After only two episodes, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has already overused a story trope, conveniently explaining away expected language barriers.
SUMMARY
- The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon spinoff is already relying on a convenient trope of French characters speaking English to move the story forward.
- The show explains away Daryl's lack of French language skills by attributing it to various factors like Maribelle's switch to fluent English and Isabelle's parents' extensive traveling.
- This language problem is expected to worsen as the show progresses, and the phrase "You speak English?" may become a common line on the show.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is centralized to a new, overseas location for The Walking Dead franchise, but after only two episodes, it has already overused a convenient trope. The Walking Dead has numerous tropes, like the "Don't Open, Dead Inside" sign in the main show, Daryl Dixon, and The Walking Dead: Dead City. However, Daryl Dixon's new locale in France and his separation from beloved characters offer more space for new plot mechanisms and a deeper dive into how Daryl is without the people he cares about.
Although the show has included and teased many new things, such as the acid zombies or "killer nuns," it's already repeating story tropes, like the Codron and Josiah villain parallels in Daryl Dixon and Fear: The Walking Dead, respectively. While the breaches new ground by introducing numerous new Daryl Dixon characters and religion-influenced storylines, it also brushes past an expected challenge for Daryl, namely his lack of French skills. Already, there are multiple instances where Daryl's monolingualism is excused for the sake of story progression.
What Are Burners? Walking Dead's New Zombie Type Explained
Even though Daryl Dixon is the first Walking Dead spinoff Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes in 5 years, indicating its quality, the convenient English eloquence of French characters is quickly becoming a story crutch. In the pilot, there are already three instances where the French characters speaking English are explained away. Daryl encounters thieves, Maribelle, and her grandfather, and when he confesses he doesn't understand what Maribelle says, she switches to fluent English. Laurent's English is strong, most likely due to his aptitude for knowledge, including math, science, and geography, and Isabelle attributes her fluency to her parents' traveling a lot.
The second episode also uses this language trope, so the plot can move forward. When Daryl, Laurent, and Isabelle encounter a group of children, their leader, Lou, addresses them in French, to which Isabelle replies, sparking a conversation. When Isabelle clarifies that Daryl can't speak English since he's American, Lou instructs her group to "practice English out of respect for Father Daryl.", which they learn through watching the American sitcom, Mork & Mindy. Later, Daryl finds one of the children, Hérisson, anglicizes his name, and announces he can't speak French, to which the boy replies, "You speak English?" This continues even when Daryl conveniently meets RJ Gaines, an American.
Daryl Dixon's Language Problem Was Inevitable (& Will Get Worse)
Despite the franchise's predominant American-focused zombie apocalypse, there have been instances of non-English speaking. In The Walking Dead: World Beyond's finale, only one scene takes place in France, and, therefore, all dialogue from French scientists present is in French. In Fear: The Walking Dead, there are a number of Spanish characters. This spinoff leaned into it with almost an entirely Spanish-speaking episode when focusing on one of the main characters, Daniel Salazar.
On the other hand, Daryl is American and the titular lead, making it inevitable that other characters that he meets will in some way or another be able to speak English to progress his story. Despite being on their turf, his importance in his own spinoff will overrule any need to quash this language trope. While The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon's global scale can help the franchise by confirming The Walking Dead's teased zombie outbreak timeline, the convenient language problem will most likely get worse, and "You speak English?" may become the show's most common line.
Post a Comment