Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3, Episode 1Try naming a storyline in The Walking Dead that didn’t involve characters getting separated and finding each other again. You may be able to come up with an answer, but it’ll be annoyingly difficult. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that type of storyline. Heck, even the pilot revolved around Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) trying to find his family. Each of the new Walking Dead spin-offs also kicked off with someone finding another person, each told with varying degrees of success. But The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is on the precipice of potentially using this storyline in the same way The Walking Dead: Dead City did, and that would be a huge mistake.
Charging ahead of its peers, Daryl Dixon is already airing its third season where Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) continue their post-apocalyptic European tour. In the Season 3 premiere, the duo leaves France behind, make a pit-stop in the U.K., and crash onto the shores of Spain. However, the closing scenes raise concerns about whether Daryl and Carol are going to be separated, something the spin-off should definitely not do.
‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Can’t Repeat ‘Dead City’s Mistake
In the Daryl Dixon Season 3 premiere, Carol was injured in the shipwreck, so Daryl leaves her in the small shed they find while he hunts for food. We see a brief scene of Carol waking up out of her feverish daze and hearing a sound that catches her interest. When Daryl returns to the shed, he finds it empty and cannot find Carol in the immediate vicinty. Since the pair also saw eerie masked riders on the beach, indicating potential danger in the area, Daryl is justifiably worried. But hopefully, they are reunited in the next episode and not separated for the majority of the season, lest they repeat Dead City‘s mistake.
Dead City Season 1 definitely had the find-someone-they-lost arc with Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) searching for Hershel (Logan Kim), but the central two characters we watched the spin-off for were together. But in Season 2, the two were separated for most of it, leading to a significantly weaker season, reflected by the season’s decreased ratings. As such, we spent most of the season lamenting their disparate storylines and yearning for them to reunite, just so we could have a dose of their unhealthy, yet comedic and nuanced relationship dynamics.
Just like Negan and Maggie, Daryl and Carol’s relationship is the reason we are watching this season of the spin-off. Daryl was enough to carry the first season of the spin-off, but its appeal multiplied tenfold when his bestie also joined the ranks. So, if Daryl Dixon decides to keep them separated after the premiere for an extended amount of time, it is already to the detriment of the show. We will be robbed of their endearing banter and undying love for one another, especially since it’s the only relationship that has carried over from Season 2. The Walking Dead needs to learn from past franchise mistakes and reunite Daryl and Carol as soon as possible to keep viewers invested.
Daryl and Carol Work Better Together in ‘The Walking Dead’ Spin-Off
Apart from just losing their dynamic, Daryl Dixon will be treading old ground again if they continue with this storyline. Yes, they’ll be rehashing the franchise’s overused trope of “searching for the other,” but considering how long it has been since the flagship show ended, that in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What makes this scenario irritating is that they already covered it in Season 2 (and they executed it well), so there is very little need or appeal to do it again so soon. Giving them individual adventures at this point would also be especially damning in light of their recent reunion. We’ve been primed to anticipate enjoying their bond, and it would be a letdown if it were taken away from us so quickly.
In Season 2, Carol spent half of it trying to search for Daryl and bring him home, creating adventures that paralleled perfectly with Daryl’s own individual storyline, as he still longed for home but was slowly connecting with characters in Paris. Their concurrent arcs added depth and nuance, as we didn’t know how Daryl would react to Carol trying to drag him home when he now had so much to lose in Paris. Using this trope was the most cohesive way to make Carol’s introduction into the spin-off make sense while adding meaningful substance to their stories. It’s one of the rare times that this trope worked for The Walking Dead, but Season 3 is definitely not the right time to resurrect it again.
Now that they are reunited, separating them would feel like a step backwards for the characters’ and the show’s collective arc. The show would be recycling old narratives and tones, completely undermining the clean slate start to the season. Why bother making Daryl and Carol the only characters to carry over from the previous season, only to rip them apart? If anything, it’s the easier route to keep them together, since we are already so heavily invested in their relationship, in lieu of creating new ones from scratch. We can only hope that Daryl puts his hunting instincts to good use and tracks down Carol immediately, lest the spin-off fall down the same rabbit hole as Dead City and lose its heart.
