The Walking Dead franchise is no stranger to the critique of being repetitive, as each season recycles old premises under new guises. From the way the show approaches sanctuaries to storylines of the group separating and fighting to find each other again, The Walking Dead relentlessly beat the dead horse until the show petered out in later seasons. It seems the curse of predictability and repetitiveness is befalling their new slew of spin-offs that are supposed to be re-vitalizing the franchise, not digging themselves the same hole. As the second season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, titled Book of Carol, comes around on September 29, the idea of Melissa McBride's Carol searching for Norman Reedus' Daryl becomes suspiciously familiar.
‘The Walking Dead’ Spin-Offs Are Starting To Repeat Themselves
With Daryl Dixon Season 2 following Carol trying to bring Daryl back home, it seems that The Walking Dead spin-offs are falling back on the franchise’s tendency to repeat themselves. All three spin-offs have incorporated the element of trying to bring someone back home — this almost feels like a newer rendition of The Walking Dead's previous trope of characters separating and reuniting (the last time that was vaguely interesting was during the build-up to Terminus). The Walking Dead: Dead City kicked off the trend as we see Maggie (Lauren Cohan) venturing into Manhattan to ensure the safe return of her son, Hershel (Logan Kim), and she recruits her nemesis Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) on this rescue mission as well. More recently, Michonne (Danai Gurira) stands up against the powerful CRM to bring Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) back home to his family in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. While Daryl Dixon's first season followed a very different premise, it seems Season 2 will join the other spin-offs in this repetition.
Moreover, there is a danger that Book of Carol could potentially just become a carbon copy of The Ones Who Live. Both Carol and Michonne travel across the country (or the world) to find their missing counterpart and are capable of becoming terminators if someone stands in the way of their reunion with their loved ones. Meanwhile, Rick and Daryl have become ingratiated with the political and emotional environment of the places they are trapped in, forming new allegiances and motivations. We can already anticipate a reunion between Carol and Daryl that is similar to that of Rick and Michonne: Daryl may not want to leave for home just yet, and an exasperated Carol will likely try and drag him across the seas before relenting. That being said, Daryl Dixon may also have an advantage over the other spin-offs that, at the very least, veers the series away from being mind-numbingly repetitive, and instead just thrillingly repetitive.
‘Daryl Dixon’ Has an Advantage Over The Walking Dead Spin-Offs
Dead City and The Ones Who Live opened up their series with the central conceit of bringing a character back home. In contrast, Daryl Dixon is only introducing this idea in Season 2, and thus, we already have a wealth of characters and stories that we are already invested in from Season 1. One of the drawbacks of The Ones Who Live was that we were introduced to an array of eclectic and exciting characters that were quickly killed off. In fact, only Rick and Michonne actually made it to the end of the season intact, leaving us only connected to their characters while feeling unfulfilled about the others. Daryl Dixon Season 1 has already set up elaborate and complex backstories, narrative and characterizations around child prodigy Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), Sister Isabelle (Clémence Poésy), guerrier Codron (Romain Levi) and despicable Genet (Anne Charrier). As such, we are already knee-deep in this post-apocalyptic French world, and thus, will likely feel less detached to the season as we are rotting for more than just Daryl and Carol.
There are also plenty of unresolved storylines at the end of Daryl Dixon Season 1, including the Nest's brewing war against Genet's compound and what Daryl and even messiah Laurent's role in it will be. With France gearing up for even more civil unrest, it may balance out the repetitiveness of Carol's searching storyline. As such, while there may be aspects of this upcoming season that we will have to sit through with our eyes glazed since we've seen it all before, the show may not feel like it is falling back into a rut because there will be stories that we are already invested in.
'Daryl Dixon' Can Avoid Becoming Repetitive With Future Seasons
With Season 3 of Daryl Dixon already announced, there is also hope that the series will not end on this slice of repetition. The spin-off will be expanding even further into Europe, specifically Spain, further suggesting that the story will be prolonged and deliberately thought-out, unlike The Ones Who Live's whimsical fan service resolution. As such, instead of Daryl and Carol's reunion spelling out a fight to return home like it did with Rick and Michonne, it is probable that Carol will likely be recruited in Daryl's newfound mission.
This is definitely a welcome prospect as the addition of Carol's dry humor and stubborn attitude to the French characters' quite serious demeanors will create intriguing and riveting dynamics. But of course, we can only reap the rewards after we watch the obligatory sequence of Carol tracking down her best friend while on his bike, reuniting with him while trying to convince him to journey homebound, and eventually become a part of the mission as well. As highly-anticipated as their reunion is, perhaps this should be the final time The Walking Dead recycles this arbitrary story element.
