Justice Rebranded; Stakes Decreased.
This week’s Daryl Dixon trades ethical reckoning for performative chaos. The title guarantees frontier justice; what we get is a flaming walker catapult and a theology that folds below strain—a catapult of confusion masquerading as ethical spectacle. The Primitives arrive with all of the subtlety of a cosplay militia—torch-happy, resource-wasting, and narratively incoherent. In a world constructed on shortage, launching walkers like medieval fireworks isn’t justice. It’s conceptual nonsense.
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| “La Justicia Fronteriza” – THE WALKING DEAD DARYL DIXON, Pictured: Óscar Jaenada as Fede . Picture Credit score: Manuel Fernandez-Valdes/AMC @2025 AMC Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Season 3 desires to be a Spaghetti Western—dusty morality, lone-wolf brooding, stylized violence—however forgets that horror wants consequence. Walkers aren’t divine brokers; they’re chaos incarnate. So, when Fede (Óscar Jaenada), the supposed ethical anchor of Solaz del Mar, invokes “It’s God’s decision, not ours” then lets walkers rip a surviving Primitive aside as a substitute of ordering a dangling, it’s not restraint—it’s rhetorical sleight of hand. A dangling would’ve been brutal however legible. This? It’s homicide dressed up in ethical genuflection.
Fede’s arc may’ve explored the stress between religion and survival. As a substitute, it collapses into style drift and narrative comfort. He’s not a frontier preacher-with-a-gun—he’s a plot system in a present that’s misplaced its grip on consequence.
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| “La Justicia Fronteriza” – THE WALKING DEAD DARYL DIXON, Pictured: Hugo Arbués as Roberto. Picture Credit score: Carla Oset/AMC @2025 AMC Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Echoes of Rick and Shane, Minus the Depth.
Roberto’s (Hugo Arbues) conflict with Fede is a pale echo of Rick vs. Shane. Each duos signify survivalist pragmatism (Fede) versus ethical idealism (Roberto), however the place Rick and Shane’s battle was layered with emotional stakes and narrative readability, Roberto’s battle with Fede is murky, sophisticated by his feud with Roberto’s father, Antonio.
The present hints that it’s some sort of secret between the 2 males. Is it political? Private? Ideological? The present by no means tells us. As a substitute, we get arbitrary prohibitions and hole fallout between Justina and Roberto, that suffer for a backstory that’s by no means articulated.
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| “La Justicia Fronteriza” – THE WALKING DEAD DARYL DIXON, Pictured: Eduardo Noriega as Antonio. Picture Credit score: Carla Oset/AMC @2025 AMC Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Fede’s manipulation of the sacrificial lottery to guard Justina mirrors Shane’s ruthless pragmatism, however with out Shane’s psychological unraveling or narrative payoff. Justina’s (Candela Saitta) discovery of Fede’s betrayal ought to be an ethical breaking level—however it lands flat, as a result of the system itself is underexplored, and the emotional stakes really feel rushed.
The Primitives: A Secondhand Apocalypse
The Primitives embody chaos and destruction with out a philosophical core, participating in aesthetic violence that feels extra like spectacle than story. Distinction that with the Wolves from Season 6 of The Strolling Lifeless, whose assault reshaped Alexandria’s moral panorama and left lasting scars. Their violence had ideology. The Primitives? Simply noise.
And in a universe the place “burn-it-all-down” has already been masterfully deployed, attempting it once more with out reinvention isn’t daring—it’s redundant. You by no means get a second likelihood to make a primary impression. That was Season 6. That is simply cosplay carnage.
Flashbacks and a California Casualty
Daryl’s flashbacks stay a thriller. They lack emotional depth and fail to attach with the current narrative, stalling momentum slightly than enriching it. And Cooper (Samuel Sargent), the conveniently timed surfer-dude from California, appears like a rejected character from a YA dystopia. Dropped in as a contrived plot system, he undermines the supposed levity and any potential narrative payoff.
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| “La Justicia Fronteriza” – THE WALKING DEAD DARYL DIXON, Pictured: Samuel Sargent as Cooper, Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon. Picture Credit score: Carla Oset/AMC @2025 AMC Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Collectively, these parts expose a deeper flaw in Daryl Dixon Season 3: superficial storytelling that gestures towards that means however by no means earns it. It’s narrative window dressing on an empty storefront.
Legacy Misplaced. Stakes Flattened. Style Drift in Full Swing.
“La Justicia Fronteriza” goals to stability legacy, spectacle, and new blood—however fumbles all three. Carol (Melissa McBride) and Daryl, as soon as an emotional core of the franchise, are lowered to reactive shadows. Their arcs deserve mythic weight and mentorship, not repetition. As a substitute, the highlight falls on Justina and Roberto. This route is ok, however narratively hole. There’s no symbolic handoff, no emotional resonance, simply recycled battle.
Examine that to Lifeless Metropolis’s Maggie, whose battle for Hershel is uncooked and generational. Or Daryl’s earlier arc with Laurent, which didn’t provide redemption a lot as reveal his internal dad or mum—a reluctant mentor shaping a baby’s future in a world that devours it.
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| “La Justicia Fronteriza” – THE WALKING DEAD DARYL DIXON, Pictured: Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier, Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon. Picture Credit score Carla Oset/AMC @2025 AMC Inc. All Rights Reserved |
The franchise nonetheless has life. However it wants to decide on — honor its horror roots, elevate legacy characters, and spend money on generational storytelling. Let the previous guard turn into legends. Let the brand new era battle for that means.
In any other case, The Strolling Lifeless dangers changing into a stylized echo of itself—fairly, however as hole because the useless in Solaz del Mar
Total Ranking: 6/10
Lynette Jones
