The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Spot Teases Humanity’s Hope

“Hope is not lost.” That’s the tagline for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which transports the eponymous American (Norman Reedus) overseas to post-apocalyptic France. But what does it mean? The show’s San Diego Comic-Con trailer revealed that French nun Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) recruits the marooned Daryl, tasking him with delivering 11-year-old boy Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi)… somewhere, for mysterious reasons. “He’s ready,” Isabelle tells Daryl, “to lead the revival of humanity.” Could Laurent be humanity’s hope for a cure? Could Daryl’s mission have anything to do with the French lab that might have been ground zero of the zombie apocalypse over on The Walking Dead: World Beyond? 

Those are questions raised by a new teaser, which ominously states “there is hope” over shadowy images of Daryl, Isabelle, and Laurent. Watch it below.

Laurent is described as “an 11-year-old boy born just as the hungry ones appeared, he grew up inan abbey protected by nuns, shielded from the violence of the outsideworld. He seems insightful and wise beyond his years.” Along with Sylvie (Laika Blanc Francard), the boy is in the care of Isabelle, described as: “A smart, headstrong nun capable of protecting herself and the peopleshe loves, Isabelle escaped to the countryside when the hungry onesarrived.”

“The hungry ones” are, of course, the flesh-eating undead who have been roaming the Earth since the outbreak of a mysterious virus in 2010. The French lab that appeared in a coda ending World Beyond was referenced back in the very first season of The Walking Dead, where CDC virologist Dr. Edwin Jenner (Noah Emerich) remarked that the French were “the last ones to hold out” at the onset of the walker apocalypse, staying in their labs “until the end. They thought they were close to a solution.”  

It was inside that lab that a French woman (Carey Van Driest), revealed to be part of the “Violet” team, downloaded decade-old Wildfire transmissions broadcast by Jenner from Atlanta. When a French man with a gun (Oryan Landa) demands she tell him the whereabouts of the “Primrose” team, she says: “They weren’t here when it happened. When you all did what you did.”

What that is remains a mystery, but graffiti reading Les morts sont nes icl — “the dead are born here” — hints at a potentially man-made origin for the variant cohorts that are faster, stronger, and smarter than regular walkers. “End this? You started this. All the teams,” the man said. “Then you made it worse.” 

But hope is not lost. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premieres Sunday, September 10th on AMC and AMC+.