The third episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is written by Coline Abert, whilst Tim Southam directed the episode, titled "Paris Sera Toujours Paris". The episode continues where the previous episode left us, with the group en route to Paris and making their way to the settlement which will help them before being able to move on. Through the antagonist Codron, a character I'm starting to like more and more which means the writing is good, we get to see more of the antagonistic group which is important for the grand story. If you compare him to The Croat in Dead City, then this character is much more three dimensional and he has that special thing which makes an antagonist great. He isn't evil for the sake of being evil, can we even call him evil? In a world like this. We see more of Anne Charrier as Genet through Codron, Romain Ievi is great in the role. Other performances I liked were Isabelle Norman Reedus and Clémence Poésy, also Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent. This character is slowly growing on me, perhaps it's his chemistry with Norman Reedus which makes it so good. I read how Norman got a say in who would be cast, I get why. We also get to meet a new character and his establishment, Adam Nagaitis as Quinn: The owner of an underground nightclub in Paris called the Demimonde. Or not as new as we saw him in flashbacks in the previous episode, a character I thought we would never see again but I'm happy I was wrong. Quinn has the potential to be a good character!
The group arrives in Paris, Isabelle confronts her past while getting closer to Daryl; Codron seeks help from the leader of a growing nationalist movement called Pouvoir, putting the Union of Hope and Laurent under dangerous scrutiny.
Great establishing shots, the production and art design were fantastic. The mise-en-scene was also quite great, they set up each shot so perfectly and I think the steadicam and the lens choice is perfect for the show. The cinematography is truly amazing. I love how they've finally arrived in Paris, a city I visited back in August and seeing all the landmarks in this show and simply the way they shot it, made me smile. Everything around the filmmaking was great in my opinion. The pacing is good and I would say it's nicely edited. The set design, costume and makeup department, lightning, composition, and so on. Everything about the filmmaking is great, direction too.
This was actually a pretty good episode, not as great as the previous two though, but hey that's completely alright. With three episodes left, the show needed a slow burner for building up towards the final three. The Walking Dead have always been about the characters, which is the true reason it's called The Walking Dead, because of the quote said by Rick Grimes. That's why an episode like this is great to me, giving us time with characters and seeing them grow, it's important. Daryl Dixon has been with the main show since the first season, here he is on his own show and still growing as a person. This episode focuses on Daryl and Isabelle, two great characters. It's great drama. For the last remaining episodes, all characters and groups/establishments have been introduced, now the sole focus can be to tell the remaining story. There's one thing I really disliked and found to be some TWD S11 and Fear kind of writing, the ending. It left a sour taste in my mouth, it's nothing big. Overall, the writing was good, Coline Abert is fairly new to the industry but two things I loved about her writing was the dialogue and knowledge of Paris, her being bilingual is probably the reason for that. Loving the authenticity and the French dialogue throughout the show.