[This story contains spoilers from the season three finale of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, “Solaz Del Mar.”]
After fifteen years within the zombie apocalypse trenches, Daryl Dixon is approaching the tip of the road. Fortunately for Strolling Useless followers, the character Daryl Dixon and the present Daryl Dixon are two various things altogether.
The third season finale of The Strolling Useless: Daryl Dixon has now come and gone, leaving just one extra season of the Norman Reedus-starring spinoff of the flagship sequence. Does that imply we’re reaching the tip of Daryl’s story altogether? Virtually definitely not, as there are quite a few different avenues the place the fan-favorite crossbow-slinger might seem, from present reveals like The Strolling Useless: Useless Metropolis to any variety of as-yet unannounced tasks.
Nonetheless, the upcoming conclusion of this iteration of the character hangs heavy over Reedus; whereas followers are busy processing the occasions of season three’s finale, through which Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) watched their newest try and return dwelling go up in literal flames, Reedus himself is within the thick of filming the ultimate stretch of Daryl Dixon season 4, now effectively underway on location in Spain.
“We’re on episode six of season 4,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter, talking after a whirlwind journey dwelling from Spain, following a whirlwind night time shoot. “We’re getting actually shut.”
In different phrases, it’s not time to interrupt out the celebratory can of scorching canine simply but, as Daryl and Carol haven’t spent their final night time in Spain, regardless of what they imagined for themselves as season three got here to an finish on Sunday night time. Nevertheless it’s time to begin planning which condiments we’re going to make use of on the very least. Beneath, Reedus talks to THR in regards to the journey of Daryl Dixon, from the just lately concluded season three to the soon-to-be-concluded filming of season 4.
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You’re getting near the tip. How does that really feel? Clearly we’re right here to speak in regards to the finish of three, but it surely has to really feel surreal that you just’re concurrently near the tip of the present in actual time.
Yeah. There’s a David Bowie quote that goes one thing like, “What do you assume your final phrases are going to be earlier than you die?” And he mentioned they’d be, “However, however, however!” (Laughs.) And that’s type of how I really feel.
Is it shaping up in ways in which you anticipated? Is it stunning you, the ultimate stretch?
You understand, it’s completely different. This present has all the time coincided with my life a bit. With season 4, Daryl actually goes inside [himself], and so, I’m inside, too. I’m in my head rather a lot, particularly for the episode we’re filming now. It’s filling my head with the longer term, the previous and the current of this character.
There’s this second within the season three finale the place Daryl and Carol are chatting, and Daryl talks about feeling the necessity to run away each time he finds himself feeling at dwelling. I can think about in some ways in which connects with you, having performed Daryl for 15 years now.
It’s trippy. There’s all the time extra story you may inform, however this incarnation of what we’re doing is wrapping up in an ideal means. It’s answering all of those the explanation why and what all of it has meant, and what have we performed to get right here? What are the errors we made to get right here? And what can we do to have a greater life for ourselves? So it’s all very trippy, what we’re engaged on proper now. There’s loads of inner fact-checking that I’m doing, and that the character is doing, and watching issues occur round me that I by no means anticipated.
That’s the great thing about the spinoff. Somebody requested me just lately, once I was doing season one, would I’ve thought of what I used to be doing in season 4? And we simply didn’t do it that means. There’s no season sooner or later already written after we’re engaged on the primary. It’s created organically as we go alongside. I don’t even assume South Park can try this. They see what’s occurring on the earth and create from it. So I’d hate to do that present some other means. We organically provide you with concepts for storylines as we’re filming.
That dialog you point out got here out of a final minute insert I’d provide you with alongside [showrunner David Zabel and executive producer Jason Richman}. I knew some of where we could be heading for in season four. And this sort of felt like a precipice; the going-off point for season four. We have some stories to deal with that we started in seasons one and two. For me, and for Daryl, that was a big turning point, that conversation on the beach.
Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier with Eduardo Noriega as Antonioe in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season three finale.
Carla Oset/AMC
It’s juxtaposed with some glimpses of Daryl’s childhood we see throughout the season, with flashbacks to Merle (Michael Rooker) and the abuse he suffered back at his original home.
Yeah. There’s so much momentum on shows like these, that it can often be hard to find the space to slow down and think about that pre-apocalypse life.
But when you do stop for those kinds of things, you can’t help but remember how hard Daryl’s life has been from the very beginning. There was never a soft point for him. So for him to even open up in this way with Carol and think about his life in this way marks huge progress since we first met him in the woods of Georgia.
That’s a huge point that we’re in right now, a huge subject of what we’re filming. Especially the episode we’re doing at the moment.
Speaking of conversations between Daryl and Carol, there’s one I really appreciated earlier in the season: Daryl and Carol making it extremely, abundantly clear they’ve never hooked up. Good to have it in canon!
I have to give it up to David Zabel for that. Because there was a time when some people might have written for the show who would read Twitter, and then it was like they were writing for Twitter. I could pick out those moments sometimes. But David, he isn’t part of that world. “I can do something different,” he said.
I just want to be sure… Daryl and Carol didn’t eat that last can of hot dogs yet, right?
Right. We haven’t eaten them.
Chekhov’s Hot Dogs are still alive for the final season?
Yeah, but I fucking hate those hot dogs. (Laughs.) I would barf if I had to eat that. The can’s dented, too! There’s gotta be some botulism in there.
Great premise for the next spinoff!
(Laughs.) It’s not going to be good when we open those up.
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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season three is now streaming on AMC+.
