For many seasons, Walking Dead fans watched Norman Reedus' Daryl Dixon perform all manner of badassery with only a small part of his story getting bogged down by sadness and/or pure misery. But ever since Negan's Saviors arrived on the scene, Daryl has gone through hell and back, and to be expected, Reedus has spent the last two seasons or so discussing the show from a particularly negative and pessimistic place. It sounds like we might be over that hump now, though, as the actor is quite enthusiastic about where things are going with Daryl and Dwight.
That's my favorite storyline going forward. . . . They're both right. You know what I mean? One just knows how to deal with it a little better. The other one is scared. Daryl's not scared. Dwight's scared and he makes decisions based on fear, but he's trying to do the right thing. It seems like it. So you can't really hate on him. We all do horrible things in this world and Dwight did a bunch of crappy stuff and Daryl gets it, and Daryl knows that Dwight's operating from a place of fear. Not to give anything away, but I'm very happy with that storyline going forward.
The Daryl and Dwight contention is what actually started the former's downward narrative spiral, since Dwight stole all Daryl's signature items when attempting to make an escape from the Saviors. Which is what made Daryl as on-edge as ever when Negan arrived, and his impulses there led to Glenn getting mauled. He then spent some time locked up inside the Sanctuary before escaping, but his revenge plans then made him a tad unapproachable, and Daryl was even butting heads with Rick for a while earlier in Season 8. This is a character that needs to accomplish something gigantic in order to shake the rage off, assuming that's even possible, but how will Dwight enter into that?
Actually, it's rather surprising that Norman Reedus sounds so nonchalant about Daryl's opinions of Dwight. We know there's some festering rage within Daryl's blood, but he will apparently try to rise above that in order to see eye-to-eye with Dwight, which could possibly have something to do with how Team Family comes together in the aftermath of Carl's death. (A death that Reedus himself wasn't too happy about.)
With both Alexandria and the Kingdom facing major blows, Rick and the other survivors will need to set up shop at Hilltop in order to regroup and refocus, as hinted at in the midseason trailers. Which means Daryl and Dwight will be in close quarters for a more extended period, so we'll hopefully get to see some tension-soaked confrontations that help to smooth their relationship out. Of course, Dwight still hasn't been accepted by several others within Team Family, so Daryl might not even be his biggest problem. (Five bucks says Dwight tries to deflect and throw fellow newcomer Siddiq under the bus when things get heated.)
The Walking Dead will return to AMC audiences with some naked zombies on Sunday, February 25, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Check out the latest episode of our own Cord Cutter podcast to hear our thoughts on the Carl situation, and to see what other shows will be popping up in the meantime, head to our midseason premiere schedule.
