S02.E04: The Book of Carol: Le Paradis Pour Toi

[Mr. Sparkle]

All hope feels lost amidst Genet's attack on the Nest.

Sunday, October 20 on AMC and AMC+

 

[Morrigan2575]

So, Isabelle wasn't bitten, they were just telegraphing her death in the next episode. I'm rather disappointed they went in that direction.

I should have figured the old man would sell them out given his talk about selling cars. I do like the dichonomy we're seeing with the characters. DeDe was La Resistance, while her boyfriend was Vichy France.  Genet was a nihilist while Losang is a true believer.  I wish they had time to go a little deeper with the parallels but, I guess with such a short season it's full steam ahead.

I liked the fight sequences and the reunion, I'm always down for Daryl/Carol time. Glad Genet met such a gruesome end. Guess the last 2 episodes will be all about finding Laurent and getting him to safety.  I'd actually like to see him with Judith and RJ and Gracie.

Whenever/However this show ends, I want a Daryl/Carol/Rick reunion: the last of Camp Dinnerbell.

 

Edited October 21 by Morrigan2575

[Boofish]

I loved loved loved seeing Daryl and Carol survive together. 

I like these short seasons because they just kill everyone in the way although I guess I'm the only one that didn't see the death of Isabelle coming. I liked her and Sylvie.

[Jaundiced Eye]

Damn, these Genet zombies are LIGHTNING fast.

[Brown44]

3 of 7 maincast Sylvie, Isabelle and Genet died very unceremoniously that it didn't seem that big, it felt like co-stars that's been in a few episodes died not main character members. 

And them shooting at Carol driving and not hitting her or the guy is some of the worst shooting the show could do. And once again DD and Carol get's people peacefully living there lives killed.

Edited October 21 by Brown44

[tv echo]

Carol's plot armor was strong in this episode.

Edited October 21 by tv echo

[Lambsilencer]

Well, I called this the moment the announcement was made that Melissa McBride would be joining the series. From this moment on, it was clear to me that Isabelle would not survive the second season. I don’t think this show is interested in a potential love triangle with Daryl. If Carol wouldn’t have gotten to be part of the show, Isabelle would have been a potential love interest for Daryl to show that even though Carol is the love of his life, he would eventually move on to someone else in her absence. But once it was clear that Carol would reunite with Daryl (absolutely beautiful reunion moment, BTW), Isabelle was no longer “needed”, and basically “in the way”. And so now, her death could be used to give Daryl some more pain and time to brood for a while.
Too bad for Clémence Poésy, who I think is a beautiful, great actress with a lot of soul and was a fine addition to this cast. But in this current scenario, there’s really just no more room for her. Of course one could have found ways, even interesting ones, to keep her around, But in this universe, where so many characters meet an untimely demise, I figured that this would be the way this situation would be handled. Too bad.

[iMonrey]

So many things wrongs with this, I hardly know where to begin.

Gotta laugh at the way the characters flip back and forth between English and French. When Losang was interrogating Isabelle, everyone was speaking French at the start of the scene, which makes sense considering everyone in the room is French. Then for some inexplicable reason, they start speaking in English. Same when Genet confronted Losang. Why were they speaking in English to each other? They are both French. I guess the show doesn't want entire scenes in French with subtitles, but then maybe don't set your story in France. With French characters.

Carol and Daryl are hiding in a shitty, broken down old car while a mere two soldiers from the Guerrier show up. Why didn't they just kill them and take their tricked out jeep? They've already mowed down about 100 people by now, and at least a couple dozen in the previous scenes alone. Suddenly they're worried about two lousy soldiers?

How did Carol and Daryl even get out of the Nest? The place was swarming with Guerrier soldiers and Genet but somehow they just managed to walk out of there with nobody noticing.

So Laurent wasn't in the cave where Daryl expected to find him, but Daryl figured "he must have gone in this direction." Huh? Why? Daryl has no idea what happened to him or why he left or where he went but of course he will find him easily. Just as easily as Carol found Daryl. The writers must think France is very small.

I also love how in the midst of an attack on the Nest by the Guerrier with Carol and Daryl fighting their way through attack after attack, Isabelle manages to find a nice quiet place to die where she and Daryl can share a teary goodbye. Nice of the soldiers to back off for a minute.

Now that Carol and Daryl have reunited, does anyone really care about the Guerrier or the Nest? Or even about Laurent for that matter? I don't. Go back to the plane and go home. It looks like Carol doesn't even know Rick and Michonne came back. When is this supposed to be taking place?

I did get a kick out of Theo and Didi's zombie village. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

19 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

So Laurent wasn't in the cave where Daryl expected to find him, but Daryl figured "he must have gone in this direction." Huh? Why? Daryl has no idea what happened to him or why he left or where he went but of course he will find him easily.

Did you forget Daryl has magical "tracking" skills? It only comes up when it's important to the plot, but still. 

[Sailorgirl26]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

The writers must think France is very small.

Well, France does fit inside the state of Texas, so.....

(Not saying Texas is small, just saying France is smaller than Texas. And that I look for every opportunity to share this random fact.) 

[Morrigan2575]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Same when Genet confronted Losang. Why were they speaking in English to each other? They are both French. I guess the show doesn't want entire scenes in French with subtitles, but then maybe don't set your story in France. With French characters.

Is Losang French? I always assumed he was an immigrant to France since the actor doesn't have an accent when speaking English. Other than that, yeah I think the reason is they don't want entire scenes in French with subtitles. I don't mind but, I know many can't be bothered with subtitles.

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

So Laurent wasn't in the cave where Daryl expected to find him, but Daryl figured "he must have gone in this direction." Huh? Why? Daryl has no idea what happened to him or why he left or where he went but of course he will find him easily. Just as easily as Carol found Daryl. The writers must think France is very small.

I thought Daryl said that Laurent has friends in Paris so he assumed he went in that direction. Also I think Mont Saint-Michel has like 1 road in/out when the tide is low. Figured there was a definite route in mind.

But, yeah it's probably Daryl's magical tracking ability 

[nodorothyparker]

I knew Isabelle was dead woman walking the moment they announced Carol would be joining the series after all. The franchise clearly doesn't want to pair Carol and Daryl off with each other like that, which is fine, but won't let either of them truly pair off with anyone else either. And no, Carol's marriage to Ezekiel of the pretty eyes doesn't really count because it happened almost entirely off screen and when they went their separate ways after the time skip he almost immediately zeroed in on Daryl as the third wheel of their marriage, even if he wasn't the cause of the breakup. Daryl's one and only confirmed relationship happened entirely in flashback after the mother show went to some pains to establish that she was Very Very Bad.

It's a shame. Isabelle was an interesting character and Clémence Poésy a lovely actress. But what was almost worse was how deeply emotionally manipulative the whole thing felt. She died just as Carol finally joined the main storyline and then the writing seemed afraid to not throw longtime shippers a bone with Didi mistaking Carol for Isabelle and waxing about how "Laurent" knew they were in love with each other. So much of that dialogue could have legitimately applied to Carol if you didn't know you were supposed to know differently.  But for all of that, it was like Isabelle ceased to matter at all as Carol immediately set to yanking every available heartstring to remind Daryl of what was waiting for him on the other side of the Atlantic, how could you have gotten sucked into caring about any of these people at all?

It's weird. I love Carol. She's long been one of my favorite TV characters and I'm genuinely happy to have her back on my TV. But I also strongly suspected that bringing her onto this show's canvas would absolutely destroy what was so refreshingly different about it. And I wasn't wrong about that.

Elsewhere, Losang makes even less sense after all this. What is the motivation now? The two sides of the fight that saw amped zombies thrown at people after punching holes in their walls shrugging and deciding to team up is also a big headscratcher.  Might it have been worth even 30 seconds of asking what they stood to gain in joining the hunt for Le Kid Jesus? What has been the point of any of this, really?

Theo and Didi's neighborhood was a hoot. I've really loved this show's use of French history to offer shading on how the ZA is different there than America. If you live long enough you're going to see various armies come through. Sell what you can to live another day. But if you're going to get pissed off at being called a Nazi, maybe don't be machine gunning panicky people in the woods.

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, nodorothyparker said:

Might it have been worth even 30 seconds of asking what they stood to gain in joining the hunt for Le Kid Jesus? What has been the point of any of this, really?

I legitimately forgot - why was Genet and the gang after Laurent and the Nest? What did they want with them except maybe getting revenge on Daryl? 

Edited October 22 by Mr. Sparkle

[Starchild]

I think Genet had a beef against organized religion and the harm it's caused to society, though I can't quite recall why. Since Losang seemed to be building a religion around Laurent, she wanted to wipe it out.

The real question is what is going on with Genet's lieutenant combining forces with Losang. Presumably Genet's followers felt similarly to her, but Losang is still driven by religion it seems, so why are they joining forces? Maybe they didn't feel as strongly anti-religion as Genet, just followed her for the security. I don't know.

[iMonrey]

16 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

But if you're going to get pissed off at being called a Nazi, maybe don't be machine gunning panicky people in the woods.

Carol must have the strongest plot armor in the world. First they shoot all these people and she somehow manages to be the only one out of 30 or so people to avoid getting shot. Then the soldiers start tranq-shooting the dead to amp them up and when one of the hypos hits Carol, you can see that the plunger isn't even pushed down and she just pulls it out and flicks it away. Then gets up and runs to a nearby buggy and nobody can stop her and she drives away.

OK then.

[Morrigan2575]

Oh I forgot one really great scene, besides the walk through Zombie Village.

When the scared guy is running from super zombies and he gets into the prison area and Daryl is just sitting there with his head down and then pulls the cuffed arm out. 

That was very cool, IMO

[iarwain]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Carol must have the strongest plot armor in the world. First they shoot all these people and she somehow manages to be the only one out of 30 or so people to avoid getting shot.

I might be wrong about this, but my impression was the people in the crowd were volunteers to get killed for the greater good to become super weapons, so they were all willing to be shot.  Carol, on the other hand, was actively hiding behind a bigger guy, using him as a shield.  But yeah, you got a point.

Two more episodes to go.  Seems like there should just be one.  Guess they're dragging it out a little longer.  I wonder if this is the end of the series, or if there will be another where they go back home?

[Starchild]

3 hours ago, iarwain said:

Carol, on the other hand, was actively hiding behind a bigger guy, using him as a shield

I lol'd while she slinked backwards.

[Iguessnot]

I'm going along for the ride, but I missed how purposely creating super walkers is an asset. They weren't obedient to Genet and her regime hasn't demonstrated anything new methods of killing these super walkers.  

Even if Larent is special, how does that benefit anyone else? Zombify birthing women and then have childless cat ladies take care of the offspring? Push a few of said offspring off a cliff to see if they don't come back? This doesn't cure anyone living and I don't imagine many women would sign up for this one and done assignment.