For a character created purely for AMC’s adaptation of The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon has cemented his place as one of the show’s bona fide favorites. Remember, if they kill Daryl, we riot.
Now approaching its 100th episode, there’s a tremendous amount of celebration and nostalgia swirling around The Walking Dead, and over the past fortnight, we’ve seen many of our leading survivors partake in the fun. But with October 22nd inching ever closer, ComicBook.com has relayed a host of exciting new tidbits pertaining to AMC’s juggernaut, with the latest including an in-depth interview with Norman Reedus, the actor behind Mr. Dixon.
Coming out of the harrowing seventh season, it’s fair to say that Daryl has seen better days, particularly after he witnessed Negan slaughter Glenn in cold blood. And at least according to Reedus himself, the death of Glenn still weighs on Daryl’s conscience.
Last season sucked. It sucked. [Daryl] wants revenge, he just is seeing red right now. And he’s gone through this whole thing with feeling the guilt and realizing Glenn wouldn’t have wanted him to give up like that and he’s fighting for himself, he’s fighting for the people that he loves and people that have gone before him. He just wants f—ing revenge. And I don’t know if there’s any way to talk him out of what he wants to do.
That yearning thirst for revenge will seemingly lead to Daryl going rogue in The Walking Dead season 8, and here, Reedus admits that his on-screen counterpart is fed up with the diplomatic approach.
I think he’s tired of being diplomatic. He wants to burn everybody down and I feel like he feels completely justified by it as well. There’s no rational thought here, he’s just seeing red.
Once the red mist descends in front of Daryl’s eyes, and common sense goes out the window, one would assume he’ll enact his revenge on the Saviors, after they brutally tortured him back in season 7. Turns out karma will come back to bite them after all.
He had to go through a process to get to this point. I mean, when he first got taken and held prisoner, he thought he deserved it, like he didn’t care. He wasn’t fighting back. Dwight’s shoving him down the hallway, he’s not even flinching. He’s just like, ‘Give it to me. I deserve it, take it.’ And I think through the process of feeling that and the Polaroid that… He didn’t say, ‘I’m not Negan’ as a ‘F— you, Negan.’
On October 22nd, The Walking Dead season 8 will get going with the super-sized “Mercy,” and executive producer Gale Anne Hurd is confident episode number 100 will be remembered as the show’s “most ambitious” one yet.
