(Spoilers from The Walking Dead shows, including Fear The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, will be found below.)
Daryl Dixon devotees have been hoping that Carol/Melissa McBride would make an appearance on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, and this has been a long and winding road, y’all. This spinoff was actually conceived as a Daryl-and-Carol road trip of sorts, and then McBride dropped out of the project, possibly due to the pandemic, although the reason really isn’t too relevant.
What is more important is that Norman Reedus later began suggesting that Carol could surface after all, although no one could possibly conceive of how she could mysteriously wash ashore in France, too. Then a paparazzo caught the two actors on (a) set together, which seemed to solidify the deal (that these two would ride together again). Well, some Carol did in fact happen on this week’s Daryl Dixon episode. However, we did not see Melissa McBride; we only heard her voice when Daryl called her on the radio.
Comic Book posted the transcript of their conversation, which includes Daryl’s promise to return home in around a week, and of course, he never showed up because he ended up taking a salty ocean bath. However, the end of the conversation included Carol cutting to static while telling Daryl that someone or something “came back.” The conversation cuts out completely, and we never find out who Carol is discussing.
My initial gut feeling was that this person can’t be too important because Carol didn’t mention this person right away while talking to Daryl, although I could be wrong. And the possibilities would seem to include Rick and/or Michonne along with either Dwight or Morgan returning from Fear The Walking Dead. Actually, Dwight does not seem like a possibility because Daryl threatened to kill him if he ever showed his face again. It seems as though the franchise would want to wait on official Rick Grimes return news until his spinoff with Michonne, and I doubt that she would return without him.
So that leaves Morgan, perhaps? Or Dog. I hope it’s Dog. Yet Morgan did leave all that PADRE sh*t behind midseason in FTWD to head back home, after which the timelines should intersect. Could we get a clue or some confirmation? Showrunner David Zabel told Entertainment Weekly that this was an “important” tidbit, although perhaps not in the way that people suspect:
“Well, it is important to what her ongoing story may be, and it is important in terms of what we were thinking is going on in Carol’s world at that moment. It’s also not what the audience expects or anticipates, if they’re anticipating something. So it will ultimately prove to be surprising. But that’s all based on the idea that we’re going to play out that story.”
Hmm. This person would be important to Carol, which doesn’t seem to point toward Morgan, although it could be him since Carol isn’t a fan of the guy, and she could have pushed that news out of the forefront at her mind, hence the offhanded mention. Obviously, Sophia is not back in super-walker form or anything like that. Could Ezekiel’s cancer “be back”? Actually, they’re not together anymore. Or perhaps they got back together. Who knows! Yet Zabel promises that this answer will be revealed. Perhaps for next week’s season finale? Only time will tell.
AMC’s The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon airs on Sunday nights.