The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon dealt a cruel blow to both its title character and its audience in Sunday’s “La Paradis Pour Toi” (recapped here). Instead of getting to return to the Commonwealth with the traveling companion who had become so much more to her, Sister Isabelle was killed.
“I was really sad to see [Clémence Poésy] go, because I really liked her,” Norman Reedus tells TVLine. “She brought a certain quality to the show that was very valuable. She’s a great actress and has really good ideas. I watched her go from Episode 1 to where she went in this season, and her character changed so much. Isabelle was great.”
Moving forward, Daryl’s grief will have to take a back burner, at least at first, to the task at hand: ensuring that Isabelle’s nephew Laurent isn’t sacrificed by crackpots Losang and Jacinta as a messiah. “There are so many different levels of what the f—k, like back-to-back-to-back-to-back, in a short period of time,” Reedus marvels. Grifter-turned-nun Isabelle’s “whole mission is about Laurent and protecting this child, so that has a lot to do with Daryl wanting to make sure that he’s safe.”
In a way, the actor suggests, it’s a relief to his on-screen counterpart to be distracted from his loss by the urgency of locating the boy. But “there are certain things that need to be processed as soon as we get out of here, or as soon as this fight is over and we’re safe.” As if “safe” is really attainable in the world of The Walking Dead. Even Reedus admits that once Daryl and Carol are out of one tight spot, “other things start happening… ”
