Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol episode 4. “Who came back?” That was the question that Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) asked Carol (Melissa McBride) when his best friend connected with him over the radio to tell him that someone or something “came back” just before Daryl went missing in Freeport, Maine. But then the connection was lost, and Daryl didn’t get an answer to his question before he was transported halfway around the world to France on a cargo ship.

After Carol tracked down Daryl, following his trail from Maine to France, Sunday’s “La Paradis Pour Toi” episode finally reunited the duo for the first time since The Walking Dead series finale in 2022. The pair physically reconnected during an attack on the Nest, then emotionally reconnected during a trek through the French countryside.

“You said on the radio that time someone came back. Who was it?” Daryl asked. Carol then revealed “it wasn’t a person, it was a feeling.”

After settling at the Commonwealth community in Ohio, and then watching Daryl ride off on his bike, “Everything at Commonwealth got so quiet,” she said. “All that old stuff came back like ghosts. So I got out of there, and I was worried about you.” Carol also name-dropped Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming), telling Daryl, “She didn’t want me to go. Part of her knew I had to if there was a chance I could find you.”

It’s not unlike Daryl’s reason for leaving the Commonwealth: He told Judith that he would keep an eye out for her parents, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira), while out on the road. Rick and Michonne eventually found their way back to each other and returned home in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, placing the events of Daryl Dixon and The Book of Carol before that series.

“I always sort of took it as maybe that Rick had come back, and that it was Rick’s return that sort of triggered or reignited some of that trauma,” series executive producer Greg Nicotero told ComicBook about Carol’s visions of her dead daughter, Sophia. “And it’s interesting, because you would have thought that she had sort of dealt with that trauma already after so many years. So it definitely had to have been something that kind of reignited it.”

“That’s one thing that I had talked to Melissa about: Maybe it’s actually the fact that she’s searching for Daryl, just like Daryl was searching for Sophia,” Nicotero added. “And that could have sort of brought a lot of that back to the surface because of the sense of loss that she was feeling and the desperation to find him. She had the desperation to find Sophia.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 air Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol episode 4. Sunday’s “La Paradis Pour Toi” episode of Daryl Dixon was, as the French would say, doux-amer: Bittersweet. At long last, best friends Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) reunited at the Nest after she hitched a ride with Genet (Anne Charrier), who injected her army of Guerrier with a serum that turned the soldiers into amped-up zombies she then let loose onto the abbey. That was the good part.

While Genet’s Pouvoir sought to crush Union de l’Espoir‘s “tyranny of false hope” by killing their savior, Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), Union leader Losang (Joel de la Fuente) attempted to restore his flock’s wavering faith by having the boy bitten by a walker as proof of his immunity. But Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) helped Laurent escape the Nest, so when Losang failed to get Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) to give up her nephew’s location, he stabbed her in the stomach and left her to die as the hungry ones invaded Mont-Saint-Michel.

Carol saved Isabelle from being bitten before finding Daryl and bringing him to the woman who said Je t’aime — “I love you” — after sealing their blossoming relationship with a kiss just last episode. But it was too late. Isabelle succumbed to her injuries and, with her dying breath, told Daryl to take care of Laurent. “I can see them. The fireflies,” she said of the lightning bugs that Daryl told her she’d find when she went home with him to America. “They’re so beautiful.”

It was a gut-wrenching end for Isabelle, who died protecting Laurent — keeping her promise to her sister.

“For the moment when Isabelle dies, I think what we wanted was great dignity, intelligence, strength, and a really moving ending to the character,” showrunner and episode co-writer David Zabel explained on AMC+’s The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol Episode Insider. “Isabelle’s death hits hard because she’s touched something within [Daryl] that we haven’t seen before, and it’s because she’s so different from him. And it’s also because she’s tied into this boy that he loves, and now he has to make sure, after that, not to let the same thing happen with Laurent.”

Added Poésy, “It’s a world where I guess you’re very used to saying goodbye. I think there’s an acceptance. I don’t think she’s fighting it. I think she knows she can’t.”

“It’s been so nice, season two,” she continued. “It’s been such a treat to take Isabelle a bit further, and knowing that we were taking these two characters on a journey and exploring their relationship a bit more was just the greatest luxury.”

Isabelle wasn’t the only one to met their end this episode. After Daryl and Carol escaped to the French countryside, kind strangers Didi (Marie-Christine Adam) and Theo (François-Éric Gendron) gave them shelter. But when Genet tracked Daryl and Carol to the village, it was Carol who shot Genet with a tranquilizer gun and a dose of the amper serum. Genet went into violent convulsions as her eyes turned black and burst out of her head — dying a gory and gruesome death.

“The trick with Genet is she has been a tremendous villain, so her death has to live up to the glory of her evil-doings,” said series executive producer and special makeup effects artist Greg Nicotero. “We really wanted her death to be just completely horrific, painful, gut-wrenching.”

“She really did believe she was doing the right thing for the community. Finding order, and that’s it, it’s gone,” added Charrier. “It’s a great death. It was the only way she could die: from the monsters she created. She’s going to be one of them. It’s a complete character. Her journey is complete. I’m proud of it.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 air Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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Warning: This story contains spoilers from The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol episode 4. “It’s not like we’re never going to see each other again,” Daryl (Norman Reedus) told best friend Carol (Melissa McBride) in their last scene together on The Walking Dead series finale. Nearly two years and two continents later, Daryl and Carol reunited during Marion Genet’s (Anne Charrier) attack on the Nest at Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, where Daryl delivered Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) and his aunt Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) to safety last season. Meanwhile, Carol completed her own mission: tracking down Daryl halfway around the world.

Sunday’s episode, titled “La Paradis Pour Toi,” began with Daryl and Carol on opposing sides: Daryl a prisoner of Losang’s (Joel de la Fuente) religious resistance group Union de L’Espoir (Union of Hope), and Carol trapped behind enemy lines with the Pouvoir du Vivant (Power of the Living) as Genet turned her Guerriers into an army of Ampers: the amped-up zombies that are stronger and faster than your average walker.

With help from the excommunicated Guerrier Codron (Romain Levi), Carol infiltrated the abbey as it was besieged by Genet’s zombified soldiers. Carol then rescued Isabelle after Losang stabbed the former nun and left her to die when she refused to give up Laurent so that he could restore his flock’s waning faith by proving the boy is immune to bites.

As Daryl fought his way through the Nest to find Isabelle, he instead found Carol. Like their emotional reunion outside Terminus so long ago, Daryl was in disbelief as he raced over and embraced Carol in a tearful hug. Carol then took Daryl to Isabelle and comforted him as the woman he’d fallen in love with succumbed to her wounds and died in his arms.

Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride explain the Caryl reunion in Daryl Dixon Episode 4

“I felt like the anticipation of those two characters meeting up again is something that’s been talked about for so long, and so much, that the buildup to that happening was really natural,” Reedus tells ComicBook. “We worked really hard on making that as climactic as possible in the throes of all these things happening in all these different directions.”

“We worked really hard to get that right on the page,” Reedus added about crafting the Daryl and Carol reunion. “From Darryl’s perspective, his whole mission is failing outside the walls. He’s trapped and he’s just listening to the screams and the explosions and the fight going on and the kid [Laurent] and all these things. And he’s at the loneliest place he could possibly be in his head.”

The episode, directed by Daniel Percival and co-written by showrunner David Zabel and Jason Richman, underwent rewrites to make the Caryl reunion happen at the moment it was most unexpected: mid-battle.

“We rewrote that. We all got together and we talked about it and we changed that a little bit to make it so that it’s an elevated reunion, that it happens out of nowhere,” Reedus adds. “His focus is get out there, find the kid, save him, run from the screams, but run into the screaming. And it happens out of nowhere. And he’s like, ‘Is this real?’ It’s the person that he needed the most at the exact right time he needed her.”

By the end of the attack on the Nest, Reedus notes, Daryl is “completely isolated and failing, and it’s the last fight. And then to see her, I think it meant the most to him, rather than some other way of reuniting. It was at the right moment. It’s like the whole world just stops, and it’s about those two people.”

How Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol compares to The Walking Dead Season 5

The moment recalls Daryl and Carol’s big reunion in the Walking Dead season 5 episode “No Sanctuary,” where Carol returned to save the group from Terminus after being exiled from the prison by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). “It does mirror that Terminus reunion in that they stop in their tracks, and they’re just looking at each other,” McBride notes. “I like that it mirrors that, because it is such a trippy moment that’s on the other side of the world. It had to be a moment where he does think, ‘Is this even real?’ For both of them.”

Though there are similarities, Reedus points out that the scenes occur under “different circumstances.”

“That Terminus reunion, [Carol’s] in the back of his head. ‘Where is she? Where is she? Oh my God, there she is.’ And then like a little kid, he runs at her,” Reedus says. On Daryl Dixon, “It comes out of nowhere. And Daryl’s not with anybody. He’s not with any of that group. There’s nothing like that. He’s all by himself, and we really wanted that scene to be: The one person he needs is right in front of him at the right time when he’s at his lowest. And it had to be a different mindset.” I thought it was very different than Terminus.”

“It was very different, but at the same time, it’s similar in that they’re standing apart from each other and then go to one another,” McBride adds. “That, for me as a viewer, and as we were playing it out, had to be, ‘Is this a callback to that moment in his mind? Is this even real?'”

What was it like filming Daryl and Carol’s first scene together on Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol?

“That day was really chaotic,” Reedus recalls. “There were so many people and in a short amount of time, and a space that we had to extend. Every moment had to have something
happening in it. What happens is you do these long choreographed, long fight scenes, and sometimes they’re a little different every take. I kept thinking in my mind, ‘I wonder how close we’re going to get before I actually realize [it’s Carol].’ Is it gonna be mid-swing? I kept hoping that the timing gave us space to see each other and be together. It
worked out great.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 air Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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The date is August 27, 2010: the day the world ended. Before she was Madame Genet, leader of France’s Pouvoir Du Vivant, she was Marion Genet (Anne Charrier), a janitor at the Louvre in Paris. Marion and Sabine (Tatiana Gousseff) are set to walk out as part of a national strike for health care rights, but they’re quarantined inside the museum during the early hours of the outbreak. The Louvre Pyramid becomes a prison as Marion watches her husband torn apart by the flesh-eating infected that the darkened City of Lights will come to fear as les affamès — the hungry ones.

In the present, Carol (Melissa McBride) meets the eyes of the Mona Lisa at Maison Mère, the Pouvoir base in Paris. The American claims to be a tourist stranded in Paris when the world fell, and so she’s welcomed to Maison Mère by Madame Genet. Carol and her new friend, Rèmy (François Perache), are assigned their duties in the kitchen and the stables, but they have ulterior motives: Carol hopes to find her friend Daryl (Norman Reedus), and Rèmy hopes to find his husband, Julien. They learn that the Pouvoir is preparing an attack on l‘Union de l’Espoir, but Genet doesn’t know where the Union of Hope is hiding out.

Carol and Rèmy witness chained prisoners being marched into a tunnel that leads to the Atelier, the workshop of Dr. Lafleur (François Delaive). The voyeurs watch as the prisoners are gunned down and injected with 20 milligrams of a yellow-green liquid, with Lafleur instructing his scientists to record their transition times. “There have been rumors of experiments. Some say that’s where the burners came from,” Rèmy says of the brûlant, acid-blooded walkers with a burning touch. “Mistake that got loose.” 


The test subjects seize and quickly reanimate as agitated zombies with blackened pupils and bulging red veins. When Rèmy points out that Genet is trying to make a stronger breed of walkers, Carol remarks with burning sarcasm: “Oh, great. That’s just what the world needs.” These test subjects are too amped up, so Dr. Lafleur determines they must dial down the dosage if they’re to have soldiers they can control. Fearing that Daryl and Julien will become Genet’s test subjects, Carol and Rèmy agree to split up to find them first.

Meanwhile, at the Nest at Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy, Sylvie (Laïka Blanc-Francard) prays for God to protect Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi). She’s been taken prisoner by Losang (Joel de la Fuente) to prevent her interference with the ceremony that the Union believes will prove Laurent is immune to the bite of les affamès. Sylvie escapes, but as she tries to warn the people of the Nest that they’re going to kill Laurent, the nun is sent over the edge down to the courtyard below — and dies from the fall. Rather than eulogize Sylvie in death, Losang says, “Her faith was weak.”

At the edge of the Nest, Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) asks Daryl if she’ll like Ohio when she goes with him to America. Daryl tells her the winters are cold and the summers are nice, and that they have fireflies. As Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) leads Daryl and Isabelle into the fortified abbey, they must hurry: Losang gets Laurent ready to step into his “spiritual role” as the prophesied messiah who will deliver them from the bite of the hungry ones. He slips a powder into Laurent’s tea and tells the boy that the Union awaits to greet their savior.

Losang tells the gathered faithful from across France, Germany, and Spain that they’ve come as pilgrims to be part of the Nest “out of a shared belief of faith in what is yet to come.” Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou), clad in ceremonial robes, brings the drugged Laurent to the courtyard as guards wrangle a hooded walker.

“We’ve had to be patient to prove that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a future where we will no longer be vulnerable to the bite of the hungry ones. Now is the time to cast that aside and to embrace hope, to celebrate the inspiring power of our unity and love,” the hypocrite preaches. “We are all human, and even les affamés, lost to us, carry with them the memory of love. So who better to confirm our faith in Laurent than someone we’ve just lost, but who loved him dearly? And now her love will deliver us all.”

It’s a zombified Sylvie, who will have the “honor” of biting Laurent to prove to the Union that the boy can’t be turned. Before Slyvie can bite Laurent, Daryl fires a bolt into the crowd, and Losang gets away in the ensuing chaos. Daryl, Isabelle, and Fallou lead Laurent out the way they came, but it’s going to take both Isabelle and Fallou to get the lethargic teen over and down the wall. Daryl gets through the haze and instructs Laurent to lead them to their hideout at a cave in the woods. If he doesn’t make it back, he’ll come find them. Daryl shoots, stabs, and strangles his way through the tower as Isabelle and Fallou get Laurent to freedom, but he’s cornered on a narrow stairway and captured.

Meanwhile, at Maison Mère, Carol asks around about the American named Dixon. Codron (Romain Levi), beaten and bloodied after being interrogated about the location of the Nest, hears the name and scoffs. “I had him, and I let him go,” says Genet’s former Guerrier, who had his fingers severed as punishment. Carol convinces Codron to tell her where she can find her “brother” and “the only family I have left.” Codron relents, telling Carol about the island fortress on the Normandy coast. But she must hurry: if Genet finds Dixon first, he’s a dead man. Carol relays this intel to Rèmy and learns that Daryl must be at Mont-Saint-Michel a few hours drive away. She can’t convince him to leave Maison Mère without Julien, so Rèmy sobs after hugging Carol goodbye.

At the abbey, Daryl is Losang’s prisoner. The monk hoped that the Union could convince Daryl to share their faith in Laurent, but he pities the American “living without a semblance of faith.” Calling Daryl “a man alone” with “nothing to cling to,” Losang says, “Perhaps it’s easy to reject faith when you live only for yourself.” Losang is firm in his belief that Laurent will not succumb to the bite, and that the ceremony — a “public display of his light” — will restore the beliefs of those who have started to lose faith in l‘Union de l’Espoir. “Only by risking everything can we find the true meaning of faith,” Losang says. When Daryl asks what happens if he’s wrong about Laurent being their savior, he responds: “If I’m wrong? There would be no point in going on.”

Back at Maison Mère, Sabine catches Carol trying to escape with a stolen horse. Rèmy, reunited with Julien, saved his husband by giving up Carol and the location of the Nest. Genet explains to Carol that Dr. Lafleur’s research tests are to create “a new sub-type of affamè.” These Ampers are “more directable warriors” than her human Guerrier, and they will “help bring peace back to the world” as Genet establishes France’s Sixth Republic for the people.

Carol confesses the truth: that she flew from America two days ago. As Carol tells it, “I manipulated an innocent man into letting me fly in his plane under the false pretense of looking for my daughter. We had to stop in Greenland, where he was almost used as a sperm donor, and I was nearly murdered by insane environmentalists.” As for why Carol came from America to France to find Daryl Dixon, she says: “I came here to kill him.” Genet can understand Carol’s raison d’être for wanting Daryl dead, as their goals align: Genet has been after the American who sabotaged three years of research during a mutiny aboard the ship that transported him to France.

Genet tells Carol that Dixon aligned himself with a group of religious zealots, and she’s helped the Pouvoir locate their headquarters at the Nest — the one that Codron told her about. Handing over the pocket watch that Losang gave to Azlan, Genet says she’s organizing a convoy to Mont-Saint-Michel. “You want to kill Dixon yourself? I will take you to him.”

As the convoy passes the Louvre, Genet recaps her background as a janitor who would “sweep the floors of galleries full of religious paintings and wonder why the greatest artists felt compelled to depict the same violent imagery over and over again.”

“When the les affamès came, we were locked in for a week. It was there that the paintings began to make sense to me. There was one in particular. Le Deluge. A desperate family hangs in peril over a raging flood. And I realized all these scenes of apocalypse, they want to make sense of the chaos and destruction that humanity brings upon itself. The fantasy that there’s a higher power that can make things better. Prayers didn’t help us. Not then and not now.” Carol counters that everyone needs hope, but Genet says, “Religion is not about hope. It’s about control.” And l’Union de l’Espoir, she adds, “Thinks we, the masses, the small and unseen, are stupid. That their fairy tales can control us.” And that is why they must snuff out whatever flickering hope the Union has.

At the cave hideout, Fallou tells Laurent that there’s no sign of Daryl or his aunt Isabelle. The boy blames himself for Sylvie’s death and potentially Isabelle’s because of a “made up story” that made him feel special. “You are special,” Fallou tells him. “Some things are true because you believe them. The truth is in the way believing makes it easier to live.” When Laurent says that belief wouldn’t make him survive a zombie’s bite, he tells him that they all believed Losang. “Not Daryl,” Laurent remarks. “He never believed.”

The Nest, once thought to be their haven, has become Daryl and Isabelle’s prison. The amours are chained on opposite walls of a shower as they commiserate. Daryl believes they’ll get out of this — somehow — and catch up with Fallou and Laurent. She tells him to tell her a story so she can hear his voice, so Daryl unspools a tale about a guy who left home looking for something. He found himself far, far away from home, and he couldn’t get back. That’s all he ever cared about — getting back. He didn’t care about anything or anyone. Then one day, something changed. 
”‘Day-pay-ee-zon,’” Daryl says, reciting the French word she taught him: Dépaysant, that thing that makes you look at things a different way. She then asks him about the fireflies, which he says are “like little Tinker Bells.” In French, the fairy is Fèe clochette, who saves Peter Pan.

Daryl tells her that Laurent will like it in America. He can go to school and be a normal kid. And what will she do? “We can do whatever you want. We can sleep late. Take long walks, and watch the sun go down by the river,” he tells her. She says it sounds like a dream — and reaches around the corner to take his handcuffed palm in hers. In French, says: “Je t’aime.” I love you.


Outside the Nest, Genet’s Guerrier have gathered on the beach. Losang comes and retrieves Isabelle despite Daryl’s protests that she doesn’t know where Laurent is. Daryl tells Losang that Laurent is in Provence, but the ploy doesn’t work. “Isabelle has always had an open mind and heart,” Losang says to Daryl. “You, sadly, are beyond hope.” As Isabelle is dragged away, Daryl yells after her.

On the beach, Genet rallies the troops. Addressing them in French, she tells the Guerrier that they are about to become here “most devoted, the most ferocious, and the most fearless Pouvoir fighting unit.” Years of research have brought them to this day. “You will be making the noblest sacrifice as we crush the Union’s tyranny of false hope,” Genet proclaims. “In the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity. You will be remembered as heroes. Always.”

Carol’s high-school French can’t decipher what she’s saying, but she’s clued into what is about to happen as Dr. Lafleur prepares guns with the Amper serum. Genet confirms that she’s turning her Guerrier into les affamè for the greater good. “We’re ready. The question is, are you?” she asks Carol. “I’m giving you what you asked for. You’re gonna kill your friend.”

So ends chapter three in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and find us on Facebook) for more Walking Dead coverage.

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The Walking Dead‘s season 5 premiere proved there was “No Sanctuary” for Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and the survivors. The episode, written by Scott M. Gimple and directed by Greg Nicotero, saw the group fight their way out of Terminus after being rounded up in a train car and nearly slaughtered by cannibals. Believing “you’re the butcher or you’re the cattle,” Gareth’s (Andrew J. West) family arrived at Terminus seeking what was promised on signs leading down the tracks: “Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive survive.”

But not all who arrived survived. A feral Rick, who warned the Termites were “screwing with the wrong people,” led a violent revolt when the exiled Carol (Melissa McBride) returned and took aim at Terminus. And just in time: a butcher was moments away from taking a baseball bat to Glenn’s (Steven Yeun) head and slitting the throats of a gagged Daryl (Norman Reedus), Bob (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.), and Rick over a trough already flowing with blood.

For all of its shocking kills and relentless brutality, the episode ended in a tender embrace between best friends Daryl and Carol, and Rick and Carl’s (Chandler Riggs) reunion with baby Judith after she was saved by Tyreese (Chad Coleman). Rick’s survivors then left the burning Terminus to rot, and in a post-credits scene, Morgan Jones (Lennie James) came across the sign that Rick changed from “Sanctuary for All” to “No Sanctuary.”

The episode, which premiered on October 12, 2014, still ranks as one of the show’s highest-rated episodes among fans and remains the most-watched episode of The Walking Dead‘s 11-season, 12-year run on AMC.

The season 5 premiere delivered series-high ratings with 17.3 million viewers and was watched by 11 million adults in the coveted 18-49 demographic. AMC reported at the time that an estimated 22 million viewers in total tuned in to the episode when accounting for time-shifted playback, making “No Sanctuary” the most highly-rated episode in cable television history.

“It was one of the most gratifying experiences that I’ve ever had,” episode director Greg Nicotero exclusively told ComicBook during an interview for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. “I remember sitting with Scott Gimple and talking about the trough sequence and putting in the baseball bat as a tip to Negan’s impending arrival a couple seasons later.”

Before Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan brought his barbwire-wrapped baseball bat down on Glenn and Michael Cudlitz’s Abraham Ford in the even more shockingly violent season 7 premiere in 2016, also directed by Nicotero, “No Sanctuary” pushed the boundaries of the horror that audiences came to expect from AMC’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comic book.

Looking back at the fifth season opener 10 years later, Nicotero reflected fondly on what are “probably the most harrowing first 10 minutes of an episode, and we got away with it.”

“I mean, I’m shocked at what we got away with,” Nicotero added. “We shot that episode in nine days, 10 days. I don’t even know how we did it, but we did it. And it really was just a great experience seeing all those stories applied in that particular episode.”

“[‘No Sanctuary’] and ‘No Way Out,’ the Alexandria invasion, Night of the Living Dead episode, I think those are two of the strongest of the series,” said Nicotero, who has been with The Walking Dead since the very beginning in 2010. Fans seem to agree: The season 6 episode “No Way Out” is ranked just behind “No Sanctuary” on the list of the best-ever episodes of The Walking Dead.

As AMC Networks’ then president Charlie Collier said in 2014: “The Walking Dead is one of those increasingly rare shows today that can command a live audience not significantly cannibalized by time-shifted viewing. Who would have thought that cannibalized television could be curtailed by cannibal-ized television?”

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The east coast’s biggest pop culture event is less than one week away. New York Comic Con returns to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Thursday, October 17th and stretches until Sunday, October 20th, running the six-figure capacity venue for its 18th year. First launching in 2006, NYCC has been annual to the autumn entertainment scene for nearly two straight decades.

“I was a fan,” ReedPop Event Manager Chris D’Lando told ComicBook. “Long before I worked here, I was at Marvel Comics in their publicity department out of New York. This will actually be, my God, my 17th New York Comic Con. I’ve been to every one since 2007, which is everyone except the first.”

D’Lando is one of the men behind the machine, as he captains the ReedPop team that is responsible for piecing together the four-day extravaganza. He has been with ReedPop for seven and a half years, wearing hats in the content department before locking into his general event management position in recent years.

“The industry has changed so dramatically in those last couple of years, incrementally, year over year. If you look back at the show in 2017 versus now, you’ll see a lot of very different things,” D’Lando explained how NYCC has evolved during his time with ReedPop. “As far as industries go, we’ve seen the rise and explosion of anime over the last couple of years. Our team has really honed in on that. We spend a lot of time looking at our post-show data after the shows are over. That’s kind of the Bible by which we dictate strategy for the next year.

“Over the last couple of years, our fans have asked a lot for more interactive programming, community programming, and late night programming. Those are sort of changes that that we have implemented over the last few years.”

That post-show data has been especially unique in recent memory. NYCC 2020 was pivoted to an online event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2021 event remained a gradual return to in-person normalcy. 2022 saw echoes of that familiarity before last year’s event, which took place in the heart of the SAG-AFTRA strike, led to the typical film and television presence being significantly reduced.

“Thankfully, we had a good amount of time to prepare and we were still able to go forward with most of our panels intact. Out of solidarity with with striking actors and writers, they were not allowed to talk about struck work, nor did we ask them to. Those conversations ended up being more personal,” D’Lando reflected on NYCC 2023. “We’re really excited that the those two sides came to an agreement, and that not only could work resume, but we’re really excited that studios are back at the show and promoting new properties. It’s it’s a big piece of what our fans are asking for at the show. They want to see big premieres. They want announcements. To be able to bring stuff like The Penguin or Shrinking from Apple TV or Outlander in its final season back to NYCC this year is really, really exciting.”

D’Lando also highlighted franchises like The Lord of the Rings, The Walking Dead, Goosebumps, Phineas and Ferb, and House of the Dragon as having major presences at NYCC 2024.

Outside of the blockbuster panels scheduled, D’Lando stressed that the “comic” of New York Comic Con is still the event’s “lifeblood.”

“Our show is a is a pop culture show, but it’s New York Comic Con first and foremost. Comics are the lifeblood of our show. That pop culture explosion, I think, in many ways, is traced back to comics as as a medium.

“Our team that puts together Artist Alley is, in my opinion, the best in the world,” D’Lando continued, spotlighting the comic-centric area of NYCC. “Our Artist Alley is second to none this year. It’s over 500 tables some of the biggest names in the industry. It’s incredible to walk down and just see the level of talent. It’s a real melting pot of some of the most creative people you’ll ever meet.”

The pop culture presence and Artists Alley only scratch the surface of what NYCC has in store for 2024. D’Lando teased that the ReedPop team has supersized this year’s event in an effort to make the Javits Center itself the total attraction throughout attendees’ stays.

“New York City has built up a lot of a lot of stuff around the Javits Center to do, restaurants and bars, but it’s still not a really a hub area. By offering more things to do inside the building, it adds more value to the ticket,” D’Lando noted. “It makes them feel like they got their money’s worth coming for a day because, yeah, the show floor may have closed seven, but they got to go to panels until 11 o’clock. They got to go to the gaming area until 11 o’clock. Artist Alley was open a little bit later.”

As for which day’s ticket will yield the most value, D’Lando pointed to NYCC’s kickoff.

“We always say Thursday is is the best day. Thursday is really stacked,” D’Lando said, adding that Thursday NYCC tickets are still available. “Elizabeth Olsen is there on Thursday and Friday. Our guest lineup for Thursday is looking stacked. Thursday is a great day to shop on the show floor before things are sold out. Thursday is a great day to get on commission lists for people on Artists Alley. I always recommend Thursday for people, especially folks who are not super convention savvy. It’s usually the easiest day to attend.”

New York Comic-Con kicks off on Thursday, October 17th and stretches until Sunday, October 20th. Stay tuned to ComicBook for live coverage all weekend!

The post New York Comic Con: 2024’s Event Will Be “Second to None” (Preview) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Passionate cosplayers have multiple opportunities every year to unveil their latest creations honoring beloved characters, but there’s arguably no better celebration of costumes than Halloween. While various real-world conventions require travel and admission costs, Halloween levels the playing field, as people around the world can showcase their crafting and costuming skills all October long. To celebrate cosplay, ComicBook is hosting our inaugural Halloween Cosplay Contest to help spotlight our fans and their impressive creations. Not only will a handful of winners be highlighted on ComicBook’s social channels, but the grand prize winner will earn an exclusive interview with ComicBook.

Fans have two ways to enter:

• Share your best cosplay costume on Instagram — tag your photo or mention @comicbook in the caption.
• Send your photo(s) to contests@comicbook.com with the subject line: Halloween Cosplay Contest.

Fans have from now until Monday, October 28th to submit your entries that celebrate your fandoms. Whether you love Marvel or DC, anime or manga, The Walking Dead or Stephen King, we here at ComicBook welcome and honor all fandoms!

To say that cosplay has come a long way over the years would be a bit of an understatement, as what started as a casual opportunity to embrace the spirit of your favorite character has become one of the most thrilling and ambitious opportunities to showcase your skills.

While the early days of Halloween costumes for young fans were limited to plastic masks and vinyl smocks that honored the iconography of heroes, often requiring the character to be identified by text on these smocks, costumes got a bit more creative in the ’70s and ’80s. Thanks in large part to sci-fi and comic conventions, which brought together the most passionate fans in the world, cosplay began to take off as fans put intense effort into replicating the looks of their favorite characters.

This enthusiasm for cosplay would then inspire creativity in other fans, encouraging them to spend the next 12 months trying to outdo one another, all while mass-marketed Halloween costumes were growing more detailed and becoming more readily available. This meant that, while almost anyone could grab a Batman or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume that could impress their friends, these ensembles often failed to live up to the custom-made creations that were on display at these conventions. Thanks to the Internet offering even more fans the opportunity to show off their creations without having to attend a convention, cosplayers have taken fan communities by storm, igniting even more interest in craft.

ComicBook will be looking for creativity, enthusiasm, and overall passion that our fans have when it comes to cosplay. Make sure to email your best cosplay photos to contests@comicbook.com with the subject line: Halloween Cosplay Contest or share them on Instagram and tag @comicbook to enter now through Monday, October 28th! Winners will be contacted through whatever platform they sent their submission (either Instagram DMs or email) and the winner will be announced October 30th!

Stay tuned to ComicBook’s social channels to see our winners!

Official Contest Rules

1. Contest Overview

Participants are invited to submit their best cosplay images for a chance to win. A panel of judges will evaluate the submissions and select the winner based on creativity, craftsmanship, and overall presentation of the costume.

2. Eligibility

This contest is open to individuals who are legal residents of the United States, aged 18 or older, unless an older age is required by local law. Employees, representatives, and immediate family members of the contest sponsor or affiliates are not eligible to participate.

3. Contest Period

The contest begins on October 11, 2024 at 12 p.m ET and ends on October 28, 2024 at 12 p.m. ET. All entries must be submitted by the end of the contest period.

4. How to Enter

To enter the contest, participants must:

• Submit a photo of themselves in a cosplay costume.
• Submit their entry via Instagram by tagging your photo or mentioning @comicbook in the caption OR by emailing your submission to contests@comicbook.com with the subject line: Halloween Cosplay Contest.
• Ensure the image complies with all submission guidelines (see Section 5).

No purchase necessary to enter or win.

5. Submission Guidelines

• Images must be in JPEG format and no larger than 20 MB.
• Cosplay must be appropriate for all ages; submissions containing inappropriate (including nudity), offensive, or violent content will be disqualified.
• Images must not contain minors.
• Up to 5 entries via email per person is allowed. Unlimited entries via social media. 
• By submitting an image, participants agree that the sponsor shall be granted a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, and world-wide license to use the image(s) and your name for promotional purposes on its website and its social media channels.

6. Judging Criteria

A panel of judges selected by the sponsor will evaluate all eligible entries. Judging will be based on the following criteria:

• Creativity (40%)
• Craftsmanship (30%)
• Overall Presentation (30%)

Judges’ decisions are final and binding in all matters related to the contest.

7. Prizes

One (1) Grand Prize will be awarded to the best cosplay as determined by the judges. The Grand Prize consists of one interview and photo feature on ComicBook.com and a dedicated post across the sponsor’s social media accounts. The approximate retail value of the prize is $10.

The prize is non-transferable and cannot be exchanged for cash. The sponsor reserves the right to substitute the prize for one of equal or greater value if the advertised prize is unavailable.

8. Winner Notification

The winner will be notified via email or Instagram direct message within 5 business days of the contest end date. The winner must respond within 7 days to claim the prize. Failure to respond within this time frame will result in forfeiture of the prize, and an alternate winner may be selected at the sponsors sole discretion.

9. Disqualification

Any attempt to tamper with the entry process or the contest is strictly prohibited. Entries that do not meet the submission guidelines, or are found to be in violation of any contest rules, will be disqualified.

10. Taxes

The winner is solely responsible for all taxes and fees associated with the receipt of the prize.

11. Limitation of Liability

The sponsor is not responsible for any technical issues, lost or incomplete entries, or any other issues beyond their control. By participating, entrants agree to release and hold harmless the sponsor and its affiliates from any claims or damages arising out of participation in the contest or acceptance of any prize.

12. Sponsor

This contest is sponsored by SV Comicbook, LLC. Sponsor is not affiliated in any way with Instagram or Meta Platforms, Inc.

The post Enter ComicBook’s Halloween Cosplay Contest appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Oct. 6 episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol, “Moulin Rouge.” Mon amour! While Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) didn’t quite say Je t’aime in this week’s episode, “Moulin Rouge,” they did share a kiss during a romantic interlude overlooking the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, France. Isabelle isn’t Daryl’s first love interest — that was Lynn Collins’ Leah on The Walking Dead — but the scene marked Daryl Dixon’s first onscreen kiss, as the Daryl/Leah romancing happened off-screen (in part due to being filmed during the pandemic).

The episode included scenes of Daryl teaching Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) and his aunt Isabelle to play American baseball, and Daryl inviting Isabelle and Laurent to come with him when he returns to America. After Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou) staged Laurent’s kidnapping to lure Daryl away from the Nest so that Union de L’Espoir‘s more fanatical followers could ambush the American and proceed with a ceremony to test Laurent’s immunity to zombie bites, Daryl and Isabelle had to fight their way back to the abbey with Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney). 

As they waited for low tide before they could go in and get Laurent out of the Nest, Isabelle accepted Daryl’s offer for the three of them to go home to America. She then taught him the French word dépaysant, which translates to “a nice change of scenery” that “makes you look at things a different way” in English, and Daryl leaned in and kissed Isabelle.

“The meaning of home takes on a different meaning for Daryl,” Reedus explains in AMC+’s The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol Episode Insider. “And I think these relationships start to form and these connections are made.” Adds series creator and showrunner David Zabel, “What we’ve seen in season 2 is that has deepened a bit. You absolutely see Daryl, Isabelle, and Laurent as a family unit.”

“From the beginning, there was always the hope that there would feel like a dynamic chemistry between the two of them,” Zabel adds of Daryl and Isabelle. “But it wasn’t a given, and it wasn’t a necessity. And of course, it happened, and so it made sense to us to want to give that more visual realization.”

Meanwhile, after a detour to Greenland, Carol (Melissa McBride) and Ash (Manish Dayal) landed in Paris so that Carol could track down her missing best friend. While Caryl shippers have long hoped for a Daryl-Carol romantic pairing, the show won’t be exploring a Daryl-Carol coupling or a love triangle.

When ComicBook asked Zabel about a possible Daryl and Isabelle romance as part of our first season postmortem, the showrunner said “there is a deep connection that forms between these two people over the course of this story.”

“It was very specifically meant to be drawn as an adult relationship of two people becoming connected to each other, drawn to each other in various ways, and understanding each other,” Zabel explained. “And of course, that could carry romance with it. I think that depends on the viewer in some ways, how you read into that right now.”

Zabel and Reedus wanted to avoid a “TV romance” that was “too much of a TV trope,” he added. While The Walking Dead flirted with Daryl and Connie (Lauren Ridloff) before pursuing Daryl-Leah, “There is this history that’s interesting, and I didn’t want to undermine that history or contradict it, either. So from the beginning, I think we’ve been successful in drawing the kind of relationship that we set out to draw between Isabelle and Daryl. That’s largely because of the performances of Clémence and Norman, but it was always the design that you should feel deep connection between the two of them.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

The post Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol Showrunner on That First Onscreen Daryl Kiss appeared first on ComicBook.com.

“Dear Lord, these are the things I hope for,” Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) prays. “I hope the people I care about will be safe and happy. I hope someday this feels like home. Everybody here says they love me. I see how they look at me. I know it’s not my destiny to be an ordinary child. I wish it was… but wishes are not hopes. I hope I can be the person they need me to be. But I also hope I can be the person I want to be.”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 episode 2, “Moulin Rouge,” begins with Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Mathis (Théo Costa-Marini) returning to the Nest after rescuing Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) and Emile (Tristan Zanchi), who were captured by Madame Genet (Anne Charrier) and her Guerrier. As Sylvie (Laïka Blanc-Francard) embraces her secret amour, Emile, Laurent greets Daryl with a wooden dog carving.

Laurent tells Losang (Joel de la Fuente) that he hopes Daryl stays in France, but he knows he misses Carol and the rest of his family back home in America. The monk knows that Laurent is unsure of his own future at the Nest, so he tells the boy: “Doubt is the question that faith answers. You doubt because you are special, not because you aren’t.” Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou) worries that Laurent will want to leave the Nest with Daryl, jeopardizing the deliverance that Losang promised the Union of Hope. “Even among our faithful, there are doubters,” she says, urging Losang to move up the ceremony and prove the boy is as he foretold: the messiah immune to the bite of les affamés. “The answer to doubt isn’t faith,” she says, “it’s proof.”

Elsewhere, Carol (Melissa McBride) and Ash (Manish Dayal) land their plane in Greenland to fix a fuel leak. Two locals, Eun (Minami Bages) and Hanna (Maria Erwolter), welcome the Americans to Kalaallit Nunaat: the Land of the People. The Greenlanders lead Carol and Ash through green fields of Tupilag — their name for walkers taken from an old Inuit myth about a flesh-eating beast — and tell the travelers they’re the first people they’ve seen in years. Eun and Hanna were doing climate research for their PhD when the world fell 13 years ago, and they’ve been the sole inhabitants of a Greenland research station ever since. Over cooked reindeer, Hanna posits that the apocalypse is the world trying to heal itself. “Tupilag is Mother Nature fighting back,” she tells Carol. “Never screw with somebody’s mother.”

Back at the Nest, a quiet Emile is shaken, but doesn’t tell Sylvie what happened with the Guerrier. She points out that he’s not hurt, so he explains: “I made a deal with God to bring me back to you.” Meanwhile, Daryl takes a break from training Laurent in self-defense and tracking to teach him an American pastime: baseball. He tells Laurent’s aunt, ex-nun Isabelle (Clémence Poésy), that he’s skeptical of Losang’s teachings. “A kid should question things. Be skeptical. Doubt,” she says. “It’s healthy.” When Daryl asks if she has doubts about Losang’s prophecy, she replies: “Like I said, it’s healthy.”

Daryl tells the former nun that she’s “not like them,” she’s “like us.” She believes that Losang will secure Daryl his boat ride back home to America and she’ll stay at the Nest with Laurent. “There’s always doubt,” she says. “Sometimes you let faith make up the difference.” Daryl invites Isabelle and Laurent to come with him to the Commonwealth, but his entire life has led to here. To the Nest. “Everything that’s kept us going.” “Maybe that’s all it was,” Daryl tells Isa. “Something that just kept you going.”

Later that night, Isabelle discovers Laurent is missing — and signs point to the Guerrier abducting him from his room. Losang deduces that someone gave up the location of the Nest, with Isabelle suspecting that the Pouvoir are taking Laurent back to Paris, so Losang instructs the Union to follow Daryl’s lead: “La Vérité est Espoir.” (Truth is hope.) As Isabelle leaves with Fallou and Daryl to find Laurent, Emile’s guilty look outs him as the culprit who made a deal with Genet.

In Greenland, Eun accompanies Ash to repair his plane. He tells her about flying Carol to Paris to find her daughter Sophia, and how he’s never thought of having more children after the death of his son, Avi. If everyone felt that way, she tells him, “Humans would die out like we were never here.” While Carol is ambushed at the research center, Eun explains that Hanna wants civilization to end. Eun wants to save humanity, however, by reproducing. The two women have been living in isolation, so… now that Ash has landed on their island, she’s going to let nature take its course. He politely declines Eun’s indecent proposal to procreate, so she draws her gun and tells him he doesn’t have a choice.

Hanna is supposed to kill Carol while Eun makes Ash her sperm donor. But Carol recognizes Hanna is conflicted about what she’s supposed to do, so she offers Hanna a way out of Greenland in Ash’s plane. When Eun returns without Ash, she tries to talk Hanna into shooting Carol, but Hanna instead fires a bolt into Eun’s forehead and kills her. Hanna then escorts Carol through the Tupilag-filled field at night, telling her that accompanying Carol and Ash to Paris is the first time that she’s thought about the future in years. Just then, Ash shoots Hanna dead with a flare gun. “She was going to kill you,” he explains. “I had to do it.” It’s the first time he’s ever killed a person. “I’ve killed a lot of people. I remember all of them,” Carol says. “It never goes away.” With that, they take off and head to Paris.

In France, Daryl’s group tracks Laurent’s trail through the woods, but Sylvie discovers that Laurent never left the Nest. As Daryl, Isabelle, and Fallou are ambushed and almost killed by their Union escorts, Sylvie finds Laurent locked away with Losang. Emile reveals that Isabelle and Fallou weren’t supposed to be there — the plan was to lead the American away from the Nest and kill Daryl so that Laurent wouldn’t leave the Nest. “Everything the Union had fought for would be lost,” Emile explains. “Meaningless. Everything we did.” Fallou tries to talk him down, and the trio discovers that a ceremony is planned for tomorrow to prove that “Laurent is special. That his birth was a miracle. That he represents a future where we can no longer be hurt by les affamés.” At the ceremony, Laurent will not succumb to a hungry one’s bite, “And all doubt will be dispelled.” Isabelle asks Emile: “Does this look like salvation to you?” Before he can shoot Daryl, Isabelle executes Emile.

Carol and Ash land at an old racetrack just outside Paris. He wants to go with her to find her daughter, but she wants him to stay at the plane. It’s safer, and he’s going to need to fly them out of there when the time comes. He reluctantly agrees to guard the plane and track down fuel, and Carol tells him not to keep waiting if she’s not back in two weeks. With a crossbow slung over her shoulder and her recollection of high school French, Carol leaves to find Daryl. “Bonne chance,” Ash calls out. “It means ‘good luck.'” To that, Carol replies: “Au revoir!”

The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe tower over the City of Lights, long dead and dark and decaying. Making her way into Paris, Carol comes across Pouvoir propaganda — a symbol she recognizes from the rouge, blanc, and bleu-colored French flag planted outside the Maine auto repair shop where she got a lead on Daryl’s disappearance. The posters read: Pournous (“For Us”), Unir (“Unite”), Genet Nourrit le Peuple (“Genet Feeds the People”), Genet Protège les Vivants (“Genet Protects the Living”), Contre Lamaladie (“Against Illness”), Contre l’Invasion (“Against Invasion”), and Leprenons le Pouvoir (“Let’s Take Power”). A food truck with the same symbol makes a stop, so Carol cuts into a bag of seed and follows the trail of literal breadcrumbs to outside the Grande galerie de l’Èvolution.

Carol joins the Parisians lining up for food distributed by the Pouvoir. Sabine (Tatiana Gousseff), a Guerrier officer, tells the huddled masses that it is just “a small taste of what Maison Mère offers” — if they’re willing to support Madame Genet. Carol is loaded into a truck with other volunteers and meets Rèmy (François Perache), a French former English teacher who worries about his husband on the other truck. He tells Carol that Genet is trying to restore order and start over by creating France’s Sixth Republic, and it’s hard for the starved population to argue with food and warm beds. Vive la France!

On the Normandy coast, Daryl, Isabelle, and Fallou are waiting out the tide as they look out at the Nest: once believed to be their haven, it’s now a fortress. Laurent’s prison. “All these years, I believed in that place. In Losang,” Isabelle tells Daryl. “I thought it was the one thing that would save us.” She promised her sister, Lily, that she would protect Laurent, and now he’s going to suffer the same fate as his mother: a zombie’s bite. Isabelle then tells Daryl that she and Laurent will leave with him, if the offer still stands. 

“There’s a word in French: dépaysant,” Isabelle tells Daryl. The word is difficult to translate into English, but it means “a nice change of scenery. Makes you look at things a different way.” Daryl sounds it out: “Day-pay-ee-zon. I like that.” They share a glance, and Daryl kisses Isabelle.

Inside the Nest, Losang recites the words of the French philosopher René Descartes to Jacinta: “Doubt was the origin of wisdom.” If there’s any doubt that doubt is the theme of this episode, Losang assures Jacinta that he isn’t doubting their plan. “We’ll go through with the test. It will work,” Losang says. “But we’ll still have to deal with Daryl when he comes back.” It was Jacinta who amended the order — by ordering Daryl’s assassination. “I told them the truth,” she explains. “Daryl was in the way of our mission. That you felt he would be an obstacle as long as he was around.”

Furious, Losang asks about the fates of Isabelle and Fallou. While they weren’t part of the plan, Jacinta tells him, “Your prophecy inspired these people, held them together all these years. We’ve come too far to let it all be foiled now by weakness.” When the monk asks her if this is who they are, and who they want to be, she answers: “What we want — what we all want — is to be certain. Without that… everything falls apart.”

At the Pouvoir base at Maison Mère, Sabine reports to Genet that they are preparing the Atelier (the Workshop). She is Genet’s right arm, and it could have been the man she is now torturing: Codron (Romain Levi), a former Guerrier who spared Daryl and Laurent before pointing them to the Nest. Bloodied and beaten, Codron resists giving up the location of the Nest, even as he’s tortured with a cork. “The nun, the boy, the American… you’ll tell me where they are,” Genet grins. On a nearby table is Azlan’s pocket watch, which contains an image of what Genet seeks: the Nest at Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy.

So ends the second chapter of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and find us on Facebook) and follow @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol Recap: “Moulin Rouge” appeared first on ComicBook.com.

“Daryl in the comic series… is unlikely.” That’s what Robert Kirkman wrote in a 2012 issue of The Walking Dead when asked if Daryl Dixon — the crossbow-wielding fan-favorite played by Norman Reedus on the AMC television show — would ever appear in the Image comic book. Just one issue earlier, in The Walking Dead #98, Kirkman introduced a new character who also had a crossbow for his main weapon, also wore a sleeveless leather vest, and who also would eventually become Rick Grimes’ right-hand man: Dwight.

“Is he related to a certain someone in any way? Officially, no,” Kirkman writes in the Cutting Room Floor section of this week’s The Walking Dead Deluxe #98, which reprints the 2012 issue in color for the first time. “Since Daryl Dixon was created for the show, AMC owns Daryl outright. And since I still own TWD as a whole and actually compete with AMC on licensing, they were always very adamant that I could never do anything with Daryl in the comics. Since he was a licensing goldmine for them.”

“That’s why you never see Daryl in any of the various video games that are based on the comics, but he’s usually front and center in the games AMC makes… like Survival Instinct,” Kirkman continues, referring to the TV-based 2013 video game about the Reedus and Michael Rooker-voiced Dixon brothers. The poorly-received game served as a prequel to the first season of the television series, which introduced Daryl in a first season episode written by showrunner Frank Darabont and writers Jack LoGiudice and Charles H. Eglee.

While Daryl would never appear in the 193-issue run of The Walking Dead comic book, longtime series artist Charlie Adlard has drawn Daryl in his style, and The Walking Dead Deluxe cover artist David Finch featured a comic book version of Reedus’ Daryl (exclusively debuted by ComicBook) on the Skybound-published art book The Art of The Walking Dead Universe.

In 2018, Kirkman explained that “legal issues” and “likeness rights” prevented the AMC-owned character from making an appearance in the comics. “I would never have done it because it would feel wrong to bring the work of so many other people into the comic,” he wrote later in a 2023 issue of TWD Deluxe. “I never wanted the show to change the comic, since the comic is what made the show possible, and I worried it could turn into a snake eating its own tail.”

The Walking Dead Deluxe #98 is on sale now from Image Comics.

The post The Walking Dead: The Real Reason Daryl Dixon Isn’t in the Comics appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 is saying bienvenido to Stephen Merchant. AMC announced that the actor-comedian and co-creator of the original British version of The Office has joined the cast of the Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride-fronted Walking Dead spinoff, which recently started production on its third season in Spain. Details about Merchant’s mystery role remain under wraps.

The Golden Globe and Emmy-winning writer, comedian, and actor is the latest addition to a previously announced cast that includes Spanish actors Eduardo Noriega (The Devil’s Backbone, Vantage Point), Óscar Jaenada (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Hernán) and Alexandra Masangkay (Días mejores, Valley of Shadows) as series regulars. In addition to Merchant, the new season will feature Candela Saitta (Máxima, Último primer día) and Hugo Arbués (the Through My Window trilogy, Past Lies) in recurring roles.

Merchant is best known for his collaboration with Ricky Gervais on the BBC-aired version of The Office that inspired a global franchise, and for co-creating and starring alongside Gervais on the podcast-based animated series The Ricky Gervias Show, the BBC sitcom Extras, and the Karl Pilkington-starring travel docu-series An Idiot Abroad. 

Most recently, Merchant portrayed the British serial killer Stephen Port in the BBC miniseries Four Lives and Greg Dillard on The Outlaws, the comedy crime-thriller series he co-created with Elgin James. Merchant’s credits include roles in such films as Hot Fuzz, the X-Men spinoff Logan, action-thriller The Girl in the Spider’s Web, Jojo Rabbit, Locked Down, and the Florence Pugh and Dwayne Johnson wrestling dramedy Fighting with My Family, which he wrote and directed.

Daryl Dixon season 3 is based in Madrid, Spain, with extensive location shooting planned in the Galicia, Aragón, Catalonia and Valencia regions, each “providing a new and unique backdrop for the post-apocalyptic world,” according to AMC.

“We’re excited to be back on set with Norman, Melissa and this great cast, alongside a fantastic local crew in Spain, whose expertise and creative vision are pivotal in bringing these landscapes to life and adding a new culturally rich dimension to the series,” series creator and showrunner David Zabel said when announcing the Spain-set and shot third season, which is set to air on AMC and AMC+ in 2025. “We’re excited for fans to witness the reunion of these two beloved characters in season two and to continue crafting the next chapter in the ‘Caryl’ journey here in Spain.”

New episodes of season 2, titled The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol, currently air Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 Casts Stephen Merchant appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead spinoffs have shipped Daryl to France, moved Maggie and Negan to New York, and followed Rick and Michonne across the country from Philadelphia to Wyoming. And in the next chapter of Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol, the Walking Dead Universe is exploring even more new territory: Greenland. ComicBook has an exclusive clip (above) from Sunday’s “Moulin Rouge” episode, which sees travelers Carol (Melissa McBride) and Ash (Manish Dayal) make a pit stop in Kalaallit Nunaat to repair a fuel leak before continuing on their transatlantic flight to Paris.

In the clip, a crossbow-wielding Carol has a close call with the Tupilag — what the locals call walkers, taking the name from an old Inuit myth about a flesh-eating beast. While Carol and Ash are welcomed to the Land of the People by the Greenlanders Eun (Minami Bages) and Hanna (Maria Erwolter), Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) uncover a new threat at the Nest in Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy, France.

Executive producer Greg Nicotero, who directed last week’s barn burner of a season premiere, also gave ComicBook some intel on what’s to come in the weeks ahead as part our exclusive Book of Carol premiere postmortem.

“In season one, we really concentrated 100 percent on Daryl, and we were on that journey with him. So now that we have Carol in the mix, we get a really good mix of what’s going on in France along with Carol’s journey,” Nicotero told ComicBook. “Because, of course, when we started season one, the first question everybody would ask me is: ‘How the hell did Daryl get to France?'”

While that question was ultimately answered over several episodes, the question now is: How the hell is Carol getting to France? After she tracked down her missing best friend to Freeport, Maine, in last year’s season finale, Carol lied to Ash about her dead daughter so that her new pilot friend would fly her halfway around the world to — hopefully — find Daryl in Paris.

“Knowing that Carol has found a plane, knowing that there’s going to be a journey for her to get there, and then once she does get there, she finds herself infiltrating another element of the world that Daryl has been living in,” Nicotero teased. “I really enjoy the idea that we’re seeing these two stories on a collision course. We know that, at some point, they are going to collide. We just don’t know when.”

Until then: Baaj and Iluatitsilluarisi (goodbye, and good luck). The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 episode 2, “Moulin Rouge,” airs Oct. 6th at 9:00 pm ET/PT on AMC and AMC+.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Deluxe #98. Whether it’s an arrow through the eye or a baseball bat to the skull, death often blindsides the characters of The Walking Dead. On the television show, it was Denise (Merritt Wever) who took the crossbow-fired bolt that Dwight (Austin Amelio) intended for Abraham (Michael Cudlitz), and Abe was first at bat before Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) gave Glenn (Steven Yeun) the same fate as his comic counterpart. And like Glenn, who narrowly escaped death issues earlier at the whim of creator Robert Kirkman, Abraham almost made it out of his death issue alive. Almost. 

The Walking Dead issue #98, originally published in 2012, sees Abraham and Eugene embark on a mission together to find equipment to manufacture ammunition amid a brewing conflict with Negan and the Saviors. After Rick’s group of Carl, Andrea, Michonne, and Glenn are attacked on the road, Abraham and Eugene are ambushed by Dwight (in his first appearance). 

As Abraham gives Eugene his blessing to pursue a romantic relationship with his ex, Rosita, he’s suddenly shot by an arrow through the brain, and his corpse is gnawed on by walkers before Rick and Andrea retrieve Abraham’s body. It’s a shocking end for Abraham, and one that happened at the last minute. Despite the final page of issue #97 showing Abe and Eugene being stalked by Saviors, Kirkman had “zero plans” to have Abraham die in issue #98 before plotting the second issue of the six-part “Something to Fear” storyline.

“Abraham’s death might be my favorite death of the series. Maybe,” Kirkman writes in the “Cutting Room Floor” column in this week’s Walking Dead Deluxe #98.Kirkman goes on to explain that he would often write himself into a corner, even while having general plans for arcing out the issues ahead.

“I like having as much track laid ahead of me as possible. So I’m always plotting IFs,” Kirkman notes. “‘If I get to issue No. 30, maybe this,’ and ‘if I get to issue No. 50, maybe this.’ I leave myself options, so I always have some plans I can build to… but I’m careful to always leave myself room to just shoot from the hip and do whatever I want month to month, no matter how crazy the issue. This was one of those issues.”

“I had ZERO plans to kill Abraham prior to writing this issue,” Kirkman continues. “I wrote the final scene of issue No. 97 without any idea what would happen on page 2 of this issue. But when I sat down to do my plot breakdown … I thought, ‘Dang, this issue is kind of boring.'”

Kirkman originally plotted “a harrowing action sequence where Abraham and Eugene race back to the safety of Alexandria, and then they help fend off Dwight and his crew,” he writes. “BORING. I knew I had a lot of plans for Eugene, but I started working it out and I really didn’t have any big plans for Abraham, nothing far reaching, and luckily he wasn’t on any already-drawn upcoming covers… so killing him seemed like the right option at the time.” 

Not only was Abraham killable, but his death in issue #98 “did interesting things for Holly, Rosita, Eugene, Rick, and really just led to a bunch of different story developments, always a good sign,” Kirkman adds. “I loved the character, he really was one of my favorites… but you gotta break eggs to make a comic interesting.”

The Walking Dead Deluxe #98, reprinting the original issue in full color for the first time, is on sale now from Image Comics. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premiere, “La Gentillesse Des Étrangers.” “Home is wherever the people you love are,” Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) says on the season 2 premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. For best friends Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride), that was the Commonwealth, the Ohio community where they settled on the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead. But then Daryl disappeared while making a pit stop in Freeport, Maine, so Carol left home, hit the road, and tracked down her friend, only to learn he was shipped halfway around the world by the French researchers importing American walkers for experiments. 

Overseas in France, Daryl embarked on a daring rescue mission to intercept Madame Genet’s (Anne Charrier) convoy transporting Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) and other hostages from the Pouvoir base in Paris before they could be forced to give up the location of The Nest. The mission was successful, but the Buddhist monk Losang (Joel de la Fuente) was  willing to be patient and prudent for “the greater good.” That means the prophesied messiah, Laurent, who isn’t yet ready for a mysterious ceremony, according to Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou).

Meanwhile, in Maine, Carol spotted an aircraft circling overhead and tracked the pilot — a man named Ash (Manish Dayal) — to his farm. Taking advantage of the kindness of strangers, Carol lied to Ash, claiming she needed a ride to France to find her missing daughter Sophia (who has, in fact, been dead for years).

The episode, which was directed by Greg Nicotero, was filled with callbacks to The Walking Dead season 2. Callbacks like Carol’s flashbacks to a zombified Sophia (Madison Lintz) shambling out of Hershel’s barn (in “Pretty Much Dead Already”); a white-petaled Cherokee rose, like the one Daryl gave to Carol when Sophia was lost (in “Cherokee Rose”); and a barn burning to the ground as a farm is overrun by zombies (in “Beside the Dying Fire”).

“That was, without a doubt, something that was very calculated when we built that barn,” Nicotero tells ComicBook. “We literally built the facade of the barn to match the barn on Hershel’s property because we wanted to evoke Carol’s mindset at that point.”

That meant recreating the memory of Sophia stepping out of the barn, which happens before Carol lies to Ash about her real reason for flying halfway around the world.

“We know how cunning Carol is. And I always talk about, for me, the idea that Carol is not Rambo. She’s just efficient, and smart,” Nicotero says. “If you watch her character’s evolution from season one with Ed, and then when we get into season three, and then season four, Carol starts doing things that are very questionable.” Nicotero references Carol’s murders of Karen and David and then burning their bodies to prevent further spread of a virus, which led to Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) banishing her from the prison in season 4.

“There’s a lot of things that Carol sets into motion that she really doesn’t think too much about the consequences. She just does it,” Nicotero continues. “And then [season 5 episode] ‘No Sanctuary,’ of course, that’s her only option. Her only option is to raid [Terminus] and blow up the propane tanks and get her friends out. What we’ve always seen about Carol is that she’s been efficient. She knows exactly what she needs to do to save her friends and to protect people.”

In this instance, Nicotero explains, “She’s got a lot bigger path ahead of her, because now she has to figure out how to get to Europe. And the fact that she evokes Sophia in the lie to Ash to convince him to fly her over there, I think that’s one of the most interesting moments in the episode. Because you realize that the level of desperation that Carol is willing to go to, and the fact that she herself is partially reopening those wounds.”

When Daryl and Carol exchanged goodbyes in The Walking Dead series finale, also directed by Nicotero, she seemed relatively at peace. And then she radioed Daryl while he was on the road to tell him that someone or something “came back,” but the transmission broke up before she could answer. So what happened between The Walking Dead and Daryl Dixon to set Carol on this journey?

“That’s a great question, because we never really got too deep into that,” the director says. “I always took it as maybe that Rick had come back, and that it was Rick’s return that triggered or reignited some of that trauma. When you really get into the visions of her seeing Sophia, it’s interesting, because you would have thought that she had sort of dealt with that trauma already after so many years.”

“So it definitely had to have been something that kind of reignited it,” Nicotero teases. “One thing that I had talked to Melissa about was, maybe, it’s actually the fact that she’s searching for Daryl just like Daryl was searching for Sophia. And that could have brought a lot of that back to the surface, because of the sense of loss that she was feeling and the desperation to find him. She had that desperation to find Sophia.”

Sophia’s disappearance and death also left its mark on Daryl, and Nicotero agrees with the suggestion that Daryl is trying to put distance — both literally and figuratively — between himself, Laurent, and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) by boarding the next available boat back to America.

“Daryl is a unique character in the way that he enters the situation,” Nicotero says. “He changes the people that he’s met, and the people change him. In the end of season one, when he’s on the beach, he’s struggling with the idea that he’s bonded with this little kid. And so I definitely think that that plays into it, his desire to reunite with his family. But he finds himself, in that particular instance, that he’s got a new family and new responsibilities between Isabelle, and Laurent, and Sylvie. So he finds himself in a situation where he can’t quite extract himself yet, because he has those responsibilities. And that’s what I love about the character.”

Read our post-premiere breakdown with Melissa McBride about Carol’s return and stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage. New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+.

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premiere, “La Gentillesse Des Étrangers.” A mother’s love knows no bounds, but boundaries were crossed on Sunday’s premiere episode of Daryl Dixon season 2. First, after appearing in the final scene of last year’s season finale, Melissa McBride’s Carol continued her search for Norman Reedus’ Daryl in Freeport, Maine, where her best friend disappeared before he was transported by boat halfway across the world to France. Carol came across an abandoned boatyard that seemed to be a dead end — until she met a kind stranger named Ash (Manish Dayal), a pilot and parent grieving the death of his seven-year-old son, Avi.

Carol tracked Ash’s single-engine aircraft to his farm and presented herself as a hapless transient in need of help after crashing her car, a facade she maintained even after the opening of a barn door triggered a traumatic memory: that of her little girl, Sophia, stepping out of Hershel’s barn as a walker in The Walking Dead season 2 episode “Pretty Much Dead Already.”

After learning that Ash’s son died because he failed to protect him “like a parent is supposed to protect a child,” Carol lied to Ash when asked about her own child. Carol claimed she lost contact with Sophia after her father took her on an overseas excursion to visit relatives in Paris just before the outbreak 13 years earlier, and was visibly conflicted about manipulating Ash into flying her to France under false pretenses. 

“It was my only option. I couldn’t do nothing,” Carol said later in the episode, still pretending not to know her daughter is dead. When asked why she’s only now making the journey, she answered: “Couldn’t keep waiting, feeling stuck. I had to move forward. I had to try.” The episode ended with Carol’s secret intact and Ash piloting the plane headed for France, and it’s a secret that will hang in the air as Carol works through “dealing with some things that, over the years of The Walking Dead journey, that she has experienced.”

“That world never slows down,” McBride tells ComicBook. “It never has slowed down until Commonwealth. She’s going to seek out her friend. He hasn’t come back yet, and she really needs her friend right now.” As for what it was that stirred up old ghosts — Carol mentioned over the radio last season that someone or something “came back” — McBride teases: “I’m excited for the fans to see her dealing with some of the past trauma, talking about things she’s never talked about.”

The Greg Nicotero-directed premiere not only recreated the Sophia barn scene from “Pretty Much Dead Already,” but incorporated flashbacks from The Walking Dead‘s “Cherokee Rose” episode that can be traced back as the beginning of Caryl: the bond between the two characters that outlasted the flagship and spawned the Walking Dead Daryl-Carol spinoff. In bringing Carol full circle back to Sophia, Nicotero points out, “She’s searching for Daryl, just like Daryl was searching for Sophia. And that could have brought a lot of that back to the surface — the sense of loss that she was feeling and the desperation to find him.”

Adds McBride, Carol’s visions of Sophia “play a lot into the rest of the season in her search for her friend.”

“In a way, Daryl is such a touchstone for her. He’s been there from the beginning,” McBride explains. “Him not having come back yet — she cannot lose him, too. And I think that brings up a lot of this that she’s feeling and experiencing in Commonwealth, that she’s just got to go on this mission to find him. And then things unfold. Him not being there is a great catalyst for that to come up, when it does.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1 recap: Adrift at sea after a mutiny aboard a French cargo shiptransporting genetically-mutated walkersacross the Atlantic, Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) washed ashore in Marseille, France. He encountered the nun Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) and Union de l’Espoir (Union of Hope), which recruited the marooned American to deliver Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to safety at The Nest in Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy. Believing the boy to be immune to zombie bites and the cure to les affamès (“the hungry ones”), the Union sought to protect him from Madame Genet (Anne Charrier) and her Guerrier: warriors for Pouvoir Du Vivant (Power of the Living), behind the zombie experiments that Genet plans to unleash and usher in France’s Sixth Republic. The first season ended with a boat arriving to take Daryl back home — just as Laurent needed saving on the beach outside The Nest.

In Sunday’s “La Gentillesse Des Étrangers” season premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol, two weeks have passed since Daryl stayed behind in France. He’s unsure if The Nest is where he’s supposed to be, but Laurent recites the words of the children of Ècole Maternelle Simone Veil: “Home is wherever the people you love are.” Daryl has been training Laurent to protect himself from walkers as he waits for the Union’s leader, Losang (Joel de la Fuente), to arrange another ride home. The Buddhist monk is concerned about the impact of repeated violence on the boy, who is “meant for much more.”

The Union receives word that Genet’s Guerrier captured hostages in an attempt to extract the location of The Nest, including their allies Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) and Emile (Tristan Zanchi), who helped Isabelle and Sylvie (Laïka Blanc-Francard) secure passage out of Paris. A prudent and pacifistic Losang doesn’t want to risk going on the offensive despite Daryl’s warnings that Genet will have them killed if they don’t give up the abbey. 

Confiding in Isabelle, Daryl says, “I don’t know if this is the place I’m supposed to be.” She thinks she could be happy living there with her nephew, Laurent, but Daryl has doubts. “I keep thinking about all the people I left behind,” he tells her. “Wondering if they’re still thinking about me.”

Halfway around the world, in Freeport, Maine, Carol has tracked down Daryl’s last known location: an auto repair shop outfitted with a French flag. Carol, posing as an unassuming “friendly” with the broken-down motorcycle she got from Mick, reclaims Daryl’s crossbow and gets Jones (Gilbert Glenn Brown), Grady (Craig Gellis), and Drew (Tercelin Kirtley) to give up what they know about her missing friend. All they know is that the transient Dixon got himself thrown on a boat to France for a free European vacation, which Carol points out sounds like bullsh-t. Pointing to the Pouvoir flag, Jones explains the French came to them to round up American walkers, paid them, and left on the only boat they’ve seen in years. Carol’s search for Daryl then brings her to a nearby boatyard on a beach littered with rotting, washed up boats.

Her search at a dead end, Carol hears the sound of a small plane circling overhead and, distracted, crashes into an old drive-in movie theater sign. Carol tracks the plane to the perimeter of a farm encompassed by a motorized fence, and pretends to get stuck like an animal in a trap. “You seem like a really nice person, and I’d like to think that, even still, we can rely on the kindness of strangers,” she tells Ash (Manish Dayal), who offers to patch her up and send her on her way. The farm sometimes suffers power outages because of a faulty generator, which powers the fence and locking mechanisms. Carol is hurt and it’s nighttime, so Ash kindly lets her stay in the barn on his property. 

Ash opens the barn doors, triggering a traumatic memory: when Carol’s lost daughter, Sophia, walked out of the barn at the Greene farm (in the season 2 episode “Pretty Much Dead Already”). As zombie Sophia steps toward her mother as she did all those years ago, a gunshot rings out that jolts her back to the present. Instead of a barn full of walkers, Carol sees the plane. Even though the noise attracts the dead, Ash flies the plane at the same time every day “just to get up above everything for a little while.” When flyboy takes off at his scheduled time the next day, a snooping Carol comes across a well-kept grave inside a greenhouse, unaware that a power outage has allowed walkers to flood into the now-unlocked gates.

Carol narrowly escapes the throng of walkers inside the greenhouse, and emerges through the roof just in time to see Ash return from his flight. Carol attempts to explain that she was curious about him, and if she knew him better they could become friends. “That’s something that I’ve been missing,” she admits. “A friend.” Ash’s anger subsides as he tells her about his son, Avi Patel, nicknamed “A.P.,” who died when he was seven years old. Ash sits at his son’s grave at the same time every day, expressing remorse for letting his son wander off and for “not protecting him like a parent is supposed to protect a child.” Avi loved planes, so Ash restored a crashed Beechcraft and figured out how to fly — not to fly anywhere in particular, “Just up.”

The kind stranger cooks Carol dinner, but the sight of a familiar flower triggers another flashback: when Daryl gave her a Cherokee Rose back at the farm, when she still had hope they would find Sophia. As legend goes, when the Native Americans were forced off their land on the Trail of Tears, “The Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much, ’cause they were losing their little ones along the way from exposure and disease and starvation. A lot of them just disappeared. So the elders, they said a prayer, asked for a sign to uplift the mothers’ spirits, give them strength and hope. The next day this rose started to grow right where the mothers’ tears fell.” That Cherokee Rose bloomed for her little girl — and so bloomed Daryl and Carol’s friendship.

Carol lies, telling Ash that her husband, Ed, took Sophia to visit relatives in France just before the outbreak. She hasn’t seen or heard from her since. Ash realizes that Carol wants him to fly her to France to find her daughter, so she says: “If you knew Avi was out here, wouldn’t you do anything, whatever it took, to find him?” The next day, Carol leaves the farm — alone.

In France, Losang wields a jō as he practices Aikido — the self-defense martial art that is the Art of Peace. The Union has learned that Genet is transporting the captives from Maison Mère in Paris to another facility, so Mathis (Théo Costa-Marini) is going to lead a team to intercept the convoy. Losang reminds Daryl that the Union is a pacifist movement and “we resist violence,” to which Daryl responds, “Same here. When I can.” Losang uses a jō not as a weapon, but to prepare in case he might need a weapon. He then instructs Daryl to bring their people back safely.

In Maine, Ash goes after Carol and tells her, “I would do anything to find Avi. I mean, what parent wouldn’t? But that’s not the question. The question is, would you search for him? Would you give up everything to look for somebody you haven’t met?” Carol answers: “If there was hope of finding them alive, then… yes.” They’ll be flying blind across the ocean with no communication, no weather forecast, and no idea what’s waiting on the other side, but Carol says it’s her only option. “I couldn’t do nothing,” she tells Ash. Why now? What changed? “Couldn’t keep waiting. Feeling stuck. I had to move forward. I had to try,” Carol says, so the kind stranger will try with her. The plan is to head north and hug the coast, make a pit stop in Greenland to minimize their time over the open sea, and switch out the tanks with the cache of homemade ethanol he keeps in the barn.

Carol claims she has an address for Ed’s aunt where Sophia was staying in Paris, so that’s where they’ll start. Ash is hopeful her daughter is still there, but Carol, really talking about Daryl, is tempering expectations. “I have to remind myself there’s a chance she won’t be,” she says. “She may not even still be alive.” Ash, still hopeful, tells her, “She could be. I’m glad you still have that.” Asked about his own reservations leaving the farm and Avi, Ash explains that he didn’t leave the house for months when Avi died. Then when he did, he found the plane, and it saved him. “If you’re not moving forward,” Ash says, “then you’re dying.”

On the other side of the world, Daryl and Mathis have laid a tripwire to trigger an explosion to blow out the tires of Genet’s convoy as it passes through a small French village. Meanwhile, back at Nest, Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou) tries to get Losang to move up a ceremony because he’ll “never win them over,” and “certainly not the American.” Losang counters that the boy isn’t ready, and as he looks over at Laurent playing chess with Sylvie, Jacinta presses him further: “He’s not? Or you’re not?”

Switching between America and France, Carol and Ash are forced to accelerate takeoff during a storm, and Daryl and Mathis move on the Guerrier convoy. A lightning strike short circuits the electric fence, igniting the ethanol-filled barn as walkers flood onto the farm. At the same time, the tripwire fails to blow, so Daryl fires on the truck, killing the driver, and sending Genet’s convoy crashing onto its side as a gunfight erupts between the Union and the Pouvoir. Ash gets the plane off the ground through their makeshift runway besieged by walkers, and Daryl rescues Fallou and Emile from the truck just as a bloodied Genet crawls out of the wreckage.

“I should have known,” she laughs as Daryl reloads his rifle. “Angels always send their most vicious demon to do their dirty work.” Daryl goes to shoot Genet, but the explosive device detonates, and she escapes in the chaos. Carol and Ash, airborne, have escaped the zombie-invaded farm and are up above the storm. “There’s nothing to be afraid of up here,” Ash says, telling Carol tolook to see sunrise breaking through the clouds. Carol, spirits lifted, and her strength and hope renewed, smiles as the plane charts a course for France.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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Melissa McBride’s Carol Peletier returns on Sunday’s season premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol, which tracks her journey overseas to find the only other season 1 character who lasted the entire 11-season run of the original show: Norman Reedus’ Daryl Dixon. While the next chapter in the book of Daryl and Carol will play out in a foreign country, Carol’s story almost ended at a Georgia prison in season 3, where it was IronE Singleton’s T-Dog who died instead when he saved Carol from a fate similar to her counterpart in the comics.

“I was dead set against [Carol’s death], because I thought it would be a greatstory to see a person who came from abuse become the hero and not in aneasy way, that she herself had to struggle with the power that shefound,” The Walking Dead chief content officer Scott M. Gimple said in 2019. “Carol’s great story is that she found that shewas strong, she found she had this superpower, but then it wouldn’t beeasy. It wasn’t happy ever after after that — that she had responsibilityand there was a weight to that strength that she found.”

In The Walking Dead comic book by Robert Kirkman and artists Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, Carol is introduced in issue #3 as a widow and the mother of a young daughter, Sophia. After Rick Grimes reunites with his family at a small camp outside Atlanta, Sophia mentions to Carl that her daddy is dead, and Carol later tells the group that her husband died by suicide at the start of the outbreak. (The show included Carol’s abusive husband, Ed Peletier, who dies when he’s devoured by zombies during an attack on the campsite.)

Carol befriends Rick’s wife, Lori, and becomes romantically involved with Tyreese after the group takes refuge on the Greene family farm outside of the city. (Unlike the television show, Sophia isn’t lost on the highway, and the walkers in Hershel’s barn are let loose much earlier — in issue #11.) The group survives on the road until Dale and Andrea come across the prison (in issue #12), and Carol is initially optimistic that they could make a new life at the prison. She tells Lori that her life is almost better post-apocalypse, and Tyreese is better than her husband ever was. Carol’s happiness is short lived, however, when she catches her boyfriend cheating on her with a new arrival to the prison: Michonne.

Carol breaks up with Tyreese and attempts suicide by cutting her wrists (issue #22). Carol kisses Rick (issue #24) after he’s injured fighting Tyreese, and she becomes increasingly dependent on Rick and a pregnant Lori. She confesses to Lori she’s become a “basket case” since the end of her relationship with Tyreese, and then expresses remorse over Sophia witnessing her suicide attempt (issue #25). While Rick is out tracking down a helicopter with Michonne and Glenn, Carol confides in Lori, telling her: “I kinda want to marry you.” Carol propositions Lori with a polyamorous relationship where Rick, Lori, and Carol could raise Sophia, Carl, and the new baby together (issue #26).

Lori tells Carol they’ve grown close over the last seven months, but ultimately rejects her “insane proposal” (issue #27). When Rick fails to return after two days — he’d been captured by the Governor of Woodbury — Lori mistakes Carol’s attempt to comfort her for another romantic pass and reacts in anger (issue #30). Rick, Michonne, and Glenn eventually escape from Woodbury and return to find the prison overrun by walkers, but they reclaim the prison with the help of new arrivals from Woodbury. That includes Alice, a nurse who Carol takes a liking to while setting up the prison hospital for Lori to give birth (issue #37).

After Alice delivers Lori’s baby, Carol confides in her that she can’t be alone. “I can’t handle it. It kinda drives me crazy,” Carol says. “I was that way even before the end of the world.” She married Sophia’s father because she didn’t want to be alone, even though he sometimes hit her (issue #41). Carol abruptly asks Lori if she’d take care of Sophia if something were to happen to her, and aggressively approaches Hershel’s 19-year-old son, Billy, for sex.

Carol then talks to a tied-up walker in the prison courtyard, telling her the group has lost respect for her since she attempted to take her own life. Lori has been distant since Carol’s polyamorous proposition, and now, “Everyone thinks I’m crazy,” she tells the walker (issue #41). “I don’t really have anyone to talk to, so I figured I’d introduce myself. I’m Carol. I really hope you like me.”

Carol lets the walker bite her neck, and as she succumbs to blood loss, her last words to the group are: “Just let me die.” A zombified Carol quickly reanimates, so Andrea shoots her in the head (issue #42). Carol’s death leaves Sophia catatonic, but the group soon suffers another devastating loss when the Governor returns and attacks the prison. 

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premiere Sundays on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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The French word “dépaysant” means “a nice change of scenery,” the Parisian nun Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) tells the American Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. “It makes you look at things a different way.” Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) were the last two remaining characters from the first season still with The Walking Dead by the end of its 11-season run on AMC, and now the fan favorites are the last to get their own Walking Dead spinoff in a new setting following Maggie and Negan (in The Walking Dead: Dead City) and Rick and Michonne (in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live).

When the Walking Dead Daryl and Carol series returns with its sophomore season premiere (September 29th on AMC and AMC+), two weeks have passed since Daryl delivered Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to the Union de l’Espoir at the Nest: the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey in Normandy, France. “I don’t know if this is the place I’m supposed to be,” Daryl tells Isabelle, but he’s stranded there until Union leader Losang (Joel de la Fuente) can arrange another boat ride back home to the Commonwealth in Ohio. 

As Daryl questions whether the people he left behind are still thinking about him, Isabelle begins to question Losang’s motives and his religious dogma that Laurent — who was born to a zombie-bitten mother at the onset of the zombie apocalypse 13 years earlier — is immune to bites as the religious movement’s prophesiedmessiah. This “false hope” makes the Union a target for Madame Genet (Anne Charrier) and her Pouvoir Du Vivant, an autocratic movement that aims to create a new France by unleashing an army of Ampers: a stronger and faster breed of amped-up Les affamés (walkers) engineered in a lab.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Carol has tracked down her missingfriend to Freeport, Maine, where she meets a kind stranger: a pilot named Ash (The Resident‘s Manish Dayal). Carol convinces him to fly her to France under false pretenses, and by the end of the Greg Nicotero-directed first episode, Daryl and Carol are set on separate paths that will inevitably intersect as they are connecté et dépaysé (both connected and disoriented) in foreign surroundings. It’s a spoiler to reveal when Daryl and Carol reunite over the course of the six-episode season, but rest assured that fans will be satisfied (and teary-eyed) when the long-awaited Caryl reunion finally happens in the most emotional scene of the season. (All six episodes were made available to critics.)

Showrunner David Zabel (who co-wrote a 2006 episode of ER that earned him a Humanitas Prize, awarded to writers “whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way”) and the Daryl Dixon writers’ room have a natural ability to tap into the intrinsic humanity at the core of the zombie drama, which was always about the living and not the living dead. If Daryl and Carol are the beating heart of The Walking Dead, Reedus and McBride are the soul. 

While the two characters go all the way back to the first season in 2010, the “Caryl” relationship as we know it didn’t start to form until Season 2. Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol includes some well-placed flashbacks to the Season 2 episodes “Cherokee Rose” and “Pretty Much Dead Already,” two essential episodes that forged the unbreakable bond between Daryl and Carol — both survivors of abuse — after the disappearance and death of Carol’s young daughter, Sophia (Madison Lintz). It’s a loss that has haunted Carol ever since, and as she grapples with these ghosts from the past, Carol’s emotional turmoil proves to be a riveting showcase for the incomparable McBride. And Reedus — who has always brought sensitivity and vulnerability to a character who was conceived as “a mini-Merle,” fleshing out his layers over 11 seasons — delivers another understated and compelling performance that makes Reedus and McBride the perfect pairing.

In an interview with ComicBook, TWD Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple likened the new season to “an indie French horror movie.” It’s an apt comparison, because The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is like nothing else on television. A Walking Dead show with French-language subtitled dialogue? Beautifully shot cinematic landscapes, natural lighting, and on-location shoots across the French countryside? And between amped-up walker kills and a one-shot action sequence in Episode 3 — a knife-hurling, neck-snapping, guts-stabbing, bone-breaking, breathless melee that is more like a fight scene out of 2003’s Oldboy than any fight scene ever staged on The Walking Dead — the season is as action-packed as it is artsy. Mon Dieu!

This is an adrenalized, action-heavy season that foregoes much of the religious undercurrent of the more measured and faith-based first season, but its balanced mix of heartfelt drama and heart-pounding zombie action means Daryl Dixon is more epic than ever. Even if the season is a layover on the way to the upcoming Spain-set and shot Season 3, the new chapter in the book of Daryl and Carol is dépaysant.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premieres Sunday, September 29th on AMC and AMC+.

The post The Walking Dead Review: Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride Reunite in Amped-up Daryl Dixon Season 2 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride are back as Daryl and Carol on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol. Season 2 of the Walking Dead spinoff picks up where October’s first season finale left off: with Daryl stranded overseas in France, and Carol embarking on a mission halfway around the world with a kind stranger to find her best friend. In the new season, Daryl and Carol “confront old demons while she fights to findher friend and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causingtension at the Nest,” per the logline.

Keep reading below for more on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 release date, the episode release schedule, and how to stream the Walking Dead Daryl and Carol series (including for free or at a discounted price).

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Release Date and Time

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premieres Sunday, Sept. 29th, at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on AMC and AMC+. The super-sized premiere includes The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon The Return, a new one-hour special previewing the season ahead, at 10:12 p.m. ET / 7:12 p.m. PT

How to Watch The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Online Without Cable

Cord cutters can stream Daryl Dixon on the AMC+ app, which is available for download on smart TVs and other devices. AMC+ is alsoavailable via Apple TV Channels, Amazon Prime Video Channels, and TheRoku Channel.

AMC+ prices start at $4.99/month for the ad-supported plan and $8.99/mo. for ad-free. Subscribers can save on an annual ad-free AMC+ plan by purchasing a 12-month subscription for $83.88 (plus tax).

Watch The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Trailer

How to Watch The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon The Book of Carol Online With a Free AMC+ Trial

New subscribers will be offered a 7-day free AMC+ trial when subscribing at amcplus.com or on the AMC+ app, which can be downloaded to smart TVs and other devices. AMC+ is also available via Apple TV Channels, Amazon Prime Video Channels, and The Roku Channel.

Other titles available on AMC+ include the hour-long special The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Return, and the streaming-exclusive The Walking Dead: Best of Daryl and The Walking Dead: Best of Carol episode collections.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Episodes Release Schedule

The new season spans six episodes, which will air through the season 2 finale on Nov. 3rd.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Episode 1: “La gentillesse des étrangers” (Sunday, Sept. 29th)

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Episode 2: “Moulin Rouge” (Sunday, Oct. 6th)

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Episode 3: “L’Invisible” (Sunday, Oct. 13th)

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Episode 4: “La Paradis Pour Toi” (Sunday, Oct. 20th)

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Episode 5: “Vouloir, C’est Pouvoir” (Sunday, Oct. 27th)

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 2 Episode 6 (Season Finale): “Au Revoir Les Enfants” (Sunday, Nov. 3rd)

Walking Dead Daryl Dixon Season 2 Cast

Returning cast members from the first season include Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, Clèmence Poésy as Sister Isabelle, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as the prophesied messiah Laurent, Laïka Blanc-Francard as Sister Sylvie, Anne Charrier as Madame Genet, Romain Levi as Codron, Eriq Ebouaney as Fallou, Joel de la Fuente as Losang, and Melissa McBride as Carol, who appeared for the first time in this series at the end of the season 1 finale.

New cast members include Manish Dayal (The Resident) as Ash Patel, Nassima Benchicou (Emily in Paris) as Jacinta,and Tatiana Gousseff (Doc Martin) as Sabine.

Where to Stream The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 1 Online

The six-episode first season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is currently available to stream now on AMC+, The Roku Channel, and Spectrum On Demand. The complete first season is also available to own on Blu-ray and DVD, or digitally via online retailers like Apple TV+, Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu), YouTube TV, Amazon Prime Video, the Google Play Store, and the Microsoft Store.

Will There be The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3?
AMC announced The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 started production in Spain in August and will film in Madrid and the Galicia, Aragón, Catalonia and Valencia regions. The currently-shooting third season will air in 2025.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and ComicBook TWD on Facebook for more Walking Dead Universe coverage.

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The second season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol has unveiled a new teaser trailer and poster. The series is one of the many spinoffs of The Walking Dead, the zombie apocalypse franchise that has captivated audiences since its debut in 2010. Two of the most popular characters in The Walking Dead history are Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride), so it was only natural that AMC Networks would choose those two characters to headline their own show. We’re only weeks away from the return of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol, and now fans can get a look at what’s in store.

The teaser trailer for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol finds our two leads separated, with Carol in search of Daryl. Reedus’ character takes out a swath of zombies who try to attack him, and Peletier’s Carol also has attacking zombies to contest with. As the trailer states, the saga to reunite Daryl and Carol continues. You can take a look at The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol teaser below.

AMC plans super-sized premiere for The Walking Dead spinoff

The upcoming second season of the France-set Walking Dead spinoff starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride, will premiere as part of a super-sized event on AMC and AMC+ on Sunday, Sept. 29th from 8pm ET/PT to 10pm ET/PT. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Return, an hour-long special looking ahead to the new season, will precede the “La gentillesse des étrangers” season premiere, which follows Reedus’ Daryl and McBride’s Carol on their separate journeys thousands of miles apart.  

AMC+ subscribers will also have exclusive access to The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon at San Diego Comic-Con special — featuring this year’s Comic-Con panel with Reedus and McBride, where the network announced a season 3 renewal set and shot in Spain — starting on Sept. 22nd.

What is The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol about?

The new season picks up where The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon left off, following fan-favorite characters Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride). They both confront old demons while she fights to find her friend and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causing tension at the Nest. Additionally, Genet’s (Anne Charrier) movement builds momentum, setting Pouvoir on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France’s future.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol also stars Clémence Poésy, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, Laika Blanc Francard, Charrier, Romain Levi, Eriq Ebouaney and Joel de la Fuente and is executive produced by showrunner David Zabel, Scott M. Gimple, Reedus, McBride, Greg Nicotero, Angela Kang, Brian Bockrath, Daniel Percival, Jason Richman and Steve Squillante.

The second season premieres Sunday, September 29 at 9:00 pm ET/PT on AMC and AMC+. You can check out two posters for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol starring Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier below.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol Teaser and Posters Released appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead Universe is saying au revoir to France and hola to Spain. AMC announced three Spanish actors are joining Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride as series regulars in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3, which has started production in Madrid. After two seasons in France — including the upcoming season 2, premiering Sept. 29th — the Walking Dead Daryl and Carolspinoff will continue to explore Europe with extensive location shooting in Spain’s Galicia, Aragón, Catalonia andValencia regions.

Announced at the annual FesTVal television festival in the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spanish actors Eduardo Noriega (The Devil’s Backbone, Vantage Point), Óscar Jaenada (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Hernán) and Alexandra Masangkay (Días mejores, Valley of Shadows) have been cast as series regulars, with Candela Saitta (Máxima, Último primer día) and Hugo Arbués (the Through My Window trilogy, Past Lies) rounding out the new cast in recurring roles.

“As we look forward to the show’s return for season two, we’reexcited to be back on set with Norman, Melissa and this great cast,alongside a fantastic local crew in Spain, whose expertise and creativevision are pivotal in bringing these landscapes to life and adding a newculturally rich dimension to the series,” series creator and showrunner David Zabel said in a statement.”We’re excited for fans to witness the reunion of these two belovedcharacters in season two and to continue crafting the next chapter inthe ‘Caryl’ journey here in Spain.”

Slated to debut on AMC and AMC+ in 2025,season 3 follows Daryl Dixon(Reedus) and Carol Peletier (McBride) “as they continue their journey tosomehow return home and to the ones they love,” according to the official synopsis. “Asthey struggle to find their way back, the path takes them fartherastray, leading them through distant lands with ever-changing andunfamiliar conditions as they witness the various effects of the Walkerapocalypse.”

Reedus and McBride are executive producers on the new season with Zabel, Walking Dead Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple (The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live), Angela Kang and Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead), Jason Richman (Stumptown), Daniel Percival (The Man in the High Castle), and Steven Squillante (Outside the Wire). Silvia Aráez (The Diplomat) and Jesús de la Vega (The Innocent) from Ánima Stillking also join as executive producers for season 3.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol — also starring Clémence Poésy, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, Anne Charrier, Romain Levi, Eriq Ebouaney, and Manish Dayal — premieres its six-episode season September 29th. Daryl Dixon season 3 will premiere in 2025. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Adds Five Actors for Spain-Based Season 3 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Daryl and Carol are taking the scenic route home. AMC confirmed Tuesday that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3, which was announced at San Diego Comic-Con in July, has started production in Spain. Series stars and executive producers Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride marked the start of filming in a video from the set (above). The third season will be based in Madrid with extensive location shooting planned in the Galicia, Aragón, Cataloniaand Valencia regions, each providing a new and unique backdrop for the post-apocalyptic world.

“Aswe look forward to the show’s return for season two, we’re excited tobe back on set with Norman, Melissa and this great cast, alongside afantastic local crew in Spain, whose expertiseand creative vision are pivotal in bringing these landscapes to lifeand adding a new culturally rich dimension to the series,” said showrunner David Zabel.”We’re excited for fans to witness the reunion of these two belovedcharacters in season two and to continue craftingthe next chapter in the ‘Caryl’ journey here in Spain.”

Daryl Dixon season 3, set to air on AMC and AMC+ in 2025, follows Daryl Dixon (Reedus) and Carol Peletier (McBride) “as they continue theirjourney to somehow return home and to the ones they love,” per a synopsis. “As theystruggle to find their way back, the path takesthem farther astray, leading them through distant lands withever-changing and unfamiliar conditions as they witness the variouseffects of the Walker apocalypse.”

Reedus and McBride serve as executive producers on the new season alongside Zabel, Walking Dead Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple (The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live), Angela Kang (The Walking Dead), Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead: Dead City), Jason Richman (Stumptown), Daniel Percival (The Man in the High Castle), andSteven Squillante (Outside the Wire), with Silvia Aráez (The Diplomat) and Jesús de la Vega (The Innocent) joiningas executive producers this season. Peregrinos SP24 provides Spanish production services for season three.

When the first season of the Walking Dead spinoff premiered in late 2023, it became the #1 most-viewedpremiere of all time on AMC+, the most-viewed season of any show in thehistory of AMC+ anda top acquisition driver in both the U.S. and Spain. It was surpassed by the series premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, the series starring Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira’s Michonne, earlier this year.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol debuts with a super-sized premiere September 29th in the U.S. and October 4th in Spain on AMC and AMC+. Daryl Dixon season 3 is slated to air in 2025.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 Begins Production in Spain With Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride appeared first on ComicBook.com.

How do you say “super-sized” in French? AMC Networks announced that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol, the upcoming second season of the France-set Walking Dead spinoff starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride, will premiere as part of a super-sized event on AMC and AMC+ on Sunday, Sept. 29th from 8pm ET/PT to 10pm ET/PT. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Return, an hour-long special looking ahead to the new season, will precede the “La gentillesse des étrangers” season premiere, which follows Reedus’ Daryl and McBride’s Carol on their separate journeys thousands of miles apart.

AMC+ subscribers will also have exclusive access to The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon at San Diego Comic-Con special — featuring this year’s Comic-Con panel with Reedus and McBride, where the network announced a season 3 renewal set and shot in Spain — starting on Sept. 22nd.

The Walking Dead: Best of Daryl and The Walking Dead: Best ofCarol, two custom collections featuring Daryl and Carol’s best episodes from The Walking Dead, are exclusive to AMC+ and include the following episodes:

The Walking Dead: Best of Daryl

1. Daryl’s Story: Best of Daryl Edition
2. Chupacabra: Best of Daryl Edition
3. Still: Best of Daryl Edition
4. The Cell: Best of Daryl Edition
5. The Obliged: Best of Daryl Edition
6. Acts of God: Best of Daryl Edition

The Walking Dead: Best of Carol

1. Carol’s Story: Best of Carol Edition
2. Pretty Much Dead Already: Best of Carol Edition
3. The Grove: Best of Carol Edition
4. No Sanctuary: Best of Carol Edition
5. JSS: Best of Carol Edition
6. What’s Been Lost: Best of Carol Edition

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 2 picks up where October’s first season finale left off.Carol and Daryl both confront old demons while she fights to find herfriend and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causingtension at the Nest. Additionally, Genet’s movementbuilds momentum, setting the Pouvoir on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France’s future.

Along with series regulars Reedus and McBride, the new season stars Clémence Poésy (Isabelle), LouisPuech Scigliuzzi (Laurent), Laika Blanc Francard (Sylvie), Anne Charrier (MadameGenet), Romain Levi (Codron), Eriq Ebouaney (Fallou), and Manish Dayal (Ash). 

“We are so proud of these shows and incredibly grateful for the way this new chapter in The Walking DeadUniverse has been embraced by the fans,” said Dan McDermott, presidentof entertainment, AMC Studios for AMC Networks. “Sending Daryl, and thenCarol, to France was such an inspired and visually striking move forthis franchise, a chance to do something truly different. We can’t waitto continue the travels of this iconic duo with a third season producedand set in Spain, another beautiful country with a passionate TWD fanbase that is already buzzing with anticipation.”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premieres Sunday, Sept. 29th on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol to Get Super-Sized Premiere appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead #95 marked the first time anyone uttered the name “Negan.” While the bat-swinging Savior wouldn’t appear in the flesh until issues later — in the brains-bashing issue #100 — the line was a hint of what was suggested by the title of volume 16: “A Larger World.” But the name-dropping panel, which happens when Paul Monroe, a.k.a. Jesus, leads Rick Grimes’ group to the Hilltop colony, underwent a last-minute alteration to change Negan’s original name: “Naygus,” inspired by the similarly-named Grand Nagus who lived in the Nagal Residence on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

“Negan, if in name only, is introduced in this issue,” writer Robert Kirkman notes in The Cutting Room Floor feature included in The Walking Dead Deluxe #95. “It’s cool seeing the characters mention him without him actually being introduced.”

Kirkman continued, “Originally he was named Naygus, but it turns out that’s the leader of the Ferengi people from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. So his name was changed before it saw print, thankfully, when I realized I wasn’t coming up with a cool sounding name from scratch as I thought, and was actually just recalling something that lived deep within the recesses of my superhero, horror, and sci-fi addled brain.”

The colorized reprint isn’t the first time Kirkman disclosed this tidbit of Walking Dead trivia. (If anyone ever asks, “What was Negan originally named in The Walking Dead?” Now you know the answer.) 

On a 2016 episode of Talking Dead, Kirkman explained he “wanted the name to sound negative in some way, so I was calling him ‘Naygus’ for a long time, which is just a word I thought I pulled from thin air.” After realizing “Nagus” was a Star Trek term, however, Kirkman recalled, ‘I can’t call him Nagus. So then I was like, ‘Okay, Negan. That sounds fine.'”

The Walking Dead Deluxe #95 is on sale now from Image Comics.

The post The Walking Dead Changed Negan’s Name at the Last Minute appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Rick and Michonne are coming home. AMC announced that it will release The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live in a two-disc Blu-ray steelbook set, which contains all six episodes of the hit series reuniting Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira). The RLJE Films release will be available to own on both Blu-ray and DVD and includes a limited-edition collectible CRM embroidered patch — a replica of the Civic Republic Military consignee badge worn by Rick and Michonne on the Walking Dead spinoff — exclusive to the steelbook version.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live will make its disc debut on September 10th with special features, including a preview and the hour-long making-of AMC special Show Me More: The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. The Blu-ray steelbook (priced at $29.99) and the DVD version ($23.99) are available for pre-order on Amazon.

The Ones Who Livepresents the epic love story of two iconic characters changed by achanged world. Kept apart by distance, by an unimaginable power, and bythe ghosts of who they once were, Rick (Lincoln) and Michonne(Gurira) are thrown into a dangerous new land, built on a waragainst the dead and ultimately, a war against the living. Despite newthreats unlike they’ve ever seen, Rick and Michonne will stop at nothingto find each other and together, fight their way home.

Lincoln and Gurira co-created and executive produced the limited series with showrunner and Walking Dead Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple. Along with the long-awaited reunion between the couple — who were separated when Rick was helicoptered away in season 9 of The Walking Dead in 2018 — the spinoff featured the return of Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) and introduced new characters Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt), Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (Craig Tate), fan-favorite Nat (Matthew August Jeffers), and CRM Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn). 

The show’s “Years” premiere set an all-time viewership record for streamer AMC+ and debuted as the #1 cable drama premiere of the 2023/2024 television season in key demos when the Rick-centric first episode aired in February on AMC and AMC+. The episode delivered nearly three million premiere nightviewers in Nielsen live+3 ratings — the biggest premiere night audiencefor a new AMC series since 2018. 

All six episodes are currently available to stream on AMC+ and via Sky’s NOW in the U.K.; The Ones Who Live will join other Walking Dead spinoffs on Netflix starting in January 2025.

The post The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Blu-Ray and DVD Gets Release Date appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The ComicBook Nation crew looks back on the entire Alien movie franchise as they review Alien: Romulus. There’s also a recap of D23’s biggest reveals for Marvel, Star Wars, Disney, and Pixar!

PLUS: Is Rick and Morty: The Anime the best of both worlds? Finally, “Matt’s Agenda” Includes Gaming news for Dragon Age, Big Comics reveals, and MORE!

Alien: Romulus Review

ComicBook Nation host Kofi Outlaw didn’t love Alien: Romulus‘ heavy reliance on franchise nostalgia, giving it 2.5. out of 5 stars in his review:

Alien: Romulus should be a big step forward for the franchise, but instead it’s just a long look backward. It also may be the final proof needed that only Ridley Scott knows the core of what makes Alien a classic horror tale, and may be the only one suited to move things forward. 

D23 Recap

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• Agatha All ALong 
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“We’re the ones that live, Rick,” Andrea told Rick Grimes in issue #94 of The Walking Dead comic book. “We’re the ones who survive… time after time, it’s us.” The 2012 issue of Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic inspired a season 5 episode of the AMC television series, where it was Andrew Lincoln’s Rick who first said the line “we’re the ones who live.” In turn, the phrase repeated by Rick and Danai Gurira’s Michonne inspired the title of their spinoff series, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

“This issue also features Andrea’s line, ‘We’re the ones that live.’ Which I believe eventually evolved into ‘We don’t die’ if I’m not mistaken,” Kirkman writes in this week’s Walking Dead Deluxe #94, a reprint presenting the issue in full color for the first time. “It sealed the bond for these two characters and really solidified their connection.”

Part of Volume 16: A Larger World, the issue sees Alexandrians Rick, Andrea, Michonne, and Glenn joining Jesus on a trip to the Hilltop community. (It was around this point that the Rick/Michonne coupling became Richonne official on the TV show — a romantic development that almost happened in the comics.)

“As Andrea’s storyline got adapted to Michonne in the TV series” following her TV counterpart’s premature death in season 3, Kirkman adds, “that line was also the inspiration for the spin-off show titled The Ones Who Live.”

“They went with the more grammatically correct choice, a decision I cannot abide,” Kirkman joked. “Shame on them.”

“It was always this phrase that was pretty wild,” showrunner Scott M. Gimple previously told Entertainment Weekly of The Ones Who Live title. “As much as there were so many people dyingand being able to say, ‘We’re the ones who live.’ But I never took it asjust applying to the living people, because that seemed a little muchto be like, ‘Hey, we’re the ones that live, too bad about all thosepeople we love.'”

“No, to me, it felt like there’s a continuum of arelationship and love that cannot be extinguished,” Gimple explained. “And that is what isforged in this hell that we’ve lived through together. And thetriumphant thing is that we forever lived through each other and beyond.That, to me, seems the message of the whole thing.”

The Walking Dead Deluxe #94 is on sale now from Image Comics.

The post The Walking Dead Creator Reflects on the Line That Inspired The Ones Who Live appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The ComicBook Nation crew gives a spoiler-free review of Deadpool & Wolverine, and then dips into all of the breaking news from San Diego Comic-Con so far! We also review Kite Man: Hell Yeah! And then talk Transformers, Joker 2, Absolute Power, and comics, along with a preview of this year’s Gen Con!

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A second BONUS episode reunites ComicBook Nation hosts Kofi Outlaw, Janell Wheeler and Matt Aguilar summon their energy reserves to recap SDCC after the convention is done. Tune in for it all! 

Deadpool & Wolverine Review 

Phase Zero host Jenna Anderson said this in her 4.5. out of 5-star Deadpool & Wolverine Review: 

Amid the never-ending conversation around superhero fatigue, too many spoilers, and not enough effective storytelling, it feels rare to be truly surprised by a new superhero adaptation. Deadpool & Wolverine is such a pleasant surprise – both in its jaw-dropping elements and in the sentimental reason for those elements even existing – that it almost feels like a miracle. The movie’s handful of flaws are outweighed by its pure blockbuster storytelling and the gleeful rapport of its two protagonists. Through its no-holds-barred execution and the wildly entertaining performances of its ensemble cast, Deadpool & Wolverine serves as the most unlikely reminder of why we care about superhero movies in the first place.

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The Daryl and Carol world tour continues. The Walking Dead spinoff Daryl Dixon has been renewed for a third season that will be set and shot in Spain, network AMC announced during the show’s San Diego Comic-Con panel on Friday. After reuniting in France — as shown in the just-released Comic-Con trailer for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol, which premieres September 29th — Norman Reedus’ Daryl and Melissa McBride’s Carol will see the zombie apocalypse through another foreign countryas the Madrid-based season three shoots across Spain’s Galicia, Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia regions.

Airing on AMC and AMC+ in 2025, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 “tracks Carol and Daryl as they continue their journey towards home and the ones they love,” per the official synopsis. “As they struggle to find their way back, the path takes them farther astray, leading them through distant lands with ever-changing and unfamiliar conditions as they witness the various effects of the Walker apocalypse.”

Production of the new season will begin in August, with series creator and showrunner David Zabel again serving as executive producer with Reedus, McBride, Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead), and The Walking Dead Universe’s chief content officer, Scott M. Gimple (The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live).

“We are so proud of these shows and incredibly grateful for the way this new chapter in The Walking Dead Universe has been embraced by the fans,” said Dan McDermott, president of entertainment, AMC Studios for AMC Networks. “Sending Daryl, and then Carol, to France was such an inspired and visually striking move for this franchise, a chance to do something truly different. We can’t wait to continue the travels of this iconic duo with a third season produced and set in Spain, another beautiful country with a passionate TWD fanbase that is already buzzing with anticipation.”

Reedus and McBride starred together on all 11 seasons of The Walking Dead, which then spun off into international territory with the Reedus-fronted Daryl Dixon replacing the planned Daryl and Carol series that would have seen the duo ride off together into the American southwest. McBride bowed out of that spinoff for personal reasons, but she eventually appeared in the final minutes of Daryl Dixon season 1 as Carol traveled to Maine in search of her missing best friend.

In a statement following the Comic-Con panel, Reedus said, “I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce a third season and to be working side by side with the brilliant Melissa McBride. Season two is some of my favorite storytelling of this series. Watching Melissa shine along with our brilliant cast and crew has been one of my fondest memories playing this character. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did making it and we can’t wait to keep the story going.”

Added McBride: “I’m really appreciating the new challenges for Daryl and Carol being so far from all they’ve ever known… what it means for them, what it brings for each of them, apart and together. There’s still so much ahead to unpack in France for the coming season two, and a breathtaking finale. And now Spain! I already know that David Zabel’s storytelling is making the most of all that is so beautiful and unique to Spain. We start shooting there in just a few weeks… such excitement looking forward!”

After two seasons in France, Daryl Dixon is now the first Walking Dead series to be produced in Spain.

“France made Daryl and Carol’s story into an epic poem with what we found there,” said Gimple. “What’s to come in Spain may even surpass it — and we’re so damn happy to bring the audience more of the Terrific Two alongside new compelling characters, in a yet unseen, beautiful, horrific corner of their broken world.”

Zabel said, “We are all very excited to continue the epic and intimate story of these two friends Daryl and Carol trying to get back home. Exploring new spectacular European settings, we look forward to dramatizing the ways in which the Walker apocalypse has done to Spain what it did to France.”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premieres its six-episode season Sept. 29th on AMC and AMC+, with the just-renewed Daryl Dixon season 3 following in 2025.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage) and ComicBook.com’s Comic-Con hub for the latest news and updates out of SDCC 2024.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Renewed for Season 3 at Comic-Con appeared first on ComicBook.com.

“It’s not like we’re never gonna see each other again,” Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) told Carol (Melissa McBride) during a teary goodbye on The Walking Dead‘s series finale, which ended with the best friends exchanging “I love yous” and Daryl promising to return. But then he was ferried overseas, shipwrecked, and stranded in zombie-plagued France. Cut off from his friends back home, Daryl has been on a mission shepherding Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) to safety at Union de l’Espoir’s Nest in Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy. 

Meanwhile, Carol embarked on her own mission: a cross-country trek to find Daryl and bring him home. Their fan-favorite characters may be continents apart in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol, but Reedus and McBride reunited in-person at San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H on Friday to debut the just-released new trailer (below).

The second season of Daryl Dixon (premiering September 29th) picks up where October’s first season finale left off. Carol and Daryl bothconfront old demons while she fights to find her friend and he struggleswith his decision to stay in France, causing tension at the Nest.Additionally, Genet (Anne Charrier)’s movement builds momentum,setting the Pouvoir on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope inthe fight for France’s future.

AMC announced a Walking Dead Daryl and Carol spinoff in 2020, but McBride dropped out of the series for personal reasons. Now the duo are headlining the six-episode Daryl Dixon season 2 as series regulars opposite returning cast members Clémence Poésy, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi, Laika Blanc Francard (Sylvie), Anne Charrier (Madame Genet), Romain Levi (Codron) and Eriq Ebouaney (Fallou). The Resident‘s Manish Dayal has joined the series as Ash Patel.

From returning executive producer and showrunner David Zabel, the new season is executive produced by Reedus and McBride with Walking Dead Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple (The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live), Greg Nicotero and Angela Kang (The Walking Dead), Brian Bockrath (The Walking Dead: Dead City), Daniel Percival (The Man in the High Castle), Jason Richman (Stumptown), and Steve Squillante (Locke).

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premieres Sunday, Sept. 29th on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage) and ComicBook.com’s Comic-Con hub for the latest news and updates out of SDCC 2024.

The post SDCC 2024: New Walking Dead Daryl Dixon Trailer Teases Daryl & Carol Reunion appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The gangs of The Walking Dead: Dead City have an empire state of mind. AMC’s Maggie and Negan Walking Dead spinoff starring Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan traveled from New York to San Diego Comic-Con‘s Hall H on Friday, where the co-stars debuted the first trailer for the upcoming second season (which premieres in 2025 on AMC and AMC+). Watch the just-released trailer in the player above.

“In the growing war for control of Manhattan, Maggie and Negan findthemselves trapped on opposite sides,” reads the official synopsis. “As theirpaths intertwine, they come to see that the way out for both is morecomplicated and harrowing than they ever imagined.” 

“The old world was rigged. Designed to rip us apart,” intones the Burazi-allied Dama in voice over. “That was the world of the dead.” With a familiar whistle, out steps the leather jacket-clad Negan with Lucille: the bloodied, barbwire-wrapped baseball bat that signals the return of Negan as savior of a gang war-torn Manhattan.

When the Walking Dead spinoff concluded its first season in July 2023, Maggie handed over her husband’s killerto the Croat (Željko Ivanek) and The Dama (Lisa Emery). As it turnedout, the Dama had Maggie’s son, Hershel (Logan Kim), kidnapped so thatMaggie would bring her the fugitive Negan before he could be captured byrelentless New Babylon Marshal Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles). TheDama then blackmailed the former Savior leader, offering him the keys tothe kingdom to unite the island’s settlements under one indomitablerule — lest she go after Maggie’s rescued son a second time.

“I know what it means to go back to Manhattan,” Maggie says in the trailer. “It’s cost me a lot. Almost everything.” When Armstrong asks why Maggie wants to save the life of the man she once wanted dead, she says of Negan: “It’s different now.”

“I think Negan has found out that he screwed up, that he made mistakes back then and I think he has made an earnest effort to move forward,” Morgan explained during the panel. “That being said, the circumstances of this season bring back the old Negan.”

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Also announced at the panel: new season 2 cast members Dascha Polanco (Orange Is the New Black), Jake Weary (Animal Kingdom), Keir Gilchrist (Love & Death), and Pooya Mohseni (Madam Secretary). They join previously announced series newcomer Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy).

Alongside Cohan and Morgan, Dead Cityseason 2 stars Gaius Charles as Armstrong, Željko Ivanek as The Croat, Mahina Anne MarieNapoleon as Ginny, Lisa Emery as The Dama, and Logan Kim as Hershel Rhee. EliJorné, a writer and co-executive producer on The Walking Deadfor multiple seasons, returns as showrunner and executive producer onthe series, along with Scott M. Gimple, chief content officer of The Walking Dead Universe, Cohan, Morgan, Brian Bockrath (The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live), Michael Satrazemis (Fear the Walking Dead) and Colin Walsh (NOS4A2).

The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 airs in 2025 on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage) and ComicBook.com’s Comic-Con hub for the latest news and updates out of SDCC 2024.

The post SDCC 2024: The Walking Dead’s Maggie and Negan Go to War in Dead City Season 2 Trailer appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Season 6’s “Thank You” episode of The Walking Dead had viewers down in the dumps after fan-favorite Glenn (Steven Yeun) was shockingly killed off as the victim of a zombie horde. Except Glenn didn’t die. While it appeared that Glenn was eaten alive after climbing on top of a dumpster with Nicholas (Michael Traynor) — who shot himself in the head to avoid such a fate — the dumpster dive was a fake-out. 

As it turned out, the guts we saw being torn out belonged to Nicholas — not Glenn. A month-long cliffhanger and four episodes later, the opening minutes of “Heads Up” revealed that Nicholas fell on top of Glenn when they tumbled into the swarm of walkers… giving Glenn time to slide under a dumpster as Nicholas was devoured. 

“When I got the script for [‘Thank You’],usually we got a pretty big heads up if an actor is going to be leaving us. We’d find out multiple episodes in advance, or months in advance sometimes. For this one, we got no heads up,” Chandler Riggs, who played Carl Grimes for the first eight seasons, said during a panel at Nickle City Comic Con. “It’s Glenn with the dumpster. And in the script, it doesn’t say that he’s good. It says that Glenn is being torn apart.”

“I remember reading that and being like, ‘What?! Not yet! We’re not there yet,'” Riggs continued, referring to Glenn’s comic book death in The Walking Dead issue #100.

Asked if fans might have had a different reaction to the dumpster scene if Glenn died for real, Riggs said, “It’s a tough thing because when you’re a fan of a show and you’re supporting it, you don’t want to be lied to or faked out. I feel like there were some cases where there were not super necessary fake-outs and kind of tricking the fans. Like ‘I got you!’ Just for the sake of ‘gotcha’ and not tell you for, like, five weeks until the next episode comes out.”

After the Angela Kang-penned episode aired, then-showrunner Scott M. Gimple issued a statement on Talking Dead that hinted there was more to Glenn’s fate. “In some way, we will see Glenn, some version of Glenn or parts ofGlenn again, either in flashback or in the current story to helpcomplete the story,” Gimple’s statement read. A few weeks later, Gimple appeared on the aftershow to explain that the uncertainty around whether Glenn was alive or dead was so audiences could feel “the exact same way” as Maggie (Lauren Cohan), who wondered when — or if — her husband would return.

“The story we were telling was one of uncertainty,” Gimple said at the time. “Whenpeople leave the walls — in this case of Alexandria — they don’t havecell phones. They aren’t rocking ’80s beepers. You don’t know whathappens. You have no idea. When they leave, that could be the last timeyou see them. And I think it was important to do a story this year aboutuncertainty, and the audience would share that uncertainty that thecharacters had, like in episode 5. Maggie didn’t know what happened toGlenn, and I wanted the audience to be exactly where she was, to feelthe exact same way.”

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage) and ComicBook.com’s SDCC hub for the latest news and updates out of San Diego Comic-Con 2024.

The post The Walking Dead Cast Didn’t Know About Glenn Death Fake-Out appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Netflix is taking a bigger bite out of The Walking Dead Universe. The streamer has announced that 15 AMC-aired shows — including the Walking Dead spinoffs Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead: Dead City, and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live — will eventually migrate to the service starting next month. All 11 seasons of AMC’s flagship Walking Dead series, which ran for 177 episodes between 2010 and 2022, are already available to stream on Netflix.

Fear and Daryl Dixon are among the series that will head to Netflix on August 19th, with Dead City and The Ones Who Live arriving on the platform on January 13th, 2025. All together, 32 seasons of AMC programming will be available to Netflix subscribers for one year under the new deal.

AMC Shows New on Netflix August 2024

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 1
Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire Season 1
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches Season 1
Monsieur Spade Season 1
A Discovery of Witches Seasons 1-3
Dark Winds Seasons 1-2
Fear the Walking Dead Seasons 1-8
Gangs of London Seasons 1-2
Into the Badlands Seasons 1-3
Kevin Can F*** Himself Seasons 1-2
Preacher Seasons 1-4
That Dirty Black Bag Season 1
The Terror Season 1

AMC Shows New on Netflix January 2025

The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Season 1

Currently, all Walking Dead shows with the exception of theoriginal are available to stream on AMC+. The Netflix-AMC deal does notinclude two-season limited series The Walking Dead: World Beyond or the anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead, which are carried on AMC’s own streaming service. 

Last year, AMC Networks sent seasons of Fear the Walking Dead and other AMC shows to Max (formerly HBO Max) for a 60-day period. The “AMC+ Picks on Max” hub gave Max subscribers access to more than 200 episodes from seven AMC Networks series at no additional charge and drove viewership on AMC+.

“This agreement puts our high-quality shows in front of thevast audience of Netflix subscribers with the AMC brand clearlyrepresented,” Kristin Dolan, chief executive officer of AMC Networks, said in astatement. “These curated titles are also being strategically windowedto drive interest in current and upcoming seasons on ourdirect-to-consumer and partner platforms. We believe this significantexpansion of our Netflix relationship will drive viewership andengagement on Netflix, while also raising awareness and interest in ouraward-winning content on AMC-branded and partner platforms across ourdistribution ecosystem.”

As part of that strategy, fans will have time to binge the six-episode first season of Daryl Dixon ahead of the Sept. season premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol on AMC and AMC+.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage) and ComicBook.com’s SDCC hub for the latest news and updates out of San Diego Comic-Con 2024.

The post The Walking Dead Spinoffs and More AMC Shows Will Stream on Netflix appeared first on ComicBook.com.

After trips to France and New York, The Walking Dead Universe returns to San Diego. AMC Networks announced that spinoffs The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol and The Walking Dead: Dead City will take the stage at San Diego Comic-Con‘s Hall H with stars Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Lauren Cohan, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in attendance. On the SDCC schedule are back-to-back panels moderated by Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick, new trailer drops, and an advanced screening of Daryl Dixon season 2 ahead of its September 29th premiere on AMC.

“Fans are at the heart of San Diego Comic-Con, and at the heart ofour programming franchises like The Walking Dead Universe and AnneRice’s Immortal Universe, so we are thrilled to once again be returningwith shows that have been embraced by passionate fans around the world,”said Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMCNetworks. “This is a focal point moment for us every year, giving fansthe opportunity to engage with our talent, see what is coming andcelebrate the stories and characters they love. We’re thrilled to beback.”

The Walking Dead: Dead City panel will take place Friday, July 26th, at 1:45-2:45 p.m. inside Hall H, followed by The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol panel immediately afterward from 2:45-3:45 p.m. Panelists include Dead City stars and executive producers Cohan and Morgan, showrunner Eli Jorné, and cast members Gaius Charles and Željko Ivanek; from the Daryl/Carol spinoff, panelists include stars and executive producers Reedus and McBride, showrunner David Zabel, executive producer and director Greg Nicotero, and cast member Louis Puech Scigliuzzi. 

The Walking Dead: Dead City Panel on Friday, July 26, 1:45-2:45pm, Hall H

The Walking Dead: Dead City follows fan-favorite charactersMaggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) as they travelinto a post-apocalyptic Manhattan, long ago cut off from the mainland.The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have madeNew York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, andterror. In season two, in the growing war for control of Manhattan,Maggie and Negan find themselves trapped on opposite sides. As theirpaths intertwine, they come to see that the way out for both is morecomplicated and harrowing than they ever imagined.

Having recently wrapped production on Season 2, the panel willfeature an exclusive look at the new season, returning next year withpanelists including Chief Content Officer of the Walking Dead UniverseScott M. Gimple, Showrunner and Executive Producer Eli Jorné, ExecutiveProducer and Star Cohan, Executive Producer and Star Morgan, Cast MemberGaius Charles and Cast Member Željko Ivanek. The panel will bemoderated by Chris Hardwick.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol Panel on Friday, July 26, 2:45-3:45pm, Hall H

The new season picks up where The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon left off,following fan-favorite characters Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and CarolPeletier (Melissa McBride). They both confront old demons while shefights to find her friend and he struggles with his decision to stay inFrance, causing tension at the Nest. Additionally, Genet (AnneCharrier)’s movement builds momentum, setting Pouvoir on a violentcollision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France’sfuture.

Panelists include Gimple, Showrunner and Executive Producer DavidZabel, Executive Producer and Director Greg Nicotero; ExecutiveProducer and Star Reedus, Executive Producer and Star McBride and CastMember Louis Puech Scigliuzzi. Moderated by Hardwick, the panel willdebut the official trailer for the new season returning Sunday,September 29 at 9pm ET on AMC and AMC+.

The panel will be followed by an advance Comic-Con screening of The WalkingDead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premiere on Friday, July 26th, at theRooftop Cinema Club Embarcadero from 7-9 p.m. PT. 

Both Walking Dead panels follow the final season Snowpiercer panel (Friday, July 26th, 11:15am-12:30 p.m., Ballroom 20). Daveed Diggs, Mickey Sumner, Mike O’Malley, and executive producers Paul Zbyszewski and Christoph Schrewe will be on hand to present an exclusive advanced screening of an all-new episode of Snowpiercer season 4.

It was also announced the Anne Rice Immortal Universe series Anne Rice’s Interview with theVampire and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches will have a joint 75-minute panel (Saturday, July 27th, 5:00-6:15pm, Ballroom 20). Mark Johnson, who oversees the Anne Rice Immortal Universe, showrunnerand executive producer Rolin Jones, production designer MaraLePere-Schloop and cast members Sam Reid, Assad Zaman and DelaineyHayles will discuss season 2 and tease the upcoming Interview with the Vampire season 3. Johnson will stay on for the Mayfair Witches panel and be joined by showrunner Esta Spalding and castmembers Alexandra Daddario, Harry Hamlin, Tongayi Chirisa, Jack Huston, Ben Feldman andAlyssa Jirrels.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD (and on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage) and ComicBook.com’s SDCC hub for the latest news and updates out of San Diego Comic-Con 2024.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and Dead City Coming to San Diego Comic-Con 2024 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Seven, the beloved Belgian Malinois who played Daryl Dixon’s dog on The Walking Dead, has died. On Thursday, network AMC and the official Walking Dead social media accounts announced the animal actor’s death with a tribute to the zombie drama’s “best boy.” A cause of death was not disclosed. Seven appeared in 25 episodes of the series since the season 9 episode “Stradivarius” in 2018, which introduced the dog — named Dog — as the canine companion of Daryl (Norman Reedus).

“Gonna miss u Seven,” Reedus wrote on Instagram Stories. “Best TV buddy ever.”

The dog was named “Dog” by his original owner, Leah (Lynn Collins), Daryl’s lover when he spent six years living alone in the woods while looking for Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). When Leah disappeared from her cabin in the woods in the season 10 episode “Find Me,” Daryl adopted Dog as his own.

Reedus spent years asking the Walking Dead producers to give Daryl a dog. During a visit to the Georgia set in 2018, Reedus gushed to ComicBook about working with Seven.

“It’s so good,” Reedus exclusively told ComicBook at the time. “I love it. I think he’s the smartest cast member we got. We just dida scene the other day that ended up being the opposite of what it wassupposed to be because the dog just wanted to do something else, and itcame out so much better. He’ll probably be running the show. It’s great!I love it. He loves me, too.”

Dog’s role came about as a way to “show the state that Daryl’s in” after the missing Rick was thought dead, showrunner Angela Kang explained in a 2018 interview. “And I thought that it would be great that he’s been off for a whileafter Rick’s presumed death. Daryl just went off. And Daryl is somebody who hunts and goes about and doesthings, and it seemed like a dog is a good companion. It shows thatthere’s still a desire for him to have a connection somehow. And so thedog is his faithful companion.”

Seven drew praise from David Boyd, who directed Dog’s origin story episode. “Find Me” flashed back to Daryl’s first meeting with the zombie-fighting dog as a seemingly stray pup (played by a younger dog actor, named Carl).

“I won’t stop talking about Dog. That animal is fantastic,” Boyd told HuffPost in a 2021 interview. “[Seven] has a brain, andhe’s got an acting spirit. In prep, you go, ‘This dog isnever going to do any of it,’ right? You read the script and you go,’OK, he goes there and stops there and he barks there. It’s never goingto happen. It’s going to take 19 hours to get one thing out of thisdog.’ But no. Take one. Boom! We go, OK. We look at each other and say,’Well, do we need another take?'”

“There’s a little bit scripted where at the beginning of the episode,dog runs right at camera and is supposed to come to a screeching haltand kick up some dust. And we read that and go, ‘Well, that’s nevergonna happen,’ and take one. Perfect. We just said, ‘Well, what thehell? Now we’re an hour ahead. Let’s do another take.’ And same thing.Perfect. Exactly right. Excellent,” Boyd continued, adding that Seven was capable of performing even the most complicated commands. “[Seven’s trainers] go, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ Damned if that dog didn’t do it. Everysingle bit of it. That dog can perform for four minutes and just keepgoing. That’s amazing. I love him.”

Collins also fondly remembered working with her animal co-star, telling Den of Geek in 2021: “[Seven’s] actually an older guy. He’s not a pup. And so he is reallycomfortable on set and really easy to work with and super loving and thetrainers are incredible. So it was really easy to just sit with him andpet him and love on him. I think literally at one point they were like,’Lynn, stop playing with him. He’s not going to be able to focus.’That’s how sweet and loving this dog was.”

Seven’s Dog last appeared in The Walking Dead‘s “Rest in Peace” series finale in November 2022.

The post The Walking Dead’s Dog, Seven, Has Died: “Best TV Buddy Ever” appeared first on ComicBook.com.

It’s been almost two years since Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) bid goodbye in the series finale of The Walking Dead — but the best friends won’t be apart much longer. AMC announced today that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol, which will reunite Reedus and McBride in the France-set spinoff, will premiere Sunday, September 29th at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+. Along with setting a fall premiere date for Daryl Dixon season 2, the network also shared a new synopsis and first-look photos.

After October’s first season finale ended with Daryl delivering Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) to TheNest, a boat arrived at Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy to take the stranded Daryl home to America. Meanwhile, Carol tracked down the missing Daryl to Freeport, Maine, before embarking on her own cross-country trek that will pick up from where we left her: riding Daryl’s bike as she follows her old friend’s trail to France, where Daryl is helping Union de l’Espoir in their fight against the zombie-experimenting Madame Genet (Anne Charrier) and her Guerriers.

In the new season, Daryl and Carol both confront old demons while she fights to find her friend and he struggles with his decision to stay in France, causing tension at the Nest. Additionally, Genet’s movement builds momentum, setting Pouvoir on a violent collision course with the Union of Hope in the fight for France’s future.

Returning alongside Reedus and McBride are Poésy as “killer nun” Isabelle; Scigliuzzi as Laurent, who was born to a zombie-bitten mother and is believed by the Union to be humanity’s Messiah; Charrier as Madame Genet, leader of the French political movement known as Pouvoir Des Vivants (“Power of the Living”); Romain Levi as the ex-Guerrier Codron; and Eriq Ebouaney as the Union ally and Montmarte leader Fallou.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol comes after McBride bowed out of the once-planned Daryl & Carol spinoff. In October 2023, McBride made a cameo appearance in Daryl Dixon‘s “Coming Home” first season finale.

“It was always the hope and the desire that we would get Melissa ontothe show in season one, in whatever version she was ready to do. Thatwas always what I wanted to do and what everybody wanted,” showrunner David Zabelpreviously told ComicBook in our first season finale postmortem.”Norman wanted it, [Scott M. Gimple] wanted it, we all wanted it. So it was justa matter of working out what the show was going to be and then seeinghow we could include her. Because we love the character, and we loveMelissa, and we love the dynamic of Daryl and Carol together. So fromthe point where I started participating on the show, that was always theconversation.”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premieres Sept. 29 on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol Sets Fall Premiere Date With New Photos appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Start spreading the news: Dead City is returning in 2025.

AMCreleased the first look at The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2, and it teases that enemies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) — who were forced to work together on a mission that brought them to post-apocalyptic Manhattan in season 1 — are once again on opposite sides of another war. This time, it’s a gang war for the dead city that never sleeps. The behind-the-scenes sneak peek, below, also comes with an official synopsis revealing how the dysfunctional duo will cross paths when the urban zombie drama returns next year.

“In the growing war for control of Manhattan, Maggie andNegan find themselves trapped on opposite sides,” the synopsis reads. “As their pathsintertwine, they come tosee that the way out for both is more complicated and harrowing thanthey ever imagined.” 

When the Walking Dead spinoff concluded its first season in July 2023, Maggie handed over her husband’s killer to the Croat (Željko Ivanek) and The Dama (Lisa Emery). As it turned out, the Dama had Maggie’s son, Hershel (Logan Kim), kidnapped so that Maggie would bring her the fugitive Negan before he could be captured by relentless New Babylon Marshal Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles). The Dama then blackmailed the former Savior leader, offering him the keys to the kingdomto unite the island’s settlements under one indomitable rule — lest she go after Maggie’s rescued son a second time.

Alongside Cohan and Morgan, Dead City season 2 stars Gaius Charles,Željko Ivanek, Mahina Anne Marie Napoleon, Lisa Emery, Logan Kim and series newcomerKim Coates. Eli Jorné, who has been a writer andco-executive producer on The Walking Dead for multipleseasons, returns as showrunner and executive producer on the series,along with Scott M. Gimple, chief content officer of The Walking DeadUniverse, Cohan, Morgan, Brian Bockrath (The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live), Michael Satrazemis (Fear the Walking Dead) and ColinWalsh (NOS4A2). 

The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2 is now in production and will premiere in 2025 on AMC and AMC+.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post Dead City Season 2 First Look Teases a Walking Dead Gang War appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The ComicBook Nation crew breaks down the X-Men ’97 Season 1 Finale and discusses all the reveals about the Season 2 storyline. We also review the new movie IF (2024). 

PLUS:  Geek News includes some big renewal news for some of streaming’s hottest shows; a breakdown of Amazon’s The Rings of Power Season 2 Trailer, and the Spider-Verse expands with Nic Cage’s Spider-Man Noir TV show – even as Amazon’s Silk: Spider Society series dies in development. 

IF (2024) Review

ComicBook critic Jamie Jirak’s IF movie review gives the film 3.5 out of 5 stars: 

The film does a good job of reminding its audience that there’s a kid in all of us, and that time can never truly take away your imagination. It’s been a while since I looked around in a theater and saw multiple grown men shedding a tear. Krasinski knows how to appeal to parents, especially dads. While IF may not be a perfectly pieced-together movie, there’s enough heart embedded in its core to make it a worthy trip to the cinema for families. The cast is delightful, the IFs are magical, and the warmth is undeniable.

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The post X-Men ’97 Finale Breakdown & Season 2 Preview, IF (2024) Review appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead Universe is taking a bite out of the UK. British broadcaster Sky announced today that all 11 seasons of AMC’s The Walking Dead and three of its spinoff series — The Walking Dead: Dead City, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live — will be released in the UK exclusively on Sky and the streaming service NOW. All 177 episodes of the original zombie drama, currently streaming only on Netflix in the U.S., will be available on demand on Sky and NOW starting May 19; The Ones Who Live will release from May 31, with Dead City and Daryl Dixon coming to both Sky and NOW later this year. 

The shows, which aired on AMC and AMC+ in the U.S., had limited availability outside North America. For example, AMC’s Walking Dead spinoffs were released as Stan exclusives in Australia, but fans in the UK could only watch the original series (and none of the spinoffs) on Disney+.

“TheWalking Dead Universe has a huge and ardent UK fanbase,” said Lucy Criddle, Sky Director of Acquisitions and Strategic Projects. “We knowaudiences on Sky and NOW will be buzzing to see Rick Grimes and Michonnereunited in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, as well as being ableto dip into the wider universe, enjoying all 11 seasons of the original The Walking Dead series, as well as new spin-offs Daryl Dixon and DeadCity.”

“Weare delighted to have found a new home for The Walking Dead Universe inthe UK. As we enter an exciting new chapter in the evolution of thisfranchise, with three new eagerly awaited, character-driven series, Skyis the perfect, premium home for UK viewers to embrace all thingsWalking Dead,” added Mike Pears, executive vice president of distribution and content sales for AMC Networks. “TheWalking Dead: The Ones Who Live is the most successful series in thehistory of AMC+, even including the original series, so it is fittingthat it will lead the way as Sky brings this entire universe to U.K.fans in the coming weeks and months on Sky and NOW.”

According to Sky, Daryl Dixon season 1 will be available in August, with the upcoming second season — subtitled The Book of Carol and co-starring Melissa McBride — streaming on NOW later this year. Dead City season 1 will become available “later in 2024,” and the upcoming second season will also head to the service in 2025. All three spinoffs are currently available to stream on-demand on the AMC+ streaming service in the U.S., along with episodes of spinoffs Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, and Tales of the Walking Dead.

Dead City teams enemies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in post-apocalyptic New York City; Daryl Dixon sees the titular survivor (Norman Reedus) wash ashore in zombie-plagued France and follows his attempt to return home to America; and The Ones Who Live reunites long-lost lovers Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) against their conflict with the Civic Republic Military. 

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead Spinoffs Secure UK Release appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Following the latest episode of X-Men ’97, the show’s Professor X actor Ross Marquand joined ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast for a Spotlight episode. The in-person Spotlight covers many years of Marquand’s career, starting with his time as Aaron on The Walking Dead which preceded his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since 2017, Marquand has taken on roles as Ultorn in Avengers: Damange Control and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Infinity Ultron in What If..?, Professor X (and now Doctor Doom!) in X-Men ’97, and more.

Marquand had considered and decided on walking away from acting ahead of booking his role on The Walking Dead, with the full story being shared on the new Phase Zero episode. After becoming Aaron, Marquand booked his role as Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame which filmed secretly in Atlanta, Georgia. At the time of booking the role, Marquand was not told the work was for an Avengers movie but the actor found out upon arrival. He quickly learned the secrets of Red Skull’s scenes and was forced to keep them for years. Then, he would go on to book the Professor X role, with the original version of the character from X-Men: The Animated Series being a major reason he pursued acting, in the first place. On Monday, X-Men ’97‘s Magneto actor Matthew Waterson joins Phase Zero for the next Spotlight episode.

Phase Zero‘s Spotlight episode with Ross Marquand can be seen in the video above. Additional links to Phase Zero can be found below:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube

Why is Phase Zero the Best MCU Podcast for you?

Launching on January 15, 2021, Phase Zero made its goal of building a fun and welcoming community of Marvel fans clear. In the time since, more than 3,000,000 listens across platforms and countless comments from listeners and viewers, the community has become one which celebrates the Marvel fandom and regularly engages in conversation about past and future titles. Having connected fans with some of their favorite actors, provided expert knowledge on upcoming titles, and analysis with comparisons to comics, Phase Zero is the one-stop podcast for all things Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The newly launched Spotlight episodes have featured guests looking back at new and exciting Marvel projects, with the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Iman Vellani, and Hayley Atwell joining the show. For more What If..? chatter, be sure to listen to the Spotlight episode with the creators of the series! 

Phase Zero invites you to celebrate all things Marvel, hosting a weekly conversation of theories, speculation, and exclusive interviews and insights. It’s the number one spot for MCU fans, welcoming those new to it all and those who think they know it all! New episodes are recorded live on Youtube every Wednesday at 12pm ET before being made available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and wherever podcasts can be found. For updates regarding the Phase Zero podcast, follow the official Phase Zero account on Twitter!

The post Ross Marquand Talks X-Men ’97, Secrets From Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame | Phase Zero Spotlight appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead won’t be reanimated anytime soon. Even before creator Robert Kirkman and Prime Video collaborated on adult animated superhero show Invincible, fans have been hoping to sink their teeth into an animated adaptation of the Skybound/Image comic by Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. Kirkman has been receptive to the idea of a “faithful” animated version of the black-and-white zombie comic that spanned 193 issues and spawned a live-action Walking Dead Universe at AMC, but it seems the network isn’t biting. 

“I’d love to see it happen someday, but I don’t think it’ll be possible until I get the rights back from AMC,” Kirkman wrote in response to a fan who asked about a Walking Dead animated show in the “Letter Hacks” column of The Walking Dead Deluxe #85. Skybound’s TWD editor Amanda LaFranco added: “There’s definitely been developments over the years for something like this, and there’s a lot of fans over here that would still very much love to make that happen.”

In 2010, the network released an eight-minute, “fully-animated” motion comic adapting 13 pages from The Walking Dead #1 by Kirkman and artist Tony Moore. AMC also dabbled with comic-style animation in an animated segment of the webisode series The Walking Dead: Red Machete. AMC’s Walking Dead Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple has expressed interest in using animation in potential future episodes of anthology spinoff Tales of the Walking Dead, but the franchise has so far only dabbled with the format.

AMC acquired the rights to the graphic novel in 2009 in one of the largestdevelopment deals the network ever closed. The Walking Dead debuted in 2010 from series developer and showrunner Frank Darabont, who served as executive producer with Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, and Kirkman. The Darabont-directed AMC Original series premiere marked the largest audience for anyoriginal series on the network, and delivered the highest ratings in the key 18-49 demographic for any cable series premiere in 2010. AMC’s Walking Dead was the #1 series on basic cable for 12 consecutive years when it ended its 11-season run after 177 episodes in 2022.

In March, Kirkman and four other Walking Dead executive producers — Hurd, Alpert, Charles Eglee, and former showrunner Glen Mazzara — saw a victory in their 2022 profits-sharing suit against the network when a federal judge denied AMC’s motion to have the case dismissed. (After first filing suit in 2017, and after Darabont was awarded $200 million in his separate profit participation lawsuit in 2021, the executive producers sued a second time in a suit arguing they were “entitled to a payment well over $200 million from AMC.”)

Along with since-ended spinoffs Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond, AMC continued The Walking Dead with the spinoffs The Walking Dead: Dead City (starring Lauren Cohan’s Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan), The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (starring Norman Reedus), and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (starring Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira’s Michonne). Dead City season 2 and Daryl Dixon season 2, also starring Melissa McBride as Carol, are currently in the works at AMC.

The post Robert Kirkman: The Walking Dead Animated Series Can’t Happen “Until I Get the Rights Back From AMC” appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead spanned 193 issues across 32 volumes, but there was nearly a prequel volume exploring the days before “Days Gone Bye.” The six-issue first volume of Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic began with small town sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes waking up from a coma one month into the apocalypse, sending Rick on an undead odyssey from Cynthiana, Kentucky, to Atlanta, Georgia, to find his wife and son. By the final page of issue #2, Rick reunited with his family in a camp outside walker-swarmed Atlanta along with his police partner — and best friend — Shane Walsh.

Shane was escorting Carl and Lori to her parents’ house in Atlanta, only for a flashback in issue #7 to reveal the moment they arrived to find the city overrun by the dead. It was during this time that Shane and Lori began an affair that resulted in pregnancy. As it turns out, Kirkman conceived a Walking Dead prequel comic set during that eventful 349-mile trek from Cynthiana to Atlanta with original series artist Tony Moore, who ended his run as interior illustrator after the first six issues.

“I had always considered doing a volume 0 that would be Shane, Lori and Carl’s trip from Cynthiana, KY to Atlanta, GA,” Kirkman wrote in the Letter Hacks section of The Walking Dead Deluxe #85. “I even wrote a few pages of a script. There was a time early on I’d thought of it as a cool project to do with Tony Moore, but in the end it just never came together. At this point, we’ll probably never see it.”

Kirkman eventually penned a prequel — Here’s Negan, a standalone volume exploring Negan’s origins at the onset of the zombie apocalypse — and 2020’s Negan Lives one-shot, the only Walking Dead issue written by Kirkman since Image Comics published the long-running book’s final issue in 2019. In a previous issue of TWD Deluxe, Kirkman cast doubt on ever reviving the series but didn’t rule out future one-shots or a self-contained spin-off from another writer.

“I gave 16 years of my life to this world. I may dabble in it at somepoint in the future, but I doubt I’ll ever return to do a full series,” Kirkman wrote in a recent installment of Letter Hacks.”But… I’d never say never.”

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead Creator Scrapped a Comic Prequel appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live ended up being a very good TV series but the sum of its parts was better than its final 48-minute episode. The series finally brought Andrew Lincoln back to the zombie universe for fans clamoring for Rick Grimes, along with Danai Gurira’s Michonne who left The Walking Dead more than a full season after Lincoln. However, while the first five episodes delivered a compelling return to its best form for The Walking Dead universe, the finale of the series felt like a race to the finish line as hopes for a Season 2 started to feel more and more dashed as it went on. Spoilers for The Ones Who Live follow. 

Ultimately, The Ones Who Live answered its most important questions and was quite successful while doing so. We now know what happened to Rick Grimes. We know what happened to Michonne. We know they eventually found each other and both reunited with their children. We know what the CRM is (or more accurately phrased; was). We even know about Jadis’ fate and some details about what Father Gabriel was up to with her that we didn’t even know to ask about. However, all of the answers came within six episodes, while bigger questions were both introduced and resolved in quick succession along the way.

The series ended up being very good, despite what felt like a mostly safe and largely rushed finale. The first five entries spent time introducing new characters, expanding the world and lore with history and plans from the CRM. Terry O’Quinn’s General Beale seemed primed to be a Thanos-type of villain for The Walking Dead universe, as Daryl and Carol are off exploring Europe and Negan is in New York with Maggie. The threat of the CRM with the lives of those in Alexandria, the safety of the Commonwealth, and everyone else the spinoff shows are introducing at stake… it was a very exciting prospect! Instead, Beale was killed by a knife and a sword while he had a gun in his hand (and he wasn’t the only character in the finale taken down by a blade while armed with a gun). 

Focusing on the good, it was simply awesome to see Rick and Michonne reunite with Judith and RJ. The moment was beautiful and it felt like the happy ending no one expected to ever get from a franchise like The Walking Dead. Rick and Michonne in action together has been a chef’s kiss touch throughout the entire series (not in the bedtime kind of way, which there has been plenty of, too). The musical score in the finale and entire series was tremendous. The flashbacks, especially those which flashed when Rick Grimes was asked about the worst thing he had done to survive, were shots to the feels for those of us on this Walking Dead journey for 14 years. Not that it’s new footage, but seeing Shane Walsh again? Always a treat, especially when used so poignantly. The alignment of Rick and Michonne having to do what it takes to survive, emphatically declaring without just saying it that they’re the ones who live, often because of the lengths they go to survive… all fantastic stuff!

Then, there are the parts that didn’t make much sense. The aforementioned pair of characters killed by knives and swords while armed with guns was a bummer to see. Michonne sneaking into the CRM with such ease made the place look weak. Beale trusting Rick Grimes after so many escape attempts, questionable. However, the biggest suspension of disbelief came after Rick and Michonne popped off the massive chlorine bombs in the CRM. We saw the devastating effects these same bombs had on Michonne’s group in the show’s second episode. Nat and Michonne had to recover for a year because they were exposed to the yellow gas. Rick, however, was able to have an entire fight with Thorne with only a cloth over his mouth and never felt the negative effects of that same chlorine bomb. It’s one thing to suspend disbelief for the sake of believing in a zombie series… it’s another for the rules laid out by said zombie series to contradict themselves all within six episodes.

The pace of the episode was also far too quick. Perhaps, if there was never going to be a second season, there could have been a seventh episode. Infiltrating, plotting, and executing a takedown of the massive threat which the CRM was framed as all within the final episode itself was a bummer. Thinking back to the Governor story, one which an argument can be made that it had the opposite problem of what we’re discussing here about the CRM in The Ones Who Live, there was a level of anticipation when we knew the group was taking the fight to Governor and vice versa. Some of the best scenes had no action, like Rick and the Governor sitting together talking and negotiating. This made the action more meaningful. Now, the finale was set for an explosive end where thousands of unnamed CRM soldiers were killed and Thorne had to attack Rick before having a change of heart and handing him a gas mask that he didn’t need, anyway. Not to mention, the love story of this series was fantastic and truly drove it forward, but the line of “love never dies,” in the middle of a life-or-death fight felt a little out of place. All of this and more is covered in this week’s video review and breakdown.

All of that said, this is all just a bunch of criticism of an otherwise excellent series. The finale certainly felt like it moved through all of the interesting and emotional elements more quickly than anyone could have expected or wanted but it moved through them, nonetheless. There was a time when fans started to doubt whether or not we would ever see Rick Grimes again at all when the movie trilogy turned to one movie and then the movie turned to a series and years went on with no updates. Now, both Rick and Michonne made their exciting returns and truly gave fans what they clamored for in the end. The duo find themselves engaged, back home, and living with their family.

All of this is not to say the finale was outright bad. Above, there is plenty of points made for the great elements and some of its lackluster elements. However, it is definitely to say that the series as a whole was better than the finale. The tension, the emotions, the performances, the writing (including the impressively crafted Episode 4 from Gurira’s pen), and the cliffhangers built into something tremendously interesting through the first five episodes. It was a pressure cooker which might have just been released a little too quickly, something which seems to be an all too common trend with six-episode shows these days. 

There is, of course, room for more story to tell. Rick and Michonne could now head up the CRM and start spreading all of the resources and aid to the rest of the world as the finale implied was happening. A continuation with Daryl and Carol seems more likely, as Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride seem to be more game for continuing with their respective roles than some other cast members in the franchise and their show is already on its way to releasing a second season with a third on the way. Meanwhile, Dead City is also set to bring Maggie and Negan back for at least one more batch of episodes. Whether or not we ever see Rick and Michonne again seems to be anybody’s guess, possibly a sentiment echoed within the creative teams behind the Walking Dead universe, as well. So, playing it safe and giving the characters an emotionally satisfying, albeit rushed to the finish line conclusion… this might be what the franchise always need, in the end. 

The post TWD: The Ones Who Live Was Better Than Its Finale appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live episode 6. “Secrecy and security above all.” Eliminating threats to “operational security.” Extinguishing the living to preserve the “last light of the world.” So were the ways of the Civic Republic Military, the shadowy three-ring group that airlifted Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) away from an exploding bridge back on season 9 of The Walking Dead. But those ways went up in smoke in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live finale, which ended with Rick and Michonne (Danai Gurira) delivering a fatal final blow to the CRM.

As Michonne retrieved the dossier that CRM Warrant Officer Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) left behind with intel the military could use to destroy Alexandria, Rick received the Echelon Briefing from Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn). The briefing was first mentioned by Rick’s mentor, the late Lt. Col. Okafor (Craig Tate), who told the Sgt. Maj. that the Echelon contains “all the info, the whys, the things 90% of our force doesn’t know about and 100% of our city doesn’t.”

The Echelon Briefing

Major General Beale gave the Echelon Briefing to 2,533 elite soldiers who then joined the CRM Frontliner force, including Command Sgt. Maj. Pearl Thorne (Lesly-Ann Brandt).The CRM Force Command leader told Rick the first secret: “The most likely outcome after all the fighting and killing, all the plans and sacrifices, we lose.Most likely outcome is that we’re all gonna die.”

CRM modelling determined that between the dead, disease, starvation, and the discovery of million-strong zombie herds, “non-necrotic human life” has an estimated 14 years left on the planet before going extinct. On The Walking Dead: World Beyond, Elton (Nicolas Cantu) projected that humanity is fated to go the way of the dinosaurs in 15 years — placing Homo sapien extinction around the year 2035.

According to Elton, humans are “at the conclusion of the Holoceneextinction,” the sixth extinction event on the planet following the LateOrdovician mass extinction, the Late Devonian extinction, theEnd-Permian extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, and theCretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. “We were already killingourselves directly and indirectly, but nature made a shortcut,” Elton told the Endlings, the last-living survivors of a soon-to-be-extinct species. “It took the dinosaurs possibly 60,000 years to die after240 million of living, so following that ratio, given the human race’s600,000 and factoring in other miscellaneous variables, I say we haveabout 15 years until we’re gone.”

Operation N1W

Rick and Michonne also uncovered the CRM master plan to destroy Portland (also seen on World Beyond). Operation N1W would begin with the CEP (Child Evacuation Protocol), in which CRM Frontliner embeds enmeshed in the Portland school system would evacuate select children and airlift these assets away from three extraction zones. The army would then bomb the area with toxic chlorine gas and Portland’s population of 87,000 would be liquidated.

“The CRM destroys communities for resources, for strategic superiority,and to ensure the city’s secrecy and security above all,” Beale told Rick. Jadis disclosed this fact to the Endlings on Season 2 of World Beyond, where the CRM carried out the “tactical military operations” that destroyed the Omaha Safe-Zone (population: 97,407 survivors) and its satellite community, the Campus Colony (population: 9,671). The army’s final target was Portland.

The Alliance of the Three

The Civic Republic of Philadelphia (known to its allies only as the Civic Republic, the “hidden city” in an undisclosed location) was part of the Alliance of the Three: an alliance between the Civic Republic, Portland, and Omaha, represented by the three-ring symbol of the CRM. But when CRM modelling projected that the city’s alliance partners would become a drain on the CR’s resources, Beale ordered Omaha and Portland to be destroyed.

“Omaha, the CampusColony, Portland had become too reliant,” Jadis explained on World Beyond. “They’d never befully self-sustaining. It was only a matter of time before thousandsfaced a famine of devastating proportions. At best, those thousandswould have died slowly. At worst, disease and conflict would have spreadthrough the Civic Republic itself, and then? The light of the world —extinguished forever. Death wins.”

Project Votus

Though it isn’t mentioned by name on The Ones Who Live, Beale indirectly referenced Project Votus while giving Rick the Echelon Briefing. Beale told Rick that the military supplied test subjects for scientific experiments to CRM-run labs, including the victims of Omaha and Campus Colony, and the people that Jadis trafficked to the CRM in exchange for supplies while operating out of the Heaps on The Walking Dead. The CRM designated people as “A’s” or “B’s”: “A’s” are leaders who are sent away and killed, and “B’s” are followers trying to survive. World Beyond confirmed that “A’s” were used as zombie-bitten test subjects for the CRM’s Project Votus.

These experiments took place at a CR Research Facility in Ithaca, New York, under CRM scientist Dr. Lyla Belshaw (Natalie Gold). It was Belshaw who developed the lethal green liquid chlorine gas that triggers severe bronchial spasms and an excess of fluid in the lungs, effectively “drowning” the victim from the inside out.

It was revealed that Beale and then-Lt. Col. Elizabeth Kublek (Julia Ormond) founded Project Votus two years post-outbreak in 2012. The project involved studying live test subjects through death to further research on reanimation.

A’s would either die from zombie bites or be gassed, and then Belshaw would observe “what inside us makes us turn — whether it be fungal, bacterial, viral,or something else entirely.” If the CRM could determine whatkeeps the dead animated, what slows their decomposition rates, and whatfeeds their appetites, Belshaw said, “We hope to one day turn off those triggers,eliminate the dead as a threat, and eradicate them from the earth.”

CRM Martial Law

Before it was foiled by Rick and Michonne, Operation N1W was to be Beale’s final action to make the Civic Republic Military the supreme force on the continent — and, potentially, the world. Beale told Rick that the CRM had spies in selected communities throughout North America and the world “to monitorthem, to potentially sabotage them, to influence their politics andapproaches,” including Portland. 

The CRM would activate its operatives in Portland, destroy the community, and then declare martial law on the Civic Republic. Once the authoritarian military removed the Civic Republic Council and took control of the city, they would march across the country and eliminate competition like the Commonwealth of Ohio and the Tank Town oil fields in Texas. “We will take their resources and ensure supremacy,” Beale said.”And maybe we get to survive.”

World Beyond disclosed part of this plan. That series revealed that Project Votus was the “ultimate priority” for Beale to resist returning power to the Civic Republic Civilian Government ten years after the CRM — once the Pennsylvania National Guard — agreed to a transition of power. But a decade later, in 2020, Beale ordered the destruction of Omaha and Campus Colony and blamed the tragedies on the dead to force an emergency delay of civilian oversight. 

“Portland will die, and this force will take over the Civic Republic.We will begin our march on the countryside,” Beale told Rick. “The Next World will begin, and through that, somehow, some way, we will survive.”

The Next World

After Rick and Michonne rigged grenades to the canisters of chlorine gas to explode at the CRM summit, killing the CRM Frontliner force and CRM Force Command in a single blow, they exposed the CRM’s operations and activities to the Civic Republic Council. 

A CR newscast reported that the CRC voted unanimously for emergency oversight over the remaining forcesof the CRM, which were remade as a force for good. The CRM’s infantry and enhanced infantry units — meaning those not among the ranks of Beale’s elite squad of blood red-striped soldiers — were unaware of the atrocities committed by Force Command. It was also reported that the CRC unanimously voted for free movement in the Republic: citizens are free to leave the CR, and the city will welcome new citizens and provide aid to other communities and survivors. The last light of the world burns anew.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead Debrief: The Civic Republic Military appeared first on ComicBook.com.

“Where is my friend?” That’s the question in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol, the upcoming second season of the Walking Dead spinoff returning this summer on AMC. The network unveiled an extended sneak peek on Monday, with new footage showing Daryl (Norman Reedus) — still stranded overseas in Europe — ambushing Madame Genet (Anne Charrier) and a Pouvoir convoy in a small French village. Meanwhile, in America, Carol (Melissa McBride) has tracked down Daryl to Freeport, Maine: the townwhere Daryl disappeared before being loaded onto a cargo ship with zombie test subjects and shipped across the Atlantic.

After reclaiming Daryl’s stolen motorcycle from bikerMick (in the Daryl Dixon season finale), Carol rolls up on Fuller’s Auto Repair. The body shop with a conspicuous French flag is where Jones (Gilbert Glenn Brown) hires drifters to round up walkers in exchange for ethanol — les affamès that French Dr. Lafleur (François Delaive) then transports overseas, providing Genet with her amped-up super-zombie army.

“Buddy of mine got this bike from you guys,” the seemingly harmless Carol says in the footage. “Thought maybe you could help fix it.” Jones asks if she’s “Mick’s lady,” to which she answers with a smile. A walker wrangler reports the bike belonged to an “a—hole” named Dixon, so Carol grabs the hunter’s crossbow and drops the act. “Don’t move. Keep your hands down,” she says, finger on the trigger. “Where is my friend?”

AMC also released a synopsis for Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol: “The new season picks up where The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon left off,following fan-favorite characters Daryl Dixon and CarolPeletier. They both confront old demons while shefights to find her friend and he struggles with his decision to stay inFrance, causing tension at the Nest.” 

Along with Reedus and McBride, the season 2 cast includes Clémence Poésy as Isabelle, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent, Laika Blanc Francard asSylvie, Anne Charrier as Madame Genet, Romain Levi as Codron, and EriqEbouaney as Fallou. The second season is executive produced byshowrunner David Zabel, Scott M. Gimple, Reedus, McBride, Greg Nicotero,Angela Kang, Brian Bockrath, Daniel Percival, Jason Richman and SteveSquillante.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premieres this summer on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post New Look at The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live wrapped up its first (and possibly only) season on Sunday night with a satisfying finale, with Danai Gurira joining ComicBook.com for an exclusive interview to break down the journey. With only six episodes, The Ones Who Live got audiences up to speed on where Rick Grimes and Gurira’s Michonne have been since departing The Walking Dead, with both cast members serving as executive producers. In fact, Gurira also wrote an episode, putting her pen to paper for the show’s excellent fourth episode. Spoilers for the show’s sixth episode follow! 

“I feel great about how this has gone. I’m so thankful for how the audiences and the fans have responded,” Gurira said of The Ones Who Live. “I feel like it feels really special how people have taken the story and seem to have really have had a good time with it. So, there is a lot of thankfulness about that, and that’s where we are right now.”

With Rick having left The Walking Dead in its ninth season and Michonne following suit in the show’s tenth season, it has been years since fans have seen the beloved cast members and their characters. Six episodes later, those clamoring for more time with them got it and the story has ended at a point where – if there is no season two – everyone gets the closest thing to living happily ever after that The Walking Dead universe seems willing to provide. 

“Allowing these characters to get to a place where it’s good for more than them, that’s what makes it epic,” Gurira said. It’s not just about them, it’s about what they can do for others. And the fact that as a duo, there’s something extremely powerful there that’s very singular.”

The full interview with Gurira can be found below. More coverage from The Ones Who Live, including a breakdown, reviews, new show updates, and more can always be found right here on ComicBook.com!

ComicBook: Before getting to the end, I’d love to go back and talk about episode four with you, which you wrote, and I know that we were talking how that brought you so much joy. I thought it was so incredibly well done and some of the sequences and the dialogue felt like I was watching a play. I’d love to hear, if at all, how did your background in theater influence your work in writing for The Walking Dead?

Danai Gurira: It directly influenced it. I wanted that episode when we were mapping out the series, me, Andy, and Gimple, and we said, “Yeah, this will be the two-hander where it’s just them and we just get to the bottom of it all and they come out, they go into the cocoon and come out butterflies…” I was like, “Yeah, that’s my episode, that’s the episode I’ll right.” As a playwright, I love that type of dynamic where you’re keeping the ball in the air between two characters only and you have to find a through line of action and who wins and who loses, scene to scene, moment to moment. And that’s sort of a journey of characters. And also specifically, honestly, I was like, “I don’t trust anyone else writing this!” Because I wanted to see them say certain things and get certain things out, and I wanted them.

It was the desire of mine to make sure that the things that needed to be said that I felt needed to be said. But then also at the end of it, I wanted to make sure that we could really keep the love story really rich in the fact that; why is he acting like this? Why is he blocked? Why is he unable to do what everyone expects him to do? And getting into the innards of that type of emotional trauma really, and the emotional wound that of course, why would Rick Grimes know how to just easily articulate that as would most people not? So, that journey of really finding the thing that’s causing the conflict, but finding it through him having to open up. I think him having that panic attack and then the journey that Michonne has to take him on at that other scene, that was something I also really wanted to very carefully thread the needle with. And I think definitely that’s a theater play. When I say play, I don’t mean play, play. I mean when you make a play, it was like, that was me making a play definitely as a writer of theater, because that type of threading is what you have to do in theater a lot.

CB: You did such a brilliant job and your performances were fantastic and that really is a pivotal moment in this show. After that we have essentially the wedding in a sense, and I’d love to hear about that. Was that always part of the plan for the show? What did it feel like for you guys to take these characters to this next level of their journey together?

DG: It wasn’t, we discovered that proposal thing along the way. We discovered it really while we were in the midst of shooting the previous episodes, and we had a break in between. There was a discovery of what is the journey of Rick and Michonne in Episode 5 and then we sort of discovered that it was very collaborative. I was definitely very involved. Andy was very involved and we worked a bit with the writers, Channing [Powell] a lot on it, but that was a collaborative find to be like, this is the journey in this episode, post-four. What happens post four between them? Post-four is him now throwing himself at her, you know what I mean? In a sense of making up for that wound that he was acting out of and how much that put her through. And of course, wanting to connect, wanting to really seal their love in a way that he hasn’t had a chance to before.

CB: You mention the collaborative effort that went into the show, there’s the moment with the metal cat, and that to me instantly was like, “Oh, I was in Michonne and Carl!” That’s that bonding moment from years back. I loved where did that come from and did I read that the right way? 

DG: Yeah, it does take us back to the Carl relationship, but it also takes us back to Jadis, also initially when they put Rick through hell with their gladiator zombie and all that, and Rick came out there and Michonne and him embrace, and then he is been speared right through his hand and all this mess they put him through. And then he takes one of her cats. She liked to make cat sculptures and he knows that Michonne likes cat sculptures because she lost the one that she’d found that time with Carl. So, he replaces it with one of hers, and I think she complains about it in a later episode that he took her cat. 

So, it is this ongoing thing between Jadis and Rick and Michonne about her and her cats, and also bringing in the Carl remembrance. That’s how we know Michonne loves them. So, the fact that that’s where it is, yeah, there’s definitely some poetic aspect to that, but the fact that that’s where she stored, she stashed that document was definitely that. I think that was mainly Gimple. I would give that to Gimple.

CB: Ultimately, it was such a beautiful moment to have the whole family come back together, Judith and RJ together. Was that the last thing you all filmed for this series, or what was the last thing you guys shot for The Ones Who Live?

DG: I don’t think it was the last thing. I think the last thing we shot was we were on top of the tank after we got away from all the walkers and it was just we were standing on top of those containers

CB: I love how that took us right back to the season one, the pilot ending, in the tank. 

DG: Exactly. Exactly, exactly. So that was the last thing we shot together, So many people there and we got to speak to them and give them love. And so it was kind of a great way to end.

CB: Well, I would love to hear about that. What was it like to, because this was largely a new crew with some familiar faces in New Jersey outside of Atlanta. What did you guys say? What did you guys do to celebrate wrapping it up?

DG: Oh, I can’t remember. I think I might have a little BTS that I might post of Andy talking. I don’t think it gets me, but I think someone was recording Andy talking that I caught it. So, I’ll definitely post it, but as long as he lets me. It was definitely a very powerful moment to see everybody’s, so many people have done so much work. 

So, Andy’s very good… Sometimes I think is Andy African because he’s so good with the speech making. At the end of a moment, Africans, we be doing that! Every gathering. Usually it was my grandmother. Somebody will get up and give a speech and Andy’s just so good at that, it’s amazing. So he got up and I said something, but he really stuck the landing about loving on everybody and thank being thankful. And of course the journey he’s taken from the pilot, he’s able to really speak to, in no way no one can. So he was really talking about that spirit and that energy having been so powerful with this crew and these people and all the work they’ve done. So it was really beautiful. He’s always, he’s very good at those. But it’s just genuine. It’s just very genuine. It’s very heartfelt and it’s very powerful, all at once. So, it was a very poignant moment.

CB: I was surprised that after episode five, by the end of episode six, it felt like so many of the story elements did wrap up in very satisfying ways before this came to an end. So as an executive producer, now that it’s out in the world, what was that experience like to develop that arc in its entirety? And also, was it always the plan to have this all wrap up and one, is there plans for season two?

DG: You know I’m not going to answer that! But, yeah, definitely, I feel great about how this has gone. I’m so thankful for how the audiences and the fans have responded. I feel like it feels really special how people have taken the story and seem to have really have had a good time with it. So there is a lot of thankfulness about that, and that’s where we are right now.

CB: The fan reaction has been tremendous. What do you guys think you’ve done that really has drummed up that positive response from a really big audience?

DG: I mean, we have to take some time once six airs, I think we think about it, but I think from this perspective now, I think it really is about two things we really wanted to do is we wanted to create cliffhangers. We wanted to misdirect you because that’s satisfying, you know what I mean? So, the fact that everyone thought he’d, Michonne would only find him later in the series, and then it’s the end of the pilot, she’s found him… Just things like that. We definitely wanted to keep ahead of the audience and we know our audience. We know TV audiences today are really smart, really sharp. So how do you do that? And we definitely held that responsibility to ourselves very, very seriously, to keep steps ahead of where the audience thinks they’re going. And then simultaneously too, we had to really accomplish the premise, which is this is an epic love story, and that means that these are two lovers who are very different from most others, and what does that result in? Is that good for only them? 

So, allowing these characters to get to a place where it’s good for more than them, that’s what makes it epic. It’s not just about them, it’s about what they can do for others. And the fact that as a duo, there’s something extremely powerful there that’s very singular. And then also, yes, always a focus is allowing other characters, no matter how long their arc, but to have a satisfying one and Walking Dead has always been very good with that, bringing in characters and allowing them to have powerful arcs. Even as short as Nats’ arc was or Beale’s arc, it’s allowing characters to have a strong arc in and of themselves and still shine in their particular roles and affect people. And so those were definitely the tenants, some of the tenants that were very important to us.

CB: So, speaking of those characters that have a legacy, hypothetically, if this were the last time we ever saw Rick and Michonne and the family is together, what do you think they do from here or want to have happen from here? 

DG: Well, I think they are aware that they have to find the balance of home, but also the balance of their responsibility to think larger than themselves. I think even the connection that they’ve had now with the city that the CRM was working with, that’s an alliance, a connection that they have a responsibility to now, quite honestly, because they destroyed the army is. Those are people, those are good people who are doing good things. So I think they have, having seen what bad can be done with power, I think it is their responsibility to figure out the opposite beyond themselves, beyond their family, because that;s who they are.

CB: I was introduced to you when you became Michonne, and I’ve been following your career, and of course I’ve seen you jump over to Marvel as well. Your co journey has been awesome, and I know Eyes of Wakanda is on the way, and I’d love to hear if that’s a series where you’re getting to explore new sides of the Okoye character and just if you know when you’ll play Okoye again?

DG: I mean, I can speak to none of this, Brandon, but what I can say is yeah, I think Okoye is, I love Okoye. I think there’s something so interesting about her compared to Michonne is that Michonne really has had so much, there’s times I really was taking notes from Michonne about being a better woman, whereas Okoye is like, she’s a very good woman, but there are things she still has to learn. You know what I mean? There’s a way that she has to still figure some stuff out for herself.

CB: What do you think a Michonne, Okoye meeting would look like? Would they get along?

DG: I think they would. Game recognizes game. I think they would get along.

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As one chapter of the Walking Dead Universe comes to a close in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, a new chapter is opening this summer. Following the Rick and Michonne spinoff series finale, AMC released a new trailer for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol during Sunday’s series premiere of the Giancarlo Esposito-starring crime drama Parish. The footage from Daryl Dixon season 2, which you can watch above, teases Daryl’s (Norman Reedus) attempt to get home from France while Carol (Melissa McBride) sets out to find her best friend who disappeared in the town of Freeport, Maine.

“There was this guy, and he left home looking for someone,” Daryl tells Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) in the sneak peek. “And he couldn’t get back.” Carol, meanwhile, chokes back tears as she tells someone that the Daryl Dixon is “the only family I have left”… possibly suggesting a grim fate for her former husband, Commonwealth Governor King Ezekiel (Khary Payton). Carol’s journey leads her to Europe, but she’s not going alone. “Come with me,” Carol can be heard saying as she sets out onto the open road on Daryl’s bike.

The new season replaces Reedus and McBride’s once-planned Daryl & Carol spinoff, reuniting the longtime TWD co-stars after their tearful goodbye that ended The Walking Dead series finale in 2022.

“I’ve known there was much more to be told of Carol’s story as I felther so unsettled when we last saw her, as she watched her best friend,Daryl, ride away [in The Walking Dead series finale],” McBride said in October when announcing she had joined Daryl Dixonas series regular and executive producer. “Apart or (hopefully!)together, their stories run deep, and I’m so excited to continue Carol’sjourney here. This team of storytellers have done amazing work to landthese two established characters in an entirely new world to them, andI’m loving the discoveries!”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol starsReedus, McBride, and first season cast members Clémence Poésy asIsabelle, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent, Laika Blanc Francard asSylvie, Anne Charrier as Madame Genet, Romain Levi as Codron, and EriqEbouaney as Fallou. The second season is executive produced byshowrunner David Zabel, Scott M. Gimple, Reedus, McBride, Greg Nicotero,Angela Kang, Brian Bockrath, Daniel Percival, Jason Richman and SteveSquillante.

“It was always thehope and the desire that we would get Melissa onto the show in seasonone, in whatever version she was ready to do. That was always what Iwanted to do and what everybody wanted,” Zabel previously told ComicBook.”Norman wanted it, Scott [Gimple] wanted it, we all wanted it. So itwas just a matter of working out what the show was going to be and thenseeing how we could include her. Because we love the character, and welove Melissa, and we love the dynamic of Daryl and Carol together. Sofrom the point where I started participating on the show, that wasalways the conversation.”

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premieres this summer on AMC and AMC+. Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live finale, “The Last Time.” “Love doesn’t die”… and neither do Rick and Michonne. The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live ended its six-episode season Sunday night with “The Last Time,” wrapping up the stories of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) as the long-lost couple — who lived up to the Grimes family phrase “we’re the ones who live” — finally returned home to their children, Judith (Cailey Fleming) and Rick “RJ” Grimes Jr. (Antony Azor).

Before they can head home, Rick and Michonne return to the Cascadia Forward Operating Base on an undercover mission: Rick to receive the Echelon Briefing from Civic Republic Military Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn), and Michonne to retrieve the dossier that Anne/Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) left behind with intel that threatens to destroy Alexandria. After they find out what the CRM is planning, their next move is to take that information to the Civic Republic and then go home. Together.

Rick’s superior officer, Command Sergeant Major Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt), has given up on the late Okafor’s (Craig Tate) mission to remake the CRM from the inside. Instead, Thorne is a true believer among the ranks of the CRM’s Frontliner force and Beale’s CRM Force Command, and she’s convinced Sgt. Maj. Grimes will convert when he’s briefed on the secrets that are kept hidden from the hidden city: the Civic Republic of Philadelphia.

After Michonne finds and destroys the dossier, she sneaks into a briefing on “Operation N1W.” It’s revealed that CRM Frontliner embeds have been living in Portland under false identities and, in 18 hours, those operatives will be activated to evacuate selected children. Those assets will be airlifted away from three extraction zones before the CRM gasses Portland, destroys the community, and liquidates its population of 87,000 people.

Meanwhile, Beale briefs Rick on the Echelon and discloses what only 2,533 elite soldiers have heard before: between the dead, disease, starvation, and million-strong dead masses roaming across the continent, CRM modeling shows humanity has 14 years left before the living become extinct. Beale explains that the Civic Republic Military destroys communities “for resources, for strategic superiority, and to ensure the city’s secrecy and security above all,” and their tactical military operations already eliminated the Omaha Safe-Zone and the Campus Colony in Nebraska. After they destroy Portland, the CRM will become the supreme force on the continent — and potentially the world. To combat an existential threat, they must be an existential threat.

With the Alliance of the Three eliminated, Beale’s CRM will declare martial law on the Civic Republic and seize control of the city from the Civic Republic Council. Then they will march across the country, eliminate competing communities, take their resources, ensure CRM supremacy… and humanity’s survival. Frontliners must swear on the sword, with Beale believing that “the sword that kills is the sword that gives life.” But the sword that kills does just that when Rick, refusing an offer to eventually become the next leader of the CRM, impales Beale and plots to thwart Operation N1W with Michonne.

Inspired by pyromaniac Nat (Matthew August Jeffers) and Rick’s childhood story about his father burning down the family farm, the couple rigs grenades to blow up the chlorine gas canisters before the CRM can bomb Portland. With the Frontliners and CRM Force Command convened for a summit at the Cascadia base, Rick and Michonne manage to kill the force of 2,533 with an explosion that Rick foreshadowed: “Sometimes things have to burn to bring things back.”

Rick and Michonne survive the bombing and gassing by taking cover beneath a CRM flag doused in water — and so does Thorne, who tries to kill the traitors for “destroying the whole world.” Michonne engages Thorne in a fight, countering that “love doesn’t die” when Thorne tells her “in a dead world, love is dead.” Michonne stabs Thorne with Beale’s sword, only to seemingly watch Rick die as he’s swarmed by walkers before pulling the pin on a grenade. But Rick emerges from a pile of zombie bodies he used for cover, and then the couple escapes the massive walker horde that is the fiery remains of CRM command.

In the aftermath, it’s revealed Rick and Michonne exposed Operation N1W, and the CRC unanimously voted for emergency oversight over the remaining forces of the CRM. The council also made it so that current and future citizens of the Civic Republic are free to leave at will, and the reformed CRM’s priority has shifted beyond defense of the CR to aid survivors and communities. In the end, Rick carried out Okafor’s mission to reform and remake the CRM as a force for good.

The series ends with Rick and Michonne returning home on a CRM cargo helicopter — part of a fleet of choppers shipping supplies across the country. In the final scene, Rick and Michonne make it home to their children, and RJ meets his father for the first time. “You’re the Brave Man?” RJ asks from beneath the sheriff’s hat that Rick handed down to Carl, who passed it down to Judith. “I am,” Rick answers. “But maybe you can call me Dad.” We see one final shot of the Grimes family in an embrace, the end of their story a happy one. They’re the ones who live.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

The post The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Ending Explained appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live finale. The phrase “we’re the ones who live” inspired not only the secret saying shared by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) on The Walking Dead but also the title of their spinoff, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Rick and Michonne are, in fact, the ones who live — a phrase that applies almost exclusively to the couple who survived the six-episode series that introduced (and then killed off) new characters like CRM Lieutenant Colonel Donald Okafor (Craig Tate) and pyro-tinkerer Nat (Matthew August Jeffers).

But the bloodshed didn’t end there. Aiden (Breeda Wool) and Bailey (Andrew Bachelor) — the two lovebird survivors Michonne first encountered on season 10 of The Walking Dead — also met their tragic end on The Ones Who Live, and the penultimate episode ended with Jadis/Anne (Pollyanna McIntosh) biting it after surviving both The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond. Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) appeared in flashbacks and made it out of the series unscathed, but the same cannot be said for the latest and final victims in Sunday’s “The Last Time” series finale of The Ones Who Live.

The first casualty was Civic Republic Military Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn). While Michonne retrieved the dossier that Jadis left behind with intel on Alexandria, Rick reported to Beale to receive the Echelon Briefing: the CRM’s top-secret master plan to take over the Civic Republic, destroy communities across the continent for their resources, and become the supreme force on the planet to ensure humanity’s survival. 

Beale promoted Sergeant Major Grimes to the Frontliner corps, the elite soldier squad that convened at Cascadia Forward Operating Base with the rest of Force Command for the CRM Summit. Beale told Rick that “the sword that kills is the sword that gives life,” but rather than swear on the sword, Rick killed Beale by impaling him with the weapon that symbolized a soldier’s undying commitment to the CRM.

Meanwhile, Michonne infiltrated a briefing and learned that, within 18 hours, the CRM would carry out Operation N1W. Undercover operatives embedded in Portland would evacuate select child assets, and then the army would destroy the community with chlorine gas and liquidate its population of 87,000. Rick and Michonne made it their mission to stop the CRM, rigging grenades to canisters of chlorine gas and using a zombified Beale to trigger an explosion that killed 2,533 Frontliners.

The plan almost went off without a hitch — until Rick’s suspicious superior officer, Command Sergeant Major Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt), figured out too late that he plotted against the CRM. In the aftermath of the bombing, a vengeful Thorne tried to kill Rick and Michonne as the three survivors were swarmed by walkers… only for Michonne to cut Thorne down with Beale’s sword.

A dying Thorne confessed that “Okafor was right” before giving her gas mask to Rick and sealing her fate: Thorne either succumbed to blood loss or the toxic chemical gas as Rick and Michonne escaped the Civic Republic Military once and for all. They’re the (only) ones who live.

Stay tuned to ComicBook/TWD and follow on Facebook for more TWD Universe coverage.

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“We, together, are the strongest thing.We’re love, and love is endless.So we, those gone, all of our lives, those away, they come in one life. We are endless. We’re together, pieces of a whole that just keep going for what we gave each other. One unstoppable life. We’re the ones who live.” — Michonne and Rick Grimes

“I remember it all. What it was like. Who we were. Who we are now.” Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) are intertwined in bed. Strewn around the newlyweds are reminders from their journey back to each other. A red-striped CRM soldier uniform. Souvenirs from their cabin honeymoon. A bloodied hatchet and ax. Nat’s “Danger” lighter. A cell phone with Carl’s portrait. And the wedding ring that symbolizes an infinite love. Rick slides the ring onto Michonne’s finger, and they kiss.

Their mission: Return to the Civic Republic Military’s Cascadia Forward Operating Base. Rick receives the Echelon Briefing. Michonne retrieves the dossier that Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) left behind with intel on their loved ones back at Alexandria. They expose the CRM to the Civic Republic, then go home. Together.

The Last Time

Rick and Michonne, clad in CRM uniforms, are dressed for battle. As Sergeant Major Rick Grimes hands himself over to the Civic Republic Military at a gate on the perimeter of the Cascadia Forward Operating Base, Michonne infiltrates the army base under the guise of a Frontliner. Rick recalls what his father told him when he set fire to the family farm: “He said I didn’t need to be scared, that it was just ‘the burning.'”

Rick debriefs Command Sergeant Major Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt), who is happy to see Sgt. Maj. Grimes alive. Rick debriefs his superior officer, telling her how he was returning to base with Consignee Dana Bethune — an undercover Michonne — when their helicopter hit turbulence and was struck by lightning. As the chopper flew low to ride out the storm, Bethune shoved him out as they were going down over water, saving his life. Rick thanks Thorne for vouching for Bethune back at the Harvest Point, but she reminds Rick that he brought her in. As a compromise, Rick credits Okafor (Craig Tate), the officer who put them on their path. A path that Thorne has strayed from ever since she received the Echelon Briefing. Okafor was never committed to the CRM’s mission, she says, and that’s why he died. “But you lived. I lived,” she tells Rick. “We are meant to be a part of this.” They are the last light of the world.

Meanwhile, Michonne sneaks into Warrant Officer Jadis Stokes’ quarters and rummages through the room decorated with paintings by the artist formerly known as Anne. Michonne finds the dossier hidden inside a wire cat statue like the one that Rick gave Michonne at the Heaps what seems like a lifetime ago. The dossier contains intel on Rick, his wife Michonne, and their home at the Alexandria Safe-Zone, with a handwritten confession: how Jadis secretly brokered a deal and traded the injured Rick Grimes to the CRM. The document is a warning to whoever reads it after Jadis’ death: Rick is a natural-born leader, and Michonne’s relentless determination makes her an equally dangerous adversary. Rick and Michonne aren’t “B’s,” they are “A’s,” and they are a grave threat to the CRM operation. Michonne destroys the dossier and strangles a snooping soldier before she can be discovered.

The End and the Beginning

At the perimeter fence, Rick reports to Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn). He waxes poetic as he clears delts with a killstick, telling Rick that it’s “the end of the world and the beginning of the world. And we’re the dead ones, Rick.” With killstick in hand, Beale imparts his mantra: “The sword that kills is the sword that gives life. And that’s us. We’re the sword.” In his office, Beale has Rick surrender his gun and his prosthetic hand with the blade. He then has Rick reflect on his life, on “all your lives before and after,” and all the things he did before this moment. Because, the general says, “After this next moment, everything will change.” Beale asks Rick: “What was the worst thing you did to make sure someone else survived?”

There are flashes of Rick stabbing Shane, killing Tomas, butchering the Terminus butchers, and then Rick ripping out Joe’s throat with his teeth as he claimed the Claimers for the kill. “I killed someone with my teeth,” Rick confesses. “Like they do.” Beale has given the Echelon Briefing 2,533 times to 2,533 elite soldiers, but never to someone like Rick Grimes. “This is the first. It’s the start of what’s next,” Beale tells Rick, sat inches away from his gun and bladed prosthetic. “And that couldn’t be more appropriate for today. A day completely about tomorrow.” 

Beale unsheathes his sword — Revolutionary War General Hugh Mercer’s sword, the military antiquity that saved his life at the Battle of Fitler Square — and places it before Rick. It’s his time to swear on the sword.

The Echelon Briefing

Before: Rick and Michonne are in bed. “Are we crazy?” Rick asks his wife. “Certifiable,” Michonne tells her husband. There are flashes of Rick executing Pete Anderson and Michonne plunging a shard of glass into the Governor’s eye. 

Now: Beale places a Frontliner uniform with the blood-red stripes before Rick. The major general recounts growing up in Pittsburgh before his journey as a military man brought him to Vietnam, twice, officer training in Fort Benning in Georgia, and then back to Pennsylvania, where he moved through the ranks to command its National Guard. When the military bombed major U.S. cities as part of Operation Cobalt at the onset of the outbreak, Beale alone made the decision to engage with federal forces. The Pennsylvania National Guard waged war on the U.S. Army, fighting the Second Civil War on Pennsylvania ground. There were two fronts — Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, what would become the Civic Republic — but Beale’s forces couldn’t sustain two theaters of battle. Beale led his troops out of Pittsburgh and let a dead mass swarm and overwhelm the military… and the Steel City. By sacrificing Pittsburgh, Beale saved Philadelphia.

“My dad taught me, for better or worse,” Rick responds, “sometimes things have to burn to bring things back.”

On the base, CRM soldiers push carts loaded with stuffed animals and other children’s items. This triggers more flashes of Michonne and Carl with the cat statue she rescued from a zombie-filled restaurant in King’s County, Michonne fighting off the walker herd that invaded Alexandria as Rick raced a shot Carl to safety, a pregnant Michonne cutting down the children who left her scarred, Michonne hugging Judith and RJ… and then Rick and Michonne burying Carl.

The Future

Rick remembers: a childhood memory of a fire burning inside his family’s farmhouse. The burning.

“The sword that kills is the sword that gives life,” Beale tells Rick. “I killed my past and a whole city so another could live.” Beale then reveals the first secret of the Echelon Briefing: the living are fighting a war with the dead they’re destined to lose. The most likely outcome? “We’re all gonna die.” 

Meanwhile, a sleuthing Michonne attends the CEP overview briefing CRM forces on “Operation N1W.” The Child Evacuation Protocol will be carried out by the CRM Frontliner embeds living in Portland under false identities — operatives enmeshed in the Portland school system to facilitate an evacuation of selected children. After these assets are extracted and airlifted away, the Frontliners will destroy Portland with chlorine gas and liquidate its population of 87,000 survivors.

Back at the Echelon Briefing, Beale discloses another secret to Rick: the CRM’s modeling shows that humanity has an estimated 14 years of life left on this planet. The dead, disease, and starvation will wipe out what’s left of humanity, with the most likely outcome being that the planet “will be cluttered with corpses to eventually rot into food for the trees. It all becomes a strange temporary museum to an even stranger species that conquered it and marked it for a blink of its existence.” This, Beale explains, is why the CRM is the last light of the world and why they do what they do.

Beale explains that the CRM destroys communities “for resources, for strategic superiority, and to ensure the city’s secrecy and security above all.” The army has embedded spies in selected communities throughout the continent and the world to monitor them, potentially sabotage them, and to influence their politics and approaches. Until recently, they supplied test subjects for scientific experiments at CRM-run labs. The CRM — not the dead — destroyed Omaha and the Campus Colony, and in 18 hours, Operation N1W will leave the Civic Republic Military as the supreme force on the continent… and maybe the world.

Before: Rick and Michonne in bed. They plot to expose the CRM’s clandestine operations to the Civic Republic. If they don’t, who will? “This is the sh-t we do,” Michonne says.

The Next World

Now: Beale walks Rick through Operation N1W. The Civic Republic Military will destroy Portland, their last alliance partner of the Alliance of the Three, and then declare martial law on the Civic Republic and do away with the Council. Once the CR is under CRM control and all their Alliance partners are dead, the CRM will march across the country and eliminate any growing competition. “We will take their resources and ensure supremacy,” Beale says, “and maybe we get to survive.” Competition like the Alexandria Safe-Zone. Tank Town (Texas oil fields seen on Fear the Walking Dead.) And Junction 7, possibly explaining the disappeared exiles marked as “Designation 2” and then sent away from the Commonwealth community in Ohio (on The Walking Dead).

Rick palms his knife. There are more quick flashes: Rick waking up to wilted flowers at the hospital. Seeing Michonne for the first time outside the prison fence. King Ezekiel. Daryl. Negan. Morgan. Eugene. Carol. Maggie. 

Inside the N1W briefing, Michonne clicks her walkie-talkie. Before: Rick and Michonne are in bed together, revealing more of their plan. They’ll return to the Civic Republic in Jadis’s helicopter, with Rick flying them to jump points for refuels. If Michonne encounters trouble on base, she’ll key the walkie. Now: Michonne’s signal comes over Rick’s radio. Her eyes widen in horror as she realizes the crates filled with children’s toys and other “comfort items” are tools to attempt to soothe the traumatized children extracted from Portland. She pictures her children — Carl, Judith, and RJ — and steps out of the theater as a CRM officer drones on about how the extracted children could “prove to be the difference in our civilization’s survival,” scavenging a future from the imminent ruin of Portland.

At the Echelon Briefing, Beale tells Rick that Sgt. Maj. Grimes could become the next leader of the CRM within the next decade. After all his escape attempts, Rick was dead to the CRM… and then he returned. It’s a powerful story that the CRM may need to win the hearts of the citizens who will see some of their freedoms delayed yet again once the army declares martial law. Rick grips his knife, listening with intent as Beale talks about sacrifice. When he asks Rick to name the closest person to him who has died since the fall, Rick answers: his son, Carl. He’s who Rick saved tearing out that man’s throat, but in the end, he couldn’t save Carl. If Rick swears on the sword, Beale gives his word: whoever Rick was trying to get back to can come to the Civic Republic and be spared from the CRM’s march on the world. Rick’s grip on his knife loosens.

Portland will die, and the last light of the world will continue to burn. “The Next World will begin, and through that, somehow, some way, we will survive,” Beale tells Rick. “We will burn things to bring things back. The sword that kills is the sword that brings life.”

The Sword That Kills

Beale parts Rick’s gun and his prosthetic. The sword is before him, ready for Rick to swear upon it. “Swear on the sword,” Rick remembers Okafor saying. “Don’t let it take.” As Beale looks into Rick’s eyes, he sees it: fire.Beale grabs the gun as Rick lunges, sparking a brawl that sees the Major General use his sword to kill. “The world isn’t gonna end,” a defiant Rick says, countering Beale’s sword as he takes another swing: “It is. I’m trying to make sure we don’t!”

Rick disarms Beale, then runs the sword through his outstretched palm. Beale blames Okafor. There may be no escape for the living, but there’s no escaping the dead. “I never lost my son. I lost myself. He brought me back. My wife brought me back. We’re the sword that kills. We’re the sword that gives life. One life. One unstoppable life. We’re not dead,” Rick tells Beale, impaling him with the sword that kills. “You are.”

Rick reaches Thorne over walkie-talkie to tell her that Beale went into the woods to be in solitude before the all-hands summit, then transports Beale’s body in a rolling cart onto a service elevator to the ground floor. After a CRM soldier notices Rick’s cargo is dripping blood, a fight ensues that ends with Rick beating the man to death with his prosthetic hand, pummeling him so hard that he turns his face into bloody pulp inside his battered helmet. Michonne finds Rick and alerts him of Operation N1W, telling him they can’t go home until save an entire city of people from the CRM. “We have to stop them,” Michonne says, “because we can stop them.”

The Burning

Thorne becomes increasingly suspicious of Rick after failing to find Beale at the perimeter fence. She pieces it together: “Dana” is the one Rick was trying to get back to. The one he told her isn’t “gone.” Thorne hunts down Rick, who is wiring a crate of M67 Frag grenades with Michonne — a plan she says was inspired by the pyro Nat. Rick considers just leaving, but Michonne reminds him it’s “what we have to do. What sort of world are we making for them if we walk away from something like this?”

Rick knows she’s right. But he’s mad at the time he missed — eight years — that he didn’t get to see their children grow up. “I know we can’t, but I just… I think about that time, and I just want to go back,” Rick confesses. Michonne kisses him. “We are back,” she says. To that, Rick replies: “And this is the sh-t we do.”

Meanwhile, the CRM Frontliner Corps have gathered for the CRM summit: an all-hands briefing outside of tents containing the chlorine gas canisters destined for Portland. Rick and Michonne wheel in the cart carrying Beale’s body and a case of grenades, carefully unloading the explosives and rigging the tent to blow as they string together wires attached to the canisters of chlorine gas.

“This is it,” Rick tells Michonne, giving her Beale’s sword. “This is the last we’re apart.” Using a zombified Beale and the soldier that Rick killed in the elevator as triggers, the couple tethers the walkers with wire to the rig and then draws them out of the tent as they make a run for it. They almost get away — until Thorne intercepts them at gunpoint. She orders Rick and “Dana Bethune” to undo whatever they did, but Beale is a ticking time bomb. “It never died. It won’t stop,” Michonne tells Rick, taking his hand in hers. “It can’t stop.” A zombie Beale emerges from the tent rigged to blow, which then explodes as Rick and Michonne take cover beneath a large CRM flag doused with water.

Rick and Michonne burn the CRM to the ground. The Cascadia Forward Operating Base is in smoldering ruins as deadly green chlorine gas permeates through the air, liquidating the Frontliner forces in one fell swoop. Rick and Michonne escaped the explosion unscathed, but so did Thorne, who has donned a gas mask. The CRM soldiers who weren’t blown to bloody bits have turned and descend on the only survivors of the explosion.

Pulling cloth masks over their mouths, Rick charges Thorne in the green haze where every breath is death. Michonne makes a run for another gas mask as Thorne rants at Rick, whose soldier training comes in handy as he lifts Thorne and hurls her with all his might. “You destroyed our chance,” the last-living Frontliner yells. “You destroyed the whole world!” A mass of zombified soldiers come between them, forcing Rick to fight off the walker army as Michonne comes out swinging with Beale’s sword — a sword that kills Thorne with a stab to the gut.

“In a dead world, love is dead,” she tells Michonne, who fires back: “Love doesn’t die.” Rick is swarmed by walkers… and pulls the pin on a grenade. The huddled mass of walkers explode into bits of bloody mush, and with them, Michonne’s love. Except love doesn’t die. Rick emerges from behind the zombie bodies he used for cover, stumbles out of the gore, and is embraced by Michonne.

“Okafor was right,” a dying Thorne realizes as she gives her gas mask to Rick. “You just have to hope Beale was wrong.” Rick and Michonne escape the carnage as the military force of the last light of the world burns to ash.

The Ones Who Live

A series-ending montage reveals that Rick and Michonne exposed Operation N1W to the Civic Republic, confirming that the CRM’s Frontliner force and CRM Force Command died in the attack that foiled the Portland plot. The Civic Republic Council votes unanimously for emergency oversight over the remaining forces of the CRM, restoring oversight of the military to the Council. The Council also overturns CRM guidance: citizens of the Civic Republic are now free to leave at will, and the once-hidden city will welcome new citizens. The last light of the world lives on, with Michonne and Rick remaking the CRM as a force that will now engage with, assist, and aid the survivors and communities they come across.

Rick and Michonne make a cross-country helicopter trip home. “Shoto? It’s Daito,” Michonne says into a walkie-talkie. A CRM cargo helicopter touches down in a picturesque forest glade, and Rick and Michonne step out into their homecoming. The Grimes children — Judith (Cailey Fleming) and Rick “RJ” Grimes Jr. (Antony Azor) — come running to their parents. Judith has her father’s colt python holstered on her hip and her short sword on her back; RJ wears the King County Sheriff’s Department hat that Rick handed down to Carl, which he passed to Judith, and then big sister to little brother. Michonne embraces the kids first as Rick, for the first time in eight years, sets eyes upon the family he thought he’d lost.

After all those years gone “bye,” Rick Grimes found his family. The tearful reunion culminates in Rick and Michonne’s son asking his long-lost father: “You’re the Brave Man?” Rick straightens the sheriff’s hat and answers, “I am. But maybe you can call me Dad.” 

“I knew you’d come back,” RJ tells Dad. “I believed.”

As CRM aid helicopters fly overhead into the new world remade by Michonne and Rick Grimes, the Grimes family embraces as one — one unstoppable life.They’re the ones who live.

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