Fans of The Walking Dead are approaching a bittersweet moment. Season 11C will premiere this Fall, but unfortunately that batch of episodes will be the last for the flagship series. Naturally, that's disappointing news, but fans are also excited about what comes next. The return of Madison Clark has Fear the Walking Dead set up for a strong Season 8, and there are TWD spinoffs galore -- including Tales of the Walking Dead, Isle of the Dead and the yet-to-be titled Daryl spinoff.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who plays Negan) has repeatedly hyped-up Isle of the Dead, but the series that really has fans interested is the Daryl spinoff. AMC has already quietly teased the series' plot. and now Norman Reedus (who plays Daryl) has gone even further. He recently teased that "lost" The Walking Dead characters might show up, which would have massive implications for the TWD universe as a whole. So, here's a breakdown.
Originally, the project was announced in 2020 as a Daryl and Carol spinoff, and that led to fans believing it would follow the two characters on a trip to New Mexico, based on a conversation that happened in Season 10. However, the New Mexico theories were wrong because AMC has confirmed that the series will be set and filmed in Europe. That fact is why McBride dropped out, as it was "logistically untenable" for her to move overseas.
However, there's only one reason that a TWD spinoff would need to film overseas, and it connects back to the Civic Republic Military. World Beyond's post-credits' scene was set in France, and it introduced a walker variant that could run. The new walkers were cool, but the fact that things were happening in France meant that the universe was about to expand. Some fans predicted that the CRM would have overseas connections, and it looks like that might be the case after all because that's exactly where Daryl is headed. The important thing is, Daryl only has one connection to Europe and the CRM, and that's Rick Grimes.
Many fans already believed that Daryl would be hunting for Rick. After all, that's the only thing that would pull him away from his position as the surrogate father for Rick's children. Now, however, there's reason to believe that Rick might show up in person. In a recent interview with Iron & Air, Norman Reedus talked about his spinoff.
"I was going to do a spinoff, me and Melissa [McBride], we were going to do it together, but she wanted to take a break, and she deserves a break. And in the meantime, they were like, 'Hey, do you want to go on a mission while she’s taking some time?' I’m like, 'Yeah. Let’s fucking go on a mission.' So, I’ll be going to Europe doing a mission. Some of our characters are lost, and maybe I’ll run into one or two of them."
The fact that Reedus described the spinoff as mission had a lot of people excited. In other words, Daryl's not going to Europe for the fun of it. He's got a definitive purpose. Then, when he mentioned "lost" characters, the sirens started going off for TWD fans. "Lost" characters refers to Rick, Michonne and Heath. Fans have wanted each of them to come back since they left, and it would be awfully odd for Reedus to tease their return if it wasn't going to happen. So, here's to hoping that the Daryl spinoff with act like a bridge from The Walking Dead Season 11 to the Rick Grimes movies and the other spinoffs.
The Walking Dead's Daryl spinoff is set to release in 2023.