What Does New The Walking Dead Season 7 Footage Mean For Daryl?

During The Walking Dead Season 7 Preview Special which aired Sunday night on AMC, fans saw the first full clip from the upcoming episodes which featured Dwight riding Daryl’s bike down the street. More importantly, Dwight was wearing Daryl’s winged jacket. The reveal sparked a lot of speculation on the Internet, with fans crying out that Dwight’s possession of Daryl’s belongings means Daryl was killed by Negan and Lucille.

Could this speculation be true and Daryl is in fact killed to start Season 7? Sure.

But why does Daryl have to be dead for Dwight to wear his jacket and ride his bike? Daryl was perfectly healthy back in the first half of Season 6 when Dwight jacked his belongings in the forest and now Daryl is badly injured. He and the rest of the group couldn’t put up much of a fight even if they chose to. Dwight could be wearing the jacket and riding the bike simply because he likes to or even to send a degrading message that he can do what he wants with other people’s stuff.

Many suspect that Daryl may be the survivor which Negan takes interest in like he did Carl in the comics. It’s a valid theory given what showrunner Scott Gimple told ComicBook.com after the Season 6 finale. There’s gonna be a bit of remixing,” Gimple says of the Negan-Carl relationship. “There might be another character involved that takes some of it. I’m kind of tripping on some aspects of it that I don’t want to reveal but that relationship will be absolutely shown.”

Long story short, we can’t conclude much about what the new clip of Dwight wearing Daryl’s vest means. Some have chosen to believe it means Daryl is dead while there really is not enough evidence to conclude as much. If anything, we should be looking forward to the continued build of the Dwight-Daryl rivalry. We’ll have to wait and see, really.

The Walking Dead will return for its seventh season October 23 at 9 PM ET on AMC. For complete coverage, insider info, and more all season long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter and check out The Walking Dead on ComicBook.com on Facebook.