The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 episode 4 recap and review: "La Paradis Pour Toi"

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon brings on the tears, justice, and baffling decision-making in season 2 episode 4, "La Paradis Pour Toi". As The Nest and Genet battle, Daryl and Carol finally reunite but alas the reunion is less than stellar, and Laurent is missing. Who will survive by the end of the episode? There's a lot to discuss, so let's begin!

The attack at The Nest

The episode opens with Genet's planned attack on The Nest which goes as planned thanks to Carol. Yeah...you think Carol is going to die when the group is shot up but somehow avoids getting detected by crazed, vicious walkers?

She escapes, gets into the truck that has Codron tied to the back, and manages to lead the walkers to The Nest. As Genet orders a mortar to be fired, it conveniently hits the exact location Carol is waiting in front of.

This creates a hole that the vehicle conveniently fits through, thus leading the walkers inside...where innocent people live. I am not making this up.

She begins killing The Nest's only line of defense, who in hindsight probably see her as a threat, in her search for Daryl, who is still locked up. But not for long.

When a Nest resident finds himself trapped in the dungeon with Daryl, conveniently with the keys for his escape, Daryl is freed to take out the crazed walkers. Once he gets through the walkers, he finds Carol, and the two hug.

But how did she find him? Why Isabelle, who is dying from a stab wound from Losang because she didn't kill him when she easily could have as she aimed for his face instead of the neck.

Her escape from where she is mortally wounded drags on until she finds Carol. But when Daryl finds Isabelle, she asks him to care for Laurent and dies (who is writing this show?).

Daryl and Carol proceed to leave in the midst of The Nest getting attacked by walkers and Genet to find Laurent. Let's just hope Codron manages to survive.

The search for Laurent

Daryl leads Carol to the secret cave to find both Fallou and Laurent missing. The two decide to search for him, coming to a beautiful house in a village owned by an elderly couple (who thankfully know Fallou and Laurent).

Turns out the whole town was once full of elderly survivors. Once they pass and turn, they are locked in and left alone.

The couple is thriving and has several cars, but Daryl needs to find one he can fix and use to find Laurent.

As he pals around the old man, finding parts and fixing the car, Carol pals around the old woman who 'somehow knows' Daryl loves Carol (I literally facepalmed at this reach). Daryl and Carol wind up spending some time with the couple, eating their delicious food and building friendships.

This includes the old woman's compassion when Carol is triggered by a locked barn. (For those who don't know, her daughter Sophia was bitten and turned, hiding within a barn full of other walkers before she is killed in TWD season 2).

In the midst of all this, Daryl and Carol's friendship has been strained. From Carol's perspective, Daryl needs to come home and be with his family.

From Daryl's perspective, he is needed in France to be with Isabelle and Laurent. His mission is to find Laurent and bring him home with them.

Carol can't accept that Daryl met and cares for others, just as he can't accept leaving them all behind. When the car is fixed and they are ready to go, the old man offers them one last meal when Genet and her team arrive.

It seems he ratted them out to soldiers who were previously there to collect fresh food. His reason?

For the old woman of course, which makes no sense as she scolds him, and immediately the two agree to distract Genet to allow Carol and Daryl to escape (I'm getting a headache over these pointless, dragged-out scenes). Just before Genet can kill the elderly couple Carol saves the day and in the process, she nearly gets killed herself.

With Daryl's help, Genet gets trapped allowing Carol to kill her with the injection used for turning walkers into crazed creatures. Genet painfully and graphically dies (a little over the top but hey, at least she's finally dead).

Unfortunately for the elderly couple, the woman is killed whom Daryl and Carol help bury. This scene was specifically important as she was probably the only one in the village who got a proper burial as it was explained to be too hard and sad to do this for everyone else.

Somehow back at The Nest Genet's group learns of her death and it seems an offer off-screen is made for Losang. As, sure enough, he tells his people and Genet's group to join forces to find Laurent.

Seriously?

I've never missed The Walking Dead: Dead City as much as I do right now

Ok, how do I abridge all of my thoughts about this episode? Let's address the biggest issue thus far, Carol's ridiculously powerful plot armor.

Her plot armor was always unrealistically strong, really ever since The Walking Dead began, and look, I get it, she's a main character but her escapes, chances of luck, and whatnot really needs to tone down and be brought back to some form of reality. Her survival at the very beginning wasn't remotely entertaining because it was so ridiculous.

Boy oh boy does she love to make things worse by leading the walkers right inside, after a mortar conveniently blows a hole in the wall for them... But she found Daryl, so everyone, all the innocent lives can die.

She at least tries to learn who Isabelle was to Daryl, but she hardly lets it process that he obviously lost someone he cared deeply about. Why does that sound so familiar?

And yeah, I want to break my keyboard in frustration over Isabelle's death.

I've lost count of how many times this show has romantically screwed over Daryl, but hey, anything to appease a certain, small, fanbase, right? Because Daryl can't possibly remain single or in a relationship with anyone else, right?

Season 1 was a strong season. It told a perfect story from beginning to end and while season 2 has offered amazing scenes for action and acting, it just doesn't come close to other TWD spinoffs.

To be fair each TWD spinoff is different, but I feel like everyone is easily forgetting how great The Walking Dead: Dead City was and frankly, at this point, I miss it. I mean, sure, Maggie's endless hate for Negan and Negan's ability to always have trouble find him like a magnet, is overdone.

But those two minor details aside, at least I'm not getting fatigued by constant questionable and confusing writing decisions. There are two episodes left, and I can only hope things improve.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 episode 5 airs on Oct. 27, 2024, on AMC. Stay tuned as we'll be recapping the season each week!