The Walking Dead devotees know that Norman Reedus’ fan favorite character didn’t appear in Robert Kirkman’s comics. Yet in a wonderful turn of fate, the Daryl Dixon spinoff turned out to be the most slam-dunk spin off of the current bunch and the most fast-tracked offshoot for a second season. That incongruity isn’t something that fans question (although Redditors do love to joke that Daryl was a do-nothing comic book character) because Reedus’ presence is indisputably part of the entire franchise’s enduring appeal.
Can you imagine how The Walking Dead could have existed so long if first-season showrunner Frank Darabont hadn’t created Daryl with Norman Reedus in mind? The pivotal “Cherokee Rose” moment — the backbone for the franchise’s most important friendship — would never have existed. Nobody would have whipped out a rocket launcher at Negan’s crew or calmly led a horde astray with a bike ride. And nobody else would have actually looked like they realistically existed (like Daryl) in a post-apocalyptic, walker-ridden world. And would Carol have believably pulled off her Terminus rescue mission if not for finding her true self, arguably as a result of growing alongside Daryl?
I don’t want to know the answer to that question, but indisputably, Daryl turned out to be The Walking Dead‘s indispensable, crossbow-wielding softie and the only character who could have washed ashore in France and had the audience thinking, well okay, let’s do this. With that said, the second season is coming, so let’s talk about viewers can expect.
Plot
A certainty: Reedus’ teeth from The Bikeriders will not carry over into The Walking Dead universe. As viewers will recall (and on a more serious note), Daryl spent the first season of his spin off helping Isabelle and Laurent reach The Nest, and then he was provided with safe passage back stateside. However, the final moments of the season finale showed that Laurent had followed Daryl and was surrounded by walkers in the process. And you know that Daryl wouldn’t leave him hanging, which probably destroys those theories that Laurent would be immune to walker bites.
Red herrings might abound on that subject, but this season exists to reunite Carol and Daryl, and the series finale contained a moment that revealed how she tracked Daryl’s stolen bike back to a junkyard where she gave the occupants no choice but to reveal where her friend went. The issue then will become how Carol crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and it seems likely that a new character, Ash (Danish Dayal), will fit the bill for providing a way (i.e., a single-engine airplane) for Carol’s will to happen:
Dayal will play Ash, an engineer from Boston who moved to the family weekend house in Maine after the onset of the apocalypse. Ash lives by a strict schedule based mostly around his daily flights in a retrofitted single engine plane and mysterious visitations to his backyard greenhouse.
Yup, it wouldn’t be far-fetched for a single-engine plane to hop across the pond to France. Will this happen quickly? Only those involved in making the series truly know, but Norman Reedus recently revealed that not only will there be a third season, but a fourth season is a strong possibility and would take place in Spain. Reedus also promised, “The finale of Season 2, the last episode, is the best one-hour of ‘Walking Dead’ television ever, like ever, in everything.”
Promises, promises. Is there a second-season synopsis yet? Oh yes:
The new season picks up where The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon left off, following fan-favorite characters Daryl Dixon (Reedus) and Carol Peletier (McBride). They both confront old demons while she fights to find her friend and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causing tension at the Nest. Additionally, Genet (Anne Charrier)’s movement builds momentum, setting Pouvoir on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France’s future.
Carol needs a French vacation at the Nest, so I hope that she ends up there, but mainly, the audience needs to see more perfect hugs from the perfect post-apocalyptic friends.
Cast
Reedus and McBride will be front and center, although it remains to be seen how many episodes these two will spend apart before the official reunion happens. Clémence Poésy and Louis Puech Scigliuzzi will still be around as Isabelle and Laurent, respectively, and Manish Dayal will be the Bostonian engineer who will — and this is sheer speculation — possibly be the pilot who flies Carol over to France. Do we really think she’d take a boat when Dayal’s role and abilities have been teased so hard? Nope.
Release Date
Come fall (September 29), Daryl and Carol will be back in your living room.
Trailer
In this teaser, Daryl mulls over why he stayed in France while Carol begins searching for her friend.