The Walking Dead Spinoff First Look: Daryl Dixon in France

Warning: this story contains spoilers for The Walking Dead series finale. A new show in a new country means a new style for Daryl Dixon. AMC has revealed the first look at Norman Reedus in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which finds the crossbow-wielding survivor overseas in Paris, France. After a goodbye with Melissa McBride’s Carol, Sunday’s “Rest in Peace” series finale of The Walking Dead ended on Reedus’ Daryl riding off into the walker apocalypse frontier to look for Danai Gurira’s Michonne and Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes. Below, say “bonjour” to first-look images from the Daryl Dixon spin-off.

Gone is Daryl’s traditional sleeveless vest look, replaced by a Parisian scarf, and his bike, replaced by a horse-drawn carriage…

…But the walkers remain, including the French variants introduced in a mid-credits coda ending The Walking Dead: World Beyond.

Picking up sometime after the final episode of The Walking Dead, the spin-off starts with the question: how does Daryl Dixon end up in France? “Somehow I get put there,” Reedus has teased, “and I don’t go there on my own free will.” 

“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‘s Brandon Davis of his final scene of the flagship series. “And then it goes horribly wrong, like everything on The Walking Dead. It kind of felt like I was going to see what’s new out in the world, you know what I mean? Everybody was safe, and I was gonna go see what’s out there.”

The actor has been over in France for production on the spin-off, which has cast Clémence Poésy and Adam Nagaitis opposite Reedus. Filming officially got underway in October under showrunner David Zabel and Walking Dead veteran director-executive producer Greg Nicotero. 

“It’s epic in scale,” Reedus said. “The tone is much different, the [cinematography is] much different. The lighting’s different. We’re in castles and the storyline has a religious vibe to it. Part of the story is me around a bunch of people speaking French. I’m trying to figure out like, ‘Is this gonna be a fight?”

Part of the story is the American Daryl Dixon being a “fish out of water” in post-apocalyptic Paris who is “trying to figure out how to swim,” Reedus said. “It’s all part of the storyline. The dailies are going back and forth to America, and everyone’s freaking out. Like, it looks great.” 

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premieres with a six-episode first season in 2023 on AMC and AMC+.

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