The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Spinoff Gets Official Synopsis

When Daryl Dixon rode off on his motorcycle in The Walking Dead series finale, few might have guessed where he would wind up: marooned in post-apocalyptic France. AMC announced plot details for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, the French-set spin-off that finds Daryl (Norman Reedus) overseas without best friend Carol (Melissa McBride), brother-in-arms Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), or the rest of their scattered zombie apocalypse family. While Rick and Michonne (Danai Gurira) chart their own course in their New Jersey-shot series, and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) head for the Dead City of New York, Daryl is a Stranger in a Strange Land: Europe.

In The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, “Daryl washes ashore in France and struggles to piece together how he got there and why. The series tracks his journey across a broken but resilient France as he hopes to find a way back home. As he makes the journey, though, the connections he forms along the way complicate his ultimate plan.” 

Some of those connections include the foreign faces Daryl encounters on his journey. Among the previously announced cast members are Clémence Poésy (Harry Potter) as Isabelle — a member of a progressive religious group who finds herself confronting her dark past in Paris — and Adam Nagaitis (Chernobyl) as Quinn, a displaced Brit who has become powerful in post-apocalyptic Paris as a black marketeer and the owner of a sexy underground nightclub. 

This month, AMC revealed five French actors joining Reedus in the Walking Dead spin-off series. They are: 

• Anne Charrier (The Last Deadly Mission) as Genet 
• Laika Blanc Francard (My Night) as Sylvie
• Eriq Ebouaney (Fox Hunt) as Fallou
• Romain Levi (The Tunnel) as Codron
• And newcomer Louis Puech Scigliuzzi as Laurent
  

“There was a part of [the series finale] where I smiled a little bit,and that tone kind of makes it into the spin-off a little bit,” Reedus told ComicBook of Daryl’s final scene of the flagship series.”And then it goeshorribly wrong, like everything on The Walking Dead. It kind offelt like I was going to see what’s new out in the world, you know whatI mean? Everybody was safe, and I was gonna go see what’s out there.”

In Daryl Dixon, Reedus continued, “The tone is much different, the [cinematographyis] much different. The lighting’s different. We’re in castles, and thestoryline has a religious vibe to it. Part of the story is me around abunch of people speaking French. I’m trying to figure out like, ‘Is thisgonna be a fight?’”

The new show reunites Reedus with his longtime Walking Dead director, producer, and special make-up effects guru Greg Nicotero, who told ComicBook that the series from showrunner David Zabel “really sort of embraces a Stranger In a Strange Land kindof scenario, where we’re exploring post-apocalyptic Europe through theeyes of Daryl Dixon.”

“I got to say, we’ve had a great time. It really just is a differentanimal,” Nicotero said. “And I even was sort of surprised, myself, standing on set andgoing, ‘I’ve been on Walking Dead for 12 years and here weare.’ But it feels fresh and it feels new. And David Zabel, ourshowrunner, has been an absolute joy to collaborate with. And it’s beenreally fun.”

Fear the Walking Dead: The Final Season – Part 1 premieres May 14th on AMC and AMC+, followed by The Walking Dead: Dead City in June and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon later in 2023.

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