stop training Laurent as it is a distraction as he thinks Daryl is too violent and it gets in the way of Laurent’s empathy.
Daryl and some others have found out the route that the prisoners will be transported and are ready to ambush the convoy. The plan is a set up explosion trap that is supposed to take out the first lead vehicle, which will stop the transport vehicle behind them so that they can get the prisoners. Before we see if this works we cut back to the base that Laurent is at, Losang and someone else are talking, she says they need to move up the ceremony since they will not be able to convince everyone, especially the American, in reference to Daryl, but Losang says the boy isn’t ready. She questions if Losang isn’t ready, and Losang says they aren’t ready. The way these two were talking was pretty sketchy, so we will need to keep a closer eye on them.
The trap for the convoy doesn’t work, the others want to abort, but Daryl goes into Call of Duty mode with aim and sprint loaded as he runs towards the truck and shoots the driver of the lead vehicle, causing it to roll over and creating the window for everyone else to attack the convoy. Both sides suffer losses, but the prisoners are freed, Daryl gets to go face to face with Genet, but the TV plot kicked in where the explosive that didn’t go off after three vehicles drove over it finally exploded which distracted Daryl so she could escape.
Carol East Coast United States
Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier – The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon _ Season 2, Episode 1 – Photo Credit: Emmanuel Guimier/AMC
The end of season 1 showed us that Carol was looking for Daryl, she is using Daryl’s motorcycle and found a camp and staked it out. In this episode Carol lied her face off to everyone, it’s almost like she didn’t tell the truth to anyone at all. If the people of the Commonwealth could see this they wouldn’t have elected her to a prominent role. For this episode I am going to highlight Carol’s lies.
Carol lie counter three pack
I’m a friendly(to a group of men at the car camp Daryl was at).
That her friend got the bike from them and she wanted to know if they could fix it.
Says that she is “Mick’s” lady.
She is able to get the group of 3 to let their guards down around her, to the point where she gets Daryl’s crossbow to hold them off. She shoots one in the foot and is able to reload before being taken down. All the other people in the background were pretty worthless in this, they could have easily overpowered and unarmed Carol. The three give up the information that group from France came and asked for American walkers and paid them and that Daryl and someone else got in a fight and was taken captive on a boat back to France. That this is the only boat they have seen in years, and that a boat yard up the road if she wants to see for herself. She takes a car, tells them where Mick is, in the trunk of a car, and to not follow her and heads to the boatyard.
TV magic comes next where Carol sees a plane when she now knows she needs to head to France, I don’t even know if she saw some airplanes since the world fell, but perhaps if this is after Rick & Michonne returned. In any case she finds a plane, is able to find that it is landing near by and finds where the plane landed. The guy has a nice compound, fences, booby traps, a plane, a house, a green house, and power. But he is a bit short sighted, especially with his defenses, he says the generator goes out sometimes which makes the power go down and his gates not only unlock but open wide open which would allow anyone or any walkers inside. Why he wouldn’t come up with a defense for this, a chain and lock perhaps, I’ll never know.
He says he goes out every day in the plane to see what is going on in the area, even though the noise attracts walkers, and the next morning after sparing Carol he says he will look for abandon cars to use for car parts for the car Carol crashed. Ash, the airplane owner goes out looking for car parts and Carol starts snooping around, finding a map, trying to figure out the best path to France, and the generator goes out again, but instead of turning that on, securing the gates she decides to go snooping in the locked greenhouse instead. Inside is nothing overly interesting except a shrine in the far back for his son. But with the power out the walkers were able to walk through the unlocked gates and surround her in the greenhouse. Ash returns and wants to know what has happened, she insists nothing happened to the grave and she will clean things up and then she will leave.
QUEUE THE LIE COUNTER!
Carol tells Ash that she was looking around to find out about Ash because she was hoping to be friends because she needed a friend, when the real reason is she is trying to find something about him to pull at the heartstrings to get him to fly her to Europe. Ash tells her that Avi was his name, and he loved planes, and after he passed he came across a crashed plane and took it back piece by piece and learned how to put it back together. She continues to clean up and he invites her for dinner before she heads out in the morning.
You know what goes well with dinner? A side of lies. Carol was serving them up.
She tells Ash that her husband Ed took her daughter Sophia to visit his aunt in Europe and the world fell.
She lets Ash believe that she wants him to fly her to Europe to find his daughter, that we know is dead. Ash is obviously upset and he doesn’t commit, until the next day when he tracks her down after she left, telling her that it is a crazy trip. Going across the ocean with no communication, no weather reports, not knowing if they have enough fuel, not knowing what is on the other side. His plan is to hug the coast and head north until they cross over and make a pit stop in Greenland to minimize time over the ocean and refuel with the ethanol.
Carol has one more lie to serve for dessert as she tells Ash that she had an address for Ed’s Aunt in Europe and that is where she will start to look first.
After gearing up they plan to take off in the morning, but a big storm comes and lighting takes out the generator, which kills the power so walkers can start entering in, another strike hits the building with all the ethanol he made, they have to leave now, they get the plane ready, push it towards the runway, the plane wings knock down some walkers on the way to the runway. They take off into the skies, Carol starts to get a little uneasy and Ash tells her to take a deep breath and center herself as there is nothing to be afraid of up there, as they get above the clouds and are heading towards a setting sun.
