[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Season 3 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.]

Summary

In Season 3 of ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon,’ Daryl and Carol made their way to Spain, where their trime home was delayed as they repaired their boat.

From the beginning, the spinoff series was plotted organically with no set roadmap to keep things as fresh as possible.

The Season 3 finale seeds Season 4’s central question: is there a better way to live than surviving?

From showrunner David Zabel, Season 3 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon saw Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) continue on their journey to return to their home in America. Whether in France, London or Spain, the duo can never seem to escape trouble and find themselves clashing with the villagers in Solaz del Mar over their traditions. Through it all, they managed to get their boat repaired and ready to sail, but before taking off, Daryl expressed concern to Carol that he’s become so accustomed to running and fighting that he’ll just want to do it again once they get home. When an explosion delays their planned return, it sets up Season 4 to dig even deeper into whether there is a better way to live than what they’ve been doing all this time. Before his appearance at this year’s New York Comic-Con and having just shot an all-night fight scene in Madrid for the fourth and final season, in which he said he got punched in the nose three times and hit in the head with a hammer, Collider got the opportunity to jump on Zoom for a one-on-one chat with Reedus. During the interview, he discussed not knowing past what the first season would be when he started shooting this spinoff, why he’s grateful they didn’t have a set road map that they were following, what bummed him out about the way the flagship series ended, following this story where it organically took them, that he wouldn’t want to do a Love Boat reunion just to reunite with some of the other The Walking Dead universe characters, what has surprised him about how much he’s loved playing Daryl Dixon, and how the finale will lead into the central focus of Season 4.
Norman Reedus Says There Was No Set Road Map When They Started Shooting ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’

“They didn’t have five seasons written out.”

Collider: When you started doing this series, how much did you know about what the series would be and where it would go? Originally, we were all told that it was going to be a show with Daryl and Carol, and then it became just about Daryl for a bit, and then Carol joined back up. Once you actually started shooting that first episode of the first season, how much did you know of what the arc of the series would be? Did you have any sense of what the future was going to be then? Did you know it would be this, where you’re at right now? NORMAN REEDUS: No. The only thing I knew about was the first season, when we started the first season. Melissa [McBride] was supposed to join us, and she had something come up where she couldn’t join us. And then, we incorporated her later in the season because she had to be a part of Season 1. So, we did what we could do with what Melissa could give us, time wise. I didn’t know where we were going to go in the second season. I kind of knew the arc of Season 1, but I didn’t know how it would end. We had the first couple of scripts and an idea, going into the first season in France. I wouldn’t know what Season 4 would be while we were starting Season 1. They didn’t have five seasons written out. Was there ever a point that anyone said to you, “Okay, this is the ending point that we’re working towards,” or did that not happen until Season 4? REEDUS: They didn’t write scripts for Seasons 2, 3 and 4 when we started Season 1. Sometimes there’s a general idea of what the ending will be for a story that’s being told, even if the scripts aren’t actually written. I just didn’t know how concrete any of that might have been with this series. So, they didn’t tell you any of that? REEDUS: No, and thank God. I think it would be really boring if they were like, “We’re going to do Season 1, and here’s the structure, into Season 2, into Season 3, into Season 4, and we’re going to end it here.” It would be super boring. You have a lot of creative people in a setting, you start to tell a story, you start to have a feeling, and it’s organically written and thought out as we do it and as we plan. That’s the best way to do stuff like that. It would be super boring to do it any other way. You’ve said that this ending isn’t really an ending, but a celebration. How different does knowing that you’re working toward a conclusion of this chapter of Daryl’s story feel this time around compare to how it felt when you finished the flagship series? REEDUS: We’re trying to incorporate a maturing cast, and characters that grow and learn. Sometimes, little stories pop up that mean more than other stories and we fade into that direction. We organically have a gut feeling, based on what we’re making. At the end of the series in America, we ran out of comic book and the idea was, “The world is open now.” And we didn’t do that. We just extended the ending of the comic book, which I was bummed about, to be honest. This was a fresh start. We didn’t have any source material to start from. We had mythology and stories that were told in the flagship show, and then this gave us an opportunity to organically create from where we’re at to where we’re standing, which was a much cooler way to do it.
Norman Reedus Wouldn’t Want to Do Another ‘The Walking Dead’ Spinoff Without Good Reason

“If it happened in some really cool way that wasn’t obvious, I could be down for it.”

Norman Reedus as Daryl sitting inside a truck with the door open in The Walking Dead: Daryl DixonImage via AMC

It seems like it would be ideal to close out these spinoffs and bring some of the other characters together in some way and at some point. Is that something that you’re hoping for at all? Would you want to see Daryl and Rick back together? Have you thought about how this could evolve next, if it continues in some way? REEDUS: I think that’s what you’ve thought about. Sure, but other people have talked about it too. REEDUS: I don’t know. It’s possible. It would depend on how it was done. If it was a Love Boat reunion where they’re all like, “We’re together!,” I would really not be into that idea. If it happened in some really cool way that wasn’t obvious, I could be down for it. It’s hard to write a show and be free of all the restraints if you just say, “There’s a group of fandom that wants this, and there’s a group of fandom that wants that.” I don’t think that’s what anybody wants to do. So, if there was a way to do it that didn’t seem like the most obvious thing and hasn’t been done a billion times before, then yeah, I’d be down for it. It definitely feels like there could still be some story there. REEDUS: You can find story anywhere. It’d be fun to work with all those people again, just to hang out with them. But everybody can’t jump in hot air balloons and go meet some place. It would have to happen in a cool way. We’ve all been pretty successful at keeping this going in organic ways, so it would have to do that. It would have to be like that. This is such a very unusual experience, with as long as you’ve been playing this character. TV shows don’t last as long as The Walking Dead did, and they don’t go on to have so many spinoffs that are also on for so many seasons. What has really been the best or most surprising thing about playing this character for so many seasons? What didn’t you realize would come with living with someone for that length of time? REEDUS: It’s a real opportunity to be able to play a character that long and watch him grow and have the world watch him grow. As long as he just keeps growing, it’s good. Daryl is completely different from how he first started on the show, in every single way. What I didn’t expect was to love it so much. I didn’t expect to still enjoy it so much. It’s different because the world around me changes and I keep playing Daryl. It’s not just that Spain is different from France is different from Georgia, but the world of television has changed so much, and the world of cinema has changed so much. The fandom and how they interact has changed so much. I really enjoy it, and I didn’t know that I would enjoy it so much. I love going back to it. The different ways that he evolves and matures in this world around him coincides with me, as an actor, playing him. It’s pretty wild.
Norman Reedus Reveals That Season 4 of ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Will Feel Totally Different

“Season 4 is really good.”

Melissa McBride as Carol with Norman Reedus as Daryl with hands in pockets in The Walking Dead: Daryl DixonImage via AMC

We’re left at a place at the end of the season where Daryl and Carol are ready to set sail, the boat catches on fire and explodes, and their trip is delayed. They have this conversation and he’s talking about how there’s maybe a better way to live and some other way to do things. How is that going to bleed into Season 4? What can you say to tease where things will go next? REEDUS: That’s the whole epicenter of Season 4, in a nutshell. That dialogue was introduced later. After all the scripts for Season 3 were written, that was introduced there to set up Season 4. That was my idea, actually. It was always in the back of my head, as Norman. It’s a huge part of Season 4. Season 4 is really good. It will be different again. It’s totally different.

The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon official poster

Release Date

2023 – 2026-00-00

Network

AMC

Showrunner

David Zabel

Franchise(s)

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon airs on AMC. Check out a teaser for the Season 3 finale: