Daryl Dixon director Daniel Percival talks about the hallucinations in the season finale

Our friends at Winter is Coming had a sit-down with The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season finale director Daniel Percival. The interview is in-depth and breaks down the key elements featured in the last episode of the season, "Au Revoir Les Enfants," which sets things up for the third. You can read the entire interview at the link below.

The action-packed final episode of season 2 of the Daryl Dixon spinoff was directed by Daniel Percival, who also directed the second and fifth episodes this season, as well as four from the debut season. The finale was an incredible hour of this series, featuring a wide range of emotions and excellent story development.

In this episode, viewers see that Ash (Manish Dayal) and Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) escaped France via Ash's plane: their destination, the Commonwealth. Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) opted to stay in France with his newfound love, Akila (Soraya Hachoumi). This story also took viewers on a crazy journey through the Chunnel.

Codron (Romain Levi), Daryl (Norman Reedus), and Carol (Melissa McBride) survived incredible hallucinations brought about by massive quantities of guano (bat feces). This sequence of events was incredible to view and dealt with each character's emotional baggage.

In the interview with WiC, Percival shared more about the filming of these scenes, which focused on significant events in each character's life. Carol had been dealing with PTSD from her daughter Sophia's death, which occurred in season 2 of The Walking Dead. Daryl recently suffered the loss of Isabelle (‎Clémence Poésy) but had avoided mourning his loss. Codron had been haunted by the death of his brother Michel (Paul Deby) in season 1 of this series.

Each character experienced a personal journey via the hallucinations. Percival wanted each characters scenes to look different to fit what they were experiencing. This was accomplished during filming using the lens and cameras instead of post production effects.

"Codron’s hallucinations involved a lens shudder, a vibration like the aftershock of a punch, which requires a lens that sits in a small cradle of springs.

Daryl’s were warped and distorted. For this we used specially molded sheets of plexiglass that you hold directly in front of the lens (which we first used for his hallucinations in Ep 1 season 1).

For Carol, we used something affectionately called a 'lens baby', which works like an old style bellows lens. Where getting the point of focus requires moving the lens forward and backwards. The effect is a very shallow depth of field with moving points of focus."

- Daniel Percival

Don't miss the entire interview with Daniel Percival via Winter is Coming.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 will begin shortly after Daryl and Carol arrive in England via the Chunnel. Showrunner David Zabel has shared that the first episode will feature newly cast Stephen Merchant, who plays "a very interesting character." They will also make an "interesting stop" before heading to Spain, where the third season is filmed and set.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon returns to AMC and AMC+ exclusively in 2025.

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