The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Recap: “Alouette”

Alouette, gentille alouette. Alouette, je te plumerai. Je te plumerai la tête Je te plumerai la tête. Et la tête, et la tête. Alouette… Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) is dressed for a night out on the City of Lights. Isabelle dances with a stranger, feeling the music and the inside of his jacket. The pickpocket cozies up to another man at the bar and swipes his credit card. She spots another mark and steals his expensive watch in the blink of an eye. She dances, she drinks, she does cocaine — stealing, swaying, snorting the night away — pocketing cash, cards, jewelry, and other valuables that will soon become worthless. 

It’s Paris, France, 2010. Day zero of the zombie apocalypse. A scream here, a disturbance there. Is that man attacking another man a drunk scuffle? No… he’s biting him. It’s chaos. A pedestrian wanders into the street and is struck by a car. In the subway, its mayhem aboard a packed train car speeding past its stop. Its passengers are barrelling towards death at 50 miles per hour. On the streets, the City of Lights is a city of death. Paris is overrun by les affamès — the hungry ones.

Before a hungry one can feast on Isabelle’s flesh, a sharply-dressed man rams his car into the run-over reanimated man. Isabelle gets into the vehicle’s passenger seat as the driver speeds away from the dead city. 12 years later, Isabelle studies a map with the marooned American Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus). It’s a straight shot to Paris, but according to Isabelle, Angers will be safer, if a little longer. Their destination is a man with a radio who can connect them to Union Del’Espoir’s (Union of Hope) people up north at The Nest. 

In 2010, Paris is bedlam. The driver is Quinn (Adam Nagaitis), a Brit, and their destination is his mate Olly’s place in the Dordogne. Their first stop is Isabelle’s apartment to pick up her younger sister, Lily (Faustine Koziel), and all of their cash. Lily feels ill, but there’s no time to explain: they must leave. Now. Isabelle’s young neighbor, Aimèe (Naia Pichler), says her papa didn’t come home last night. She instructs the girl to go back to her apartment and stay inside with her mother.

12 years later. Daryl, Isabelle, Sylvie (Laika Blanc Francard) and Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) ride a mule-drawn carriage through the woods into Angers. Their mule Astèrix is stubborn as — well, a mule — and anxiously neighs as a pack of hungry ones approach from the road. Daryl unties the wagon and fires a rifle into the air, causing Astèrix to haul ass ahead. Isabelle assures Laurent he’ll be okay: Astèrix is faster than the dead. Daryl orders the group to grab everything from the cart and walk as the hungry ones trail off after Astèrix. Later, Isabelle again assures Laurent that his beloved mule isn’t lost: she’s sure he’s found his way to the apple orchard they passed. 

“Just tell him the truth,” Daryl tells Isabelle in private. “He’s gotta learn sometime.” But the boy who grew up at the Abbey of Saint Bernadette, sheltered from the horrors of the outside world, doesn’t need to know what fate awaits Astèrix. “You don’t have children, do you?” she asks. “The truth can wait.” Their search for someplace safe to rest for the night cannot.

Just then, a distant whistle signals a flung arrow. Daryl dodges the bolts and gives chase after someone wearing a plague doctor mask, only to be ambushed by four masked youths. The youths transport their prisoners to Cole Maternelle Simone Veil, once a preschool that has been converted into a walled community. Its gated entrance is warning for all who might dare trespass: decapitated zombie heads displayed on pikes. The youths howl, unleashing a war cry that beckons their leader: Lou (Kim Higelin), a teenager whose war-weary visage betrays her youthful appearance.

Isabelle explains they’re religious people stranded after their mule escaped. “Nuns. Nuns?” Lou asks with suspicious incredulity. “So you can recite Saint Joseph’s prayer for mothers and fathers, no?” We come to youand ask you to take under your special protection the children God has given us… after the nuns recite the prayer in French, Lou remains suspicious of Daryl. “What about him? Is he a nun?” Isabelle responds, “Father Daryl is from America. He was sent here on a mission long ago. He doesn’t speak French.” To that, Lou asks: “Even after all this time?” Isabelle shrugs: “Americans.”
 
Lou signals her pack to cut Daryl loose. They will practice English out of respect for Father Daryl. During a tour of the preschool, Lou explains there are 18 youths living there. “The day it started, the older ones were dropped off at school. Some of our friends go home at the end of the day,” she says in unpracticed English, “but the rest of us, our parents never came.” The youngest of the children are orphans, or foundlings who they’ve found over the years. “We hunt, we grow food, we fix old clothes. And we keep up our lessons.” This post-apocalyptic children’s community has a flavor of Oliver Twist, if the parish placed severed zombie heads to heed off would-be attackers.

The children are in the care of the now-bedridden Madame Dubois, who was their mother, their nurse, and their teacher until she fell ill six months ago. Every day, the children recite a prayer from Isaiah, which Isabelle points out is “for the sick and dying.” “Oui,” Lou responds, “but not dying. Prayers will be answered.” Their humble community is self-sufficient — children tend to gardening and raising chickens, Cricket cooks, Aline readies their dinners — and is wary of outsiders. Laurent tries to introduce himself to a boy, who angrily tells him he can’t sit in the empty seat beside him. That chair is for his brother. “Two of our brothers are off on a mission right now,” says Lou, who leaves it to “Father Daryl” to lead them in a prayer of thanks.

Daryl says grace for the first time in his life. “Um, Lord… I’m sure you have your reasons for turning the whole world upside-down. Maybe we deserve it for being so mean to each other. We probably do deserve it. But not tonight. No.” Daryl, Isabelle, Laurent, and Sylvie hold hands with the plucky youths gathered around the table for a simple meal. “Tonight is good. And if this isn’t good enough for you, I don’t know what is. Amen.” Daryl slurps from his soup bowl, provoking laughs from the children. They raise their bowls and do the same as “Father Daryl.”

With their mule lost, Lou says their only option is La Tarasque. “La Tarasque is a lizard,” Sylvie explains to Daryl. “Like a dragon from old stories.” To that, Lou says firmly, “No. This one is not a story. He’s a real man. Still a monster.” He lives in a castle nearby. La Tarasque has horses he used to steal everything from the village, raiding food, fuel, and supplies from every house and shop. The children once tried to raid the raider, but the castle is too dangerous to ever make a second attempt. Daryl convinces Lou: if La Tarasque raided the drugstores, he has the medicine they’ll need to cure Madame Dubois. “You can pray all you like,” he says, “but she’s gonna die without that.” Moof (Durel Nkounkou Loumouamou), a young boy, wants to go, but Lou forbids it. In the morning, she will take Daryl to the castle.

That night, the children settle in for entertainment. An old television powered by bicycle generators flickers to life with an episode of Mork & Mindy. “No way,” Daryl laughs, beaming at the sight of Robin Williams’ Mork from the planet Ork. The kids know the lines by heart. They give the hearty Orkan greeting in unison: Nanu nanu! Isabelle looks over to see Daryl smiling — and just in time to see his smile fade into an expression of lament.

Later, Isabelle deduces that Daryl lied about the medicine saving the children’s teacher. “Well, the truth can wait, right?” Isabelle responds, “That was a mule. This is their teacher.” They need a horse to get to the radio, and it’s too far to walk. “So you can go home,” Isabelle says. “Yeah. Yeah,” Daryl tells her, “so I can go home.” She feels sorry for the children, never knowing what the world was like before  les affamès. “You can’t miss what you never had,” Daryl says.

Daryl used to watch Mork & Mindy with his brother, Merle, when they were kids. “We loved that show,” he explains. “Used to make everything just a little bit better, you know?”

2010. Lily clenches over in pain. Isabelle realizes her sister is pregnant, a secret she’s kept for months. She tried to tell Isabelle, Lily explains, but she was scared. There’s no baby hospitals where they’re going, so Quinn wants to leave Lily at a clinic or somewhere along the way. When Isabelle protests, Quinn gets in her face: “Don’t I take care of you? Don’t I always f—ing take care of you?” He tells her to trust they’ll find somewhere safe, and this will all be over in a few days. As Quinn pulls her in, Isabelle slips her hands into his pocket and steals the car keys. Isabelle hops in the car and peels away, ditching Quinn.

2022. Lou has figured out that Daryl isn’t a priest. She wants to know how the American came to be in France. “It’s a long story,” he answers. “The only part that matters is that I get home to my people.” To that, Lou says: “Madame says family are the people you’re with.” Daryl remarks that Madame Dubois sounds like she was a good teacher, so Lou corrects him. “Is. She’ll get better, thanks to you.” At La Tarasque’s castle, Lou says she attempted the raid with two of her “brothers,” but only she returned. “I tell the kids that they go for help and that they’ll come back. Madame was sick, I didn’t know what else to say.”

Back at the preschool, Isabelle promises Sylvie that they’ll make it to The Nest up north. “We will all know how we fit in. To everything. That’s why we are going, to find our purpose.” Laurent sneaks away and finds les affamès eating what’s left of Astèrix. Laurent tearfully apologizes to his pet mule: “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” At the castle, Daryl and Lou look over a wall to see a moat of swarming walkers.

On a rainy night in 2010, Isabelle and the pregnant Lily arrive at the Abbey of Saint Bernadette. As the nuns take them in, father Père Jean realizes that Lily was bitten. “Seven months you kept this from me? Why?” Isabelle asks her sister. Before she can reveal her child’s father, Lily screams in pain. “Remember how mama calmed us at bedtime? Alouette,” Isabelle says softly, singing the French nursery rhyme Alouette. Lily reminds her sister that she took good care of her after losing mama and papa. “Promise me you’ll look after my baby.”

At the castle, Daryl locks Lou inside a supply shed. “You’ll be safer in there. Besides, I’m better off on my own.” Daryl fastens a shovel head to a rope, fashions a makeshift grappling hook to climb across the zombie moat, and rummages through medicines inside a supply room. He comes across Hèrrison (Mile Mazè), one of the missing brothers from the school. A sniper opens fire: it’s La Tarasque. And he’s an American.

His name is RJ Gaines (Ned Dennehy) out of Giddings, Texas. He tries to defend hording stolen supplies — “We’re all of us just sticking it out long enough ’til we can get back home to the ones we love,” Gaines says. “That’s all that matters, brother.” Daryl spits back: “I ain’t your f—in’ brother.”

Herisson urges Daryl to feed his captor to the zombie moat, but Daryl wants to hand him over to Lou. “Those little psychos, they would kill me,” he begs. He’s got a wife and four kids waiting for him back home in America. “There ain’t no home, asshole,” Daryl tells him. “I been there. East Coast, Midwest, even Texas. Everybody you know back home is gone. They been gone a long time.” 

Gaines makes a move on Daryl’s rifle, sending both Americans over the edge and into the horde of walkers waiting below. As the hungry ones rip Gaines to pieces, Daryl wields the morning star he took from the abbey to fight his way through the walker swarm. Lou arrives with Moof, and with Hèrrison, they help Daryl up over the wall. “Are you still better by yourself?” she asks. Moof looks down at the moat and recognizes his zombified brother, Julien. “You lied!” he yells at Lou. She loads a bolt into her crossbow, and with trembling hands, goes to fire… but before she can, Daryl fires an arrow into Julien’s head, putting him to rest.

Daryl, Lou, Moof, and Hèrrison receive a hero’s welcome back at the school as they reunite with their “brothers.” Isabelle tells Daryl his lie worked. “Yeah, well,” he replies, “I ain’t a nun.” Sylvie reports that Madame Dubois died when they were away. Daryl confesses the medicine was never going to help, and he lied to get a horse. He offers to put down Madame before she reanimates, but Lou says she owes it to her to do it. “Merci pour tout, Madame Dubois.” Thank you for everything.

That night, the children mourn their teacher with a candlelit vigial. They wiggle their ears. Nanu nanu. When it’s time to leave, Laurent wants to stay with the other children. He’s angry that Isabelle lied about Astèrix, but relents and bids au revoir to the school children.

At the abbey, Codron (Romain Levi) finds Daryl’s tape recorder and his message: “My name is Daryl Dixon. I come from a place called the Commonwealth.It’s in America. I went out looking for something. But all I found wastrouble.” Codron finds a book with a photo of a young Laurent, and then he finds Father Jean’s map. “If I don’t make it back, I want them to know I tried. Hell, I’m still trying.”

12 years ago. Lily dies during child birth, with her sister at her side.
2022. Laurent lashes out at Isabelle for treating him like a baby. “You’re not like other children,” she reminds him. “I told you, you’re special.”
12 years ago. Isabelle mourns Lily. And then she stirs. Lily has reanimated as a walker. Father Jean says they have to deliver her child immediately.
2022. Daryl walks with Laurent alongside the wagon. “You know, no one ever called me special when I was a kid. Not in a good way, anyway,” Daryl tells him. Says Laurent, “I don’t want to be special.”
2010. The zombified Lily has been restrained as her child is delivered. It’s a boy. “It’s a miracle,” Père Jean says. The nuns hand Isabelle the baby. Father Jean prays over Lily as Isabelle leaves the room, cradling her nephew.
2022. “What makes me so special, anyway?” Laurent asks. “I want to be like the other kids.”
2010. Isabelle approaches a statue of Saint Laurent. “Bienvenue, Laurent,” she says. Welcome, Laurent.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon air Sundays on AMC and AMC+.