Only mild spoilers below for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’s Season 2 finale, for those who haven’t yet watched on AMC or with an AMC+ subscription.
After years of waiting, The Walking Dead fans watched as Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride once again shared the small screen as Daryl and Carol for the second season of AMC’s horror-drama spinoff The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. Granted, it came only two years after the flagship series’ emotional series finale, but considering McBride was meant to be the Season 1 co-star as well, the gap felt longer. But what about seeing Reedus opposite Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes?
At the moment, that idea is but a mere pipe dream in Walking Dead fans’ heads, but its potential to become a reality was kinda-sorta addressed by Daryl Dixon showrunner David Zabel, who talked to THR about where things wrapped up for Season 2 and teased what the early Season 3 renewal has allowed the creative team to work on thus far during production. What’s more, Zabel sounds extremely optimistic about potentially lasting for many seasons yet to come, saying:
I’ve talked to Norman about it. There is a very cool plan. But we don’t even know if we’re making Season 4 yet.
Even if Daryl Dixon's weekly viewership numbers in no way can compare to TWD' s mid-run ratings highs, it's clearly doing well enough to justify plenty of support from AMC and at least one more impending season with European zombies and their evolved brethren. Only two of The Walking Dead spinoffs lasted a single season: the anthologized Tales of..., and the Rick and Michonne reunion drama The Ones Who Live.
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Considering both Danai Gurira and Andrew Lincoln are busy with actor careers and families, and neither spoke much about being 100% in on an extended return to this post-apocalypse, neither of them are fully expected to return. Especially since fans got that glorious shot of Rick and Michonne reuniting with Judith, and R.J. meeting his dad for the first time.
But for those of us who never say never to the possibility of seeing beloved characters popping up anew in this universe, David Zabel's further thoughts about Daryl Dixon's future absolutely point to other familiar faces showing up in this spinoff, even if Rick isn't the one he namechecks. Discussing the all-around lack of story restrictions, he said:
I’ve had pretty free rein. I talk to [franchise chief creative officer Scott M. Gimple] all the time and he’s said, ‘You have free rein, at least for now. Keep doing what you’re doing.’ But at some point, I imagine some things might be determined by what other characters are doing and where they are. So, I don’t know if Negan’s going to get on a raft on the Hudson and wind up [in Europe].
Now, Zabel obviously brought up one of The Walking Dead franchise's other most popular characters, Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan, when talking hypothetically about what could happen in a future season of Daryl Dixon. Negan is obviously gearing up raise all kinds of hell in NYC on TWD: Dead City, with Season 2 set to arrive amidst the 2025 TV schedule, so unless that show is already on its last legs, it's not so likely that either Negan or Lauren Cohan's Maggie will span the Atlantic for a crossover episode.
Plus, if we've learned anything from interviews with creatives and actors from Marvel, DC, Star Wars and other entertainment monoliths, it's that nobody gives legitimately organic answers to questions about characters who might return. Because answering randomly could very well spoil future plans that the person answering is entirely unaware of. As such, because Zabel specifically suggested Negan as a potential later-season cameo, no part of me believes that will ever come to pass.
But I do think it theoretically leaves the door open for anyone besides Negan to appear on Daryl Dixon. And while it'd be cool to see him crossing paths again with Lauren Ridloff's Connie and Khary Payton's Ezekiel and others, it remains wild to me that the last time Norman Reedus and Andrew Lincoln were together as Daryl and Rick was early on in Season 9 back in 2018. And this franchise cannot wrap itself up without more of that.
I fully understand why The Ones Who Live had to get Richonne back on the same fertile ground, but if there's anything else that Rick Grimes needs to do in this fictional world, it's man-hug Daryl again. And like, actually raise his own kids or whatever, but for the purposes of making viewers squeal with glee, Rick should probably start swimming so that he can make it to Europe by the time Season 6's timeline starts off.
Both seasons of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon are available to stream on AMC+.