Welcome back Multiversity readers to another recap for episode four of TWD: Daryl Dixon. Last week’s episode ended with Daryl falling through the roof right in the middle of a sneak attack on the camp. Laurent ran away right when it all started so with everyone separated who knows what will happen or will survive. So let’s jump right into, “La Dame De Fer.”
1. Genet’s Goal
Now at this point in the show, we know that Genet is after Daryl for not only escaping her clutches but also messing up her experiments. The day after the attack on the base, Daryl and Isabelle were staying at her soldiers are interrogating the people left behind to get information on “The American” but end up finding out about Laurent, which makes her ears perk up. Genet has also heard the lore of his birth and how he is supposed to be “The Chosen One” to help end this zombie apocalypse and lead the world into a new place. Although her belief in the legend isn’t there, she knows that if she can kill Laurent, she can take away the hope of all the people and have them follow her instead. This tactic proves that she’s not only a tactician regarding armies and attacks, but she wants to break the spirit of anyone outside her grasp, leaving them no other choice.
2. Trouble At The Tower
Daryl and Isabelle meet at her old apartment, neither with Laurent, so they need to not only find him but find a way out of Paris. After some quick apologies for the back and forth in the last episode regarding the Quinn situation, Daryl realizes where Laurent could be at the Eiffel Tower. Before they reached Paris, that was one thing that he kept mentioning, and after finding the picture of his mom with the tower in the back, it would be somewhere he’d feel somewhat safe. The only problem is that there are zombies in the world now, and after they get a glimpse of him behind a barrier, they work together to knock over the sandbag wall and swarm him. Daryl and Isabelle get there just in time to help get through a line of zombies, but right as they get closer to him, another couple of soldiers drag him out of a hiding spot and throw him into a car. Daryl manages to get ahold of one of the soldiers rather than just kill him, the two realize they need him alive to get more information.
3. A Business Man
The lack of armor and weapons on the soldier who took Laurent will tell you right away it wasn’t from Genet’s army, so that leaves one other person, Quinn. Once whispers of Genet going after the kid make their way to Quinn, he realizes he can use it to his advantage. Quinn calls for a one-on-one meeting with Genet to make a deal; he barters a deal that would give him one of her Monet paintings in exchange for Daryl. Quinn’s girlfriend quickly reminds him that one: he could have gotten a much better deal, two, he doesn’t have Daryl, and three, Quinn didn’t even mention the kid (that’s just hiding out in the backroom). Then it all comes together; Quinn’s plan was never to barter using the kid; it was to draw in Isabelle to stay and be with him again like before the world went to hell. As for Daryl, he knows that they’ll come to him, so he just needs to stay ready. Another slimy moment for Quinn to be reminded that as much as of a “good guy” he thinks he is, it’s just one deal after another for his own selfish benefits.
4. Operation Laurent
Using a tortured soldier’s intel about Quinn’s base of operations Daryl and the soldiers from the previous episode work together to get Laurent out in one piece. The soldiers distract Quinn’s men at the front entrance with a shoot-out and molotov cocktails while Daryl and the wounded soldier go through the back of the hideout to get Laurent. It all seems to be going well until Daryl finds Laurent in the backroom being guarded by Quinn’s new girlfriend, there’s a bit of a stand-off moment but she lets them go. Although she clearly has strong feelings for Quinn and all that he’s built she knows that if Laurent stays it will only be a matter of time before Isabelle comes into the picture. Quinn nearly stops Daryl but he fights as well as you’d imagine for a shady nightclub owner, he gets a few good licks in but Daryl knocks him out instead of putting a knife through his brain. Luckily other than one of the soldiers gets a fleshwound in his leg it all seems to go to plan and Laurent can make his way to The Nest.
5. Final Play
In the final moments of the episode I expected some retaliation attack from Genet’s soldiers or maybe one last hoorah from Quinn but instead it came from Isabelle. Once Laurent and Daryl got the go-ahead to go on the boat to The Nest she broke the news she had to stay in Paris to keep Quinn from going after them. She knew all along that his goal was to get to her once she got back on his radar and he has the resources to not only get them out of Paris but to keep them in. It sucks because Quinn is getting his win despite losing on every other level, but Daryl understands the mission at hand for Laurent. Isabelle even apologizes for drawing him into this whole crazy thing instead of finding a way back home, but he’s starting to realize he may in the place he was needed all along.
