S01.E03: Paris Sera Toujours Paris

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 09.24.2023

Quote

The group arrives in Paris, where Isabelle confronts her past while growing 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.

 

[OoohMaggie]

It should have been on 6 hours ago but is not showing on AMC+, anyone else not seeing it?

[Mr. Sparkle]

It's available here. 

[kevvoi]

Poor Isabelle, she gets to Paris only to find plot anvils in the form of the undead neighbor girl and her very much living ex. And of course the ex cheated with her sister and is the "most special" boy's father. I am surprised that they didn't throw in a little more drama with her stash of drugs - a little "will she or won't she" return to her addict behavior. I really enjoy her character though - she has been a welcome addition to the ever-expanding character list for this franchise.

I kept expecting the other nun to be red-shirted at some point - surprised that she has made it this far (and even had a nice dance with a handsome guy!).

The craziness of an undead orchestra - that guy has come up with a very strange way to cope with the apocalypse.

The Paris Commune and the Catacomb night club were two very cool and different settings to explore. Though I found the book World War Z's view that the catacombs would have quickly become infested with the dead more likely - it was one of the more harrowing stories in the book reading about the French trying to clear them out.

Daryl returns to form by causing chaos to peaceful settlements.

So how long has this trek from Marseilles actually taken the group? Even with a horse and cart, it probably would have taken months to get there - the Massif Central and the Loire River are between Marseilles and Paris. That isn't considering the side tour to the west to get to Angers first. I really think that any writer for show like Walking Dead should really have to walk from a major city a couple hundred miles to another city while camping every night in order to get a feel for what traveling by foot is actually like.  At least Daryl decided that the horse was worth keeping for this leg of the journey.

The French experiments with walkers were pretty interesting - must be looking for a way to get rid of the dead without having to shoot/spike the heads.

[maystone]

12 hours ago, OoohMaggie said:

It should have been on 6 hours ago but is not showing on AMC+, anyone else not seeing it?

Any luck? I did get to watch it earlier today; twice, as a matter of fact. But this evening there was nothing but a black space where all of my AMC+ programming was supposed to be. I hope that doesn't mean that people trying to stream regular AMC couldn't watch this week's ep b/c it was pretty good.

[Mr. Sparkle]

17 minutes ago, maystone said:

Any luck? I did get to watch it earlier today; twice, as a matter of fact. But this evening there was nothing but a black space where all of my AMC+ programming was supposed to be. I hope that doesn't mean that people trying to stream regular AMC couldn't watch this week's ep b/c it was pretty good.

It's weird because I watched it about 2 hours ago, but now the site is just spinning and not loading. Which confirms my thesis: AMC+ sucks. 

[Straycat80]

Life is sure different in Paris. They have a cool nightclub to party in. The zombie orchestra.  And the zombies falling out of the window landing in a big squish and then getting up right away. 
Interesting twist with Izzy’s ex being miracle boys father. 
Another good episode. 

[nodorothyparker]

As much trouble as I'm having imagining pre ZA Daryl being a big Doors fan, I admit I got a kick out of seeing Jim Morrison's grave randomly thrown in there with a French cover of "People of Strange." And more zombies from the sky, now with extra French acidity!

But for as goofy as we all thought the premise of "Daryl wakes up in France for reasons" was, I concede that it's making for some pretty interesting visuals. I loved the trek through the catacombs and the comment that they survived the Black Death, they'll surely survive this too. It almost sounds plausible from that perspective as I imagine this does feel more like a bad hiccup on the road of humanity than the end of the world when you're sitting in a centuries' old city that has survived some of what Paris has.

Because it's still a part of this franchise, I think we all knew we were going to see the poor little neighbor girl again but zombified. And of course Isabelle's ex was also diddling the poor hapless sister at least long enough to father the most special of specials. Because of course he was.

I still think the show could do just fine without Le Grande Face Tattoo Le Baddie. He just feels so tediously unnecessary with everything else we're seeing.

[Straycat80]

27 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

As much trouble as I'm having imagining pre ZA Daryl being a big Doors fan, I admit I got a kick out of seeing Jim Morrison's grave randomly thrown in there with a French cover of "People of Strange." And more zombies from the sky, now with extra French acidity!

I was there this past April and went to that cemetery and saw Jim Morrisons grave. I’m surprised he found it so easily, we had to look on a guide map to find it because it’s not easy to find.  I noticed in the episode that the flowers looked a little too fresh. 

[maystone]

Straycat80: I took the fresh flowers as a sign that there is still at least one JM fan alive nearby, and at least one rose garden. The title of the episode is "Paris will always be Paris" after all 😊

[heisenberg]

I liked this episode, it was solid like the others but...

I'd rather listen "Le bolero de Ravel" with Bo Derek in mind instead of that rotten orchestra.😆

 

[theredhead77]

3 hours ago, Superclam said:

It's weird because I watched it about 2 hours ago, but now the site is just spinning and not loading. Which confirms my thesis: AMC+ sucks. 

Regular AMC app was doing that too. I was finally able to watch the live version via the regular AMC app. I'm glad it wasn't just me having issues 

[Ms Lark]

11 hours ago, kevvoi said:

Daryl returns to form by causing chaos to peaceful settlements.

Where Daryl goes, chaos follows! Daryl doesn't have a cultural bone in his body. He's all lead with the fists and never explain. e.g., "I didn't kill your brother. The girl did." but noooo. Just destroy everything.

3 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

I still think the show could do just fine without Le Grande Face Tattoo Le Baddie. He just feels so tediously unnecessary with everything else we're seeing.

I agree, but Daryl gots to have someone to punch!

1 hour ago, heisenberg said:

I'd rather listen "Le bolero de Ravel" with Bo Derek in mind instead of that rotten orchestra.😆

Hah! I'll take the orchestra over BD any day. At least it was very creative!

I'm still enjoying this spinoff much more than all the others, especially Maggie and Negan in NYC (just kill the bastard already) which was unwatchable.

[OoohMaggie]

9 hours ago, maystone said:

Any luck?

Yes eventually but it's very strange, there was no problem with the AMC+ site, everything else on it was working, episodes 1&2 were available to watch but 3 just wasn't on the page. I signed in and out several times, changed VPN location within the US, eventually I tried refreshing the page and after the sixth time Ep3 appeared out of nowhere. 

It did happen last week but I didn't think much of it, ill try the refreshing next week if the same thing happens again 🤫

[OoohMaggie]

Well I'm glad I just watched it again, the first viewing left me feeling a little Meh and disappointed, probably due to being fkd about by AMC+😡

That was a much more enjoyable watch, I adored the Nutty Professor and his raggedy assed Orchestra, I loved the drummer who was keeping that cymbal in perfect time.

The nightclub was a hoot and why wouldn't there be one? there's more to surviving than growing vegetables.

The visuals were once again top notch, the story is progressing nicely and I suppose we need tattoo guy to inject the required level of threat and danger.

No mention of how everyone seems to have electricity, no Methane here.

The falling Walkers were reminiscent of other franchises, it'll be interesting to see where they take it.

Altogether another good, enjoyable episode, 3 from 3, that's the first time since season what????????

[OoohMaggie]

17 hours ago, kevvoi said:

Daryl returns to form by causing chaos to peaceful settlements.

But at least the Horse made it for once 🐴 👏

[OoohMaggie]

That look 😂

[iMonrey]

This show is definitely an improvement over other TWD spinoffs, and this episode was pretty good. But it's still got the same problems that have been plaguing this franchise since around Season 7.

Quote

Codron seeks help from the leader of a growing nationalist movement called Pouvoir, putting the Union of Hope and Laurent under dangerous scrutiny.

See, this is the part I'm not following. Tattoo Face was part of some local thuggery back at the Abbey, now we hear he was apparently inducted by this nationalist group, but he shows up and the leader lady doesn't know him. Still he gets a group of goons together to raid the club and hunt for Daryl because Pouvoir Leader Lady is after Daryl too. Because? We don't know yet, it has something to do with the ship that brought him partway to France, maybe? Wasn't Leader Lady on a ship last time we saw her?

On top of this we have yet another community, apparently called the Union of Hope? And they have an underground nightclub? 

There's just too much going on here that the story doesn't need. I don't know why the writers think the story needs to be so ambitious in size and cast. Millions and millions of people watched TWD when it was a smaller story with a smaller cast, and millions and millions of people deserted the show the bigger it got. Pitting communities against communities isn't the type of show that made TWD a success. 

[kevvoi]

I also don't think there are enough walkers being shown on this show - if Laurent's calculations of 60 million people before the fall down to ~200,000 living people, then there should be 58.8 million walkers (and that isn't considering the additional walkers of tourists, NATO and EU people, business people etc. that would have been in France as well).

Now if Genet (I think that was what the group that  Le Grande Face Tattoo Le Baddie joined in the episode is called - I have been calling him Soccer Hooligan, because he reminds me of a French Vinnie Jones) is really that efficient at clearing the walkers out, then I guess sign me up for some proto-fascism during the Apocalypse.

[heisenberg]

12 hours ago, OoohMaggie said:

I adored the Nutty Professor and his raggedy assed Orchestra, I loved the drummer who was keeping that cymbal in perfect time.

I did not mind the orchestra but the professor reminded me of someone that I once knew (a crazy pianist) and I was feeling pretty unconfortable going back there.😄

[theredhead77]

I didn't catch what they were doing with the walkers in the lab but I recall World Beyond working with walkers in a lab and I feel like there were parts of it that took place in France? I don't mind the lack of walker action. We know they are there, and a threat. It doesn't need to be all walkers all the time.

Overall I'm really enjoying this series, the scenery, the new characters, and even the villain. Every series needs a villain who is going to villain and I want to know how and why Darryl ended up on that boat.

I loved the circus. Leave it to Paris to keep the arts alive. Except for the nutty professor and his horrifying orchestra. That was disturbing.  I couldn't tell if Isabell's ex was actually Laurent's father or if he was being cruel because he's a dick (or because she left him behind). I do see him becoming another villain and he is 100% going after Laurent. I'm fine with kids on these shows but I really don't need a season of kids in peril or Darryl and crew being chased by Isabell's ex. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by theredhead77

[iMonrey]

12 hours ago, theredhead77 said:

Overall I'm really enjoying this series, the scenery, the new characters, and even the villain. Every series needs a villain who is going to villain and I want to know how and why Darryl ended up on that boat.

I would argue that a story can have a protagonist who isn't a cartoon. Someone the audience can possibly relate to and who is shades of grey rather than two dimensional. That's been a chronic problem on TWD for too long. The Big Bads get sillier and sillier. 

And honestly, this story has enough potential on its own without falling into the same lazy tropes that have become a staple of this franchise. The nationalist group Pouvoir, the community called the Union of Hope, the tattoo-faced bad guy chasing after Daryl cuz "you killed my brother!" are just all unnecessary distractions from a simpler, viable story about a group of people trying to get from point A to point B.

[OoohMaggie]

20 hours ago, kevvoi said:

I also don't think there are enough walkers being shown on this show

Realistically there are way too many Walkers being shown, especially after 12 years, the show has historically completely ignored the effects that nature would have made upon animated dead things, from rats that would have thrived gorging themselves upon the slow moving corpses, to flies that would have laid so many eggs that resulted in so many maggots that would have consumed so much dead flesh that the Walkers couldn't possibly maintain an upright form.

I suppose it's a question as to where we as individuals draw that certain line of believability, we all have to "suck it up" and accept it at one point or another 😱

[nodorothyparker]

The number of walkers we've seen on this show hasn't really struck me as off either way. I think we, or maybe it was just me talking to myself, talked about this a bit during the Dead City run. In the show's early seasons and especially on Fear you could really tell when they were trying to save a buck because the walkers would be few and far between. And to some degree, it made sense because they were mostly circling sparsely populated areas. One of the things I thought Dead City did right was give an almost claustrophobic sense of what it would look like for a population the size of NYC's trapped on an island in a worsening zombie virus. The walkers were just everywhere. Our characters could barely move or make a sound without being swarmed.  

Paris wasn't as bad but we did get a bit of sense of that with more zombies falling from the sky and the acidic zombies swarming the garden. And to be fair, the showrunners have to know the scenery is a big part of the draw of this show. If they'd packed every scene to the point that we couldn't see anything of the city, we'd be complaining too.

[tennisgurl]

I don't know what Daryl was talking about when he said that going to the orchestra was a bad stop, I'm obsessed with this crazy old professor and his zombie band, I was to know everything about them and buy season tickets. 

Another good episode, who would have guessed? Leave it to Paris to keep the party going even after the ZA, I can understand what the guy was saying about how Paris has survived so much in its literally thousands of years that they will make it through this one too. For a city that has survived so many plagues, political turmoil, revolutions, everyone from Attila the Hun to Hitler, I can see why this just seems like another chapter of their history. Loved the underground club, why not have some fun even with zombies run amuck? 

I guess I should have seen Isabelle's ex being the father coming, but I was still surprised. What a slimeball, he doesn't deserve a club/circus that cool. 

The French version of People Are Strange and Jim Morrisons grave were awesomely random, I know that getting Daryl of all people to France has been a pretty contrived journey, but the change in location really has done a lot for the show.

My only real beef with the show right now are the bad guys, who are pretty generic besides their zombie experiments, which are at least pretty interesting. I know that we need someone to keep the tension up and give us some action, especially as most of the communities we've met have been pretty friendly, but they are definitely giving me some of those generic bad guy vibes that became so common in TWD.

[rmontro]

On 9/24/2023 at 3:16 PM, kevvoi said:

Poor Isabelle, she gets to Paris only to find plot anvils in the form of the undead neighbor girl and her very much living ex. And of course the ex cheated with her sister and is the "most special" boy's father. I am surprised that they didn't throw in a little more drama with her stash of drugs - a little "will she or won't she" return to her addict behavior. I really enjoy her character though - she has been a welcome addition to the ever-expanding character list for this franchise.

Now that you mention it, Isabelle is one of the more likeable new characters I can remember in recent years.  Laurent's okay too.

 

8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I don't know what Daryl was talking about when he said that going to the orchestra was a bad stop, I'm obsessed with this crazy old professor and his zombie band, I was to know everything about them and buy season tickets. 

I couldn't figure out how the zombie knew how to hit his cymbal on time.  Maybe they still have some sense of rhythm alive in there somewhere.  I agree seeing Jim Morrison's grave was a nice addition.  So we know that from a pop culture standpoint, Daryl is familiar with Mork and Mindy and The Doors.

 

8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

My only real beef with the show right now are the bad guys, who are pretty generic besides their zombie experiments, which are at least pretty interesting.

I was just thinking it's too bad they didn't surprise us and kill off tattoo face in this episode, and we wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.  I guess the lady running the shipping company is the real big bad though.

Edited September 28, 2023 by rmontro

[BasilSeal]

On 9/26/2023 at 4:32 PM, iMonrey said:

The nationalist group Pouvoir, the community called the Union of Hope, the tattoo-faced bad guy chasing after Daryl cuz "you killed my brother!" are just all unnecessary distractions from a simpler, viable story about a group of people trying to get from point A to point B.

I don't know.

It all depends how these aspects are developed. I would suspect that the Daryl story isn't intended to stand alone it will presumably fit in with the wider story ark, so far hinted at in the world Beyond and latter TWD original seasons, but likely to be central to the Rick and Michonne spin off.

Presumably when Daryl says he went out looking for something, he actually means Rick.

I suspect the 'bigger picture' plot here relates to the CRM and their obsession with experimenting to find a cure, this was set up in The World Beyond spin off. and we've already seen experiments on walkers in this series.

There's a clear theme emerging of 'A new World Order', an attempt to bring order to the chaos of the broken world. this is an extra theme that  is separate to the comic and seems to be intended to perpetuate the  story beyond the point at which the comics stopped.

this wider theme has the potential to be interesting, the idea of an attempt to rebuild civilisation, and the moral compromises needed to achieve this. Clearly Daryl's journey, hoe he got to France and the reasoning behind it are critical, the question is will they be revealed in this series or are they intended to be part of another part of the franchise?

to conclude i don't mid the more complex plots as long as they are competently executed, traditionally TWD has not done complex plots well, but in the case of That Daryl Show, it's so far so good. They can get it right and up to now they have, so i'm going to cut them some slack and hope they can keep up the good work.

[millennium]

All I want from this stop in Paris is to see one walker wearing a beret.

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, millennium said:

All I want from this stop in Paris is to see one walker wearing a beret.

And one of those striped shirts that TV tells me all French people wear. 

[Jackie14]