{"id":1236404252,"date":"2025-10-19T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/?p=1236404252"},"modified":"2025-10-20T06:13:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:13:34","slug":"the-walking-dead-daryl-dixon-season-3-finale-norman-reedus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-features\/the-walking-dead-daryl-dixon-season-3-finale-norman-reedus-1236404252\/","title":{"rendered":"Norman Reedus Previews the End of ‘Daryl Dixon’: “We’re Wrapping Up in a Perfect Way”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t[This story contains spoilers from the season three finale of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon<\/em>, “Solaz Del Mar.”]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tAfter 15 years in the zombie apocalypse trenches,\u00a0Daryl Dixon\u00a0<\/em>is approaching the end of the line. Luckily for\u00a0Walking Dead\u00a0<\/em>fans, the character Daryl Dixon and the show\u00a0Daryl Dixon\u00a0<\/em>are two different things altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThe third season finale of\u00a0The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon<\/em>\u00a0has now come and gone, leaving only one more season<\/a> of the Norman Reedus-starring spinoff of the flagship series. Does that mean we\u2019re reaching the end of Daryl\u2019s story altogether? Almost certainly not, as there are numerous other avenues where the fan-favorite crossbow slinger could appear, from existing shows like\u00a0The Walking Dead: Dead City\u00a0<\/em>to any number of as-yet unannounced projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tStill, the imminent conclusion of\u00a0this\u00a0<\/em>iteration of the character hangs heavy over Reedus; while fans are busy processing the events of season three\u2019s finale, in which Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) watched their latest attempt to return home go up in literal flames, Reedus himself is in the thick of filming the final stretch of\u00a0Daryl Dixon\u00a0<\/em>season four, now well underway on location in Spain.

\u201cWe\u2019re on episode six of season four,\u201d he tells\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, speaking after a whirlwind trip home from Spain, following a whirlwind night shoot. \u201cWe\u2019re getting really close.\u201d

In other words, it\u2019s not time to break out the celebratory can of hot dogs just yet, as Daryl and Carol haven\u2019t spent their last night in Spain, despite what they imagined for themselves as season three came to an end Sunday night. But it\u2019s time to start planning which condiments we\u2019re going to use at the very least. Below, Reedus talks to THR<\/em> about the journey of\u00a0Daryl Dixon<\/em>, from the recently concluded season three to the soon-to-be-concluded filming of season four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t***<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tYou\u2019re getting close to the end. How does that feel? Clearly we\u2019re here to talk about the end of three, but it has to feel surreal that you\u2019re simultaneously close to the end of the show in real time.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tYeah. There\u2019s a David Bowie quote that goes something like, \u201cWhat do you think your last words are going to be before you die?\u201d And he said they would be, \u201cBut, but, but!\u201d (Laughs<\/em>.) And that\u2019s kind of how I feel. 

Is it shaping up in ways that you expected? Is it surprising you, the final stretch?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tYou know, it\u2019s different. This show has always coincided with my life a bit. With season four, Daryl really goes inside [himself], and so, I\u2019m inside, too. I\u2019m in my head a lot, especially for the episode we\u2019re filming now. It\u2019s filling my head with the future, the past and the present of this character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThere\u2019s this moment in the season three finale where Daryl and Carol are chatting, and Daryl talks about feeling the need to run away every time he finds himself feeling at home. I can imagine in some ways that connects with you, having played Daryl for 15 years now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tIt\u2019s trippy. There\u2019s always more story you can tell, but this incarnation of what we\u2019re doing is wrapping up in a perfect way. It\u2019s answering all of these reasons why and what all of it has meant, and what have we done to get here? What are the mistakes we made to get here? And what can we do to have a better life for ourselves? So it\u2019s all very trippy, what we\u2019re working on right now. There\u2019s a lot of internal fact-checking that I\u2019m doing, and that the character is doing, and watching things happen around me that I never expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThat\u2019s the beauty of the spinoff. Someone asked me recently, when I was doing season one, would I have thought about what I was doing in season four? And we just didn\u2019t do it that way. There\u2019s no season in the future already written when we\u2019re working on the first. It\u2019s created organically as we go along. I don\u2019t even think South Park <\/em>can do that<\/a>. They see what\u2019s happening in the world and create from it. So I would hate to do this show any other way. We organically come up with ideas for storylines as we\u2019re filming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThat conversation you mention came out of a last-minute insert I\u2019d come up with alongside [showrunner David Zabel and executive producer Jason Richman]. I knew some of where we could be heading in season four. And this sort of felt like a precipice; the going-off point for season four. We have some stories to deal with that we started in seasons one and two. For me, and for Daryl, that was a big turning point, that conversation on the beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\tMelissa McBride as Carol Peletier with Eduardo Noriega as Antonio in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon<\/em> season three finale.<\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCarla Oset\/AMC<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<\/figcaption>\n\n\t\t\t\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\tIt\u2019s juxtaposed with some glimpses of Daryl\u2019s childhood we see throughout the season, with flashbacks to Merle (Michael Rooker)<\/strong> and the abuse he suffered back at his original home.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tYeah. There\u2019s so much momentum on shows like these, that it can often be hard to find the space to slow down and think about that pre-apocalypse life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tBut when you do <\/em>stop for those kinds of things, you can\u2019t help but remember how hard Daryl\u2019s life has been from the very beginning. There was never a soft point for him. So for him to even open up in this way with Carol and think about his life in this way marks huge progress since we first met him in the woods of Georgia.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThat\u2019s a huge point that we\u2019re in right now, a huge subject of what we\u2019re filming. Especially the episode we\u2019re doing at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tSpeaking of conversations between Daryl and Carol, there\u2019s one I really appreciated earlier in the season: Daryl and Carol making it extremely, abundantly clear they\u2019ve never hooked up. Good to have it in canon!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tI have to give it up to David Zabel for that. Because there was a time when some people might have written for the show who would read Twitter, and then it was like they were writing for <\/em>Twitter. I could pick out those moments sometimes. But David, he isn\u2019t part of that world. \u201cI can do something different,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tI just want to be sure…Daryl and Carol didn\u2019t eat that last can of hot dogs yet, right?

<\/strong>Right. We haven\u2019t eaten them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tChekhov’s Hot Dogs are still alive for the final season?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tYeah, but I fucking hate those hot dogs. (Laughs<\/em>.) I would barf if I had to eat that. The can\u2019s dented, too! There\u2019s gotta be some botulism in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tGreat premise for the next spinoff!

<\/strong>(Laughs<\/em>.) It\u2019s not going to be good when we open those up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t***<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThe Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season three is now streaming on AMC+.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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