How do you say “sneak peek” in French? The first 10 minutes of the September 10th series premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon are streaming now on AMC+, revealing an extended look at the new Walking Dead spin-off that finds the American Daryl (Norman Reedus) marooned in post-apocalyptic France. More specifically: the Old Port of Marseille in southern France’s zombie-plagued Provence region. The sneak peek is now available to watch exclusively over at amcplus.com, where AMC+ subscribers can get early access to new episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon starting Thursday, September 7th.
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AMC first released the 10-minute preview, along with the full Daryl Dixon trailer, during its Walking Dead Universe Fan Watch Party panel at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend. The network describes the September 10th premiere: “Months after we last saw him in The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon finds himself transported across the Atlantic to France.”
The footage opens with Daryl strapped to a capsized dinghy adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. “You deserve a happy ending too,” says a Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) voiceover, an echo of what she told her “uncle Daryl” in The Walking Dead‘s “Rest in Peace” series finale. After washing ashore, Daryl wanders into the lifeless Mediterranean city. A sign with directions in a language he can’t read points him to les ports de Martigues. Daryl is far from home, and there are no signs of life anywhere.
Daryl rummages through a docked boat and scavenges a water bottle, a coat, and a tape recorder that reveals its passengers did not survive their voyage. “19 months at sea. Hoping to stay ahead of this thing. Circled Spain. Nowhere’s safe,” says the voice of a father, pictured with his wife and daughter. “We’ll try Marseille next. Maybe the south of France is good. There’s got to be a safe place somewhere. Sue had a heart attack. We had to let her go. I had to… take care of it. Our 10th anniversary would have been in June. Holly keeps crying. She wants her mum back. She wants things the way they were. She wants to go home.”
Daryl points a line from Marseille to Biarritz on a map. He records his own message: “My name’s Daryl Dixon. I come from a place called the Commonwealth. It’s in America. I went out looking for something. All I found was trouble. If I don’t make it back, I want them to know I tried. Hell, I’m still trying.”
A stranger in a strange land, Daryl treks through the French countryside, over bridges and mountains, until he reaches a dilapidated city. He walks past raffiti reading “pouvoir des vivants,” or “power of the living.” But there is only death. Daryl forages for food inside an old factory, failing to heed a warning he can’t read: “ATTENTION AFFAMÉS ICI.” Translation: “Hungry here.”
Daryl doesn’t hear the growling of a lurker: walkers that lie dormant until they can eat the flesh of the living. As the lurker rises, Daryl finds himself surrounded. Using a pole he’s fashioned into a walking stick and spear, Daryl impales a lurking walker in the brain and slices another, spilling blackened blood that is acidic.
Daryl fends off the acid-blooded walkers, but one lunges at him and grabs his bare arm, burning his skin with its touch. When his spear gets stuck in a walker’s head, he unsheathes his knife and hurls it into the forehead of the last lurker. Daryl sits with his head in his hands, leaving him to question how he got there — and how he’s ever getting home.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premieres September 7th on AMC and September 10th on AMC.
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