Warning: this story contains spoilers for Sunday’s “Trust” episode of The Walking Dead. The famously foul-mouthed Negan isn’t in tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead, but his favorite word is: “F—.” It’s Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) who says the “f-dash-dash-dash” word in Season 11 episode “Trust,” swearing during a standoff with Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) and Commonwealth troopers at the Hilltop. It’s not the first time Daryl dropped the f-word — nor the first time it’s heard this season — but the uncensored use of the little-heard word caught some viewers off-guard.
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In Episode 15 of the final season, Hornsby hints to Hershel Rhee (Kien Michael Spiller) that something bad will happen if the Hilltop doesn’t surrender the fugitives he suspects Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) is harboring. Daryl, an armored trooper in the Commonwealth Army, holds Hornsby at gunpoint as tensions escalate: “You turned this place upside down and you found nothing. So unless you want to die for nothing, tell them to drop the guns before something really f—ing bad happens.”
The scene airs uncensored on the AMC+ streaming service and when broadcast on AMC. (Both versions obscure Daryl’s mouth with his gun.)
Earlier in Season 11, Rosita (Christian Serratos) let fly a barely-audible “f—” when killing walkers with Lydia (Cassady McClincy) in the mid-season premiere. As revealed by director Greg Nicotero, the unscripted f-word happened when McClincy accidentally hit Serratos with her prop weapon.
Daryl dropped a muffled f-bomb in the Season 9 episode “The Obliged,” telling Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) he “sure as f— wouldn’t have found any of us” if not for Glenn (Steven Yeun), and another in Season 5 episode”Consumed” when he said to Carol (Melissa McBride), “F—- the way it was.”
The Walking Dead‘s use of the f-word is commonly uncensored on alternate takes available on the Blu-ray sets. Alternate uncensored versions of scenes on the disc sets include Rick saying “they’re f—ing with the wrong people” when trapped in a Terminus train car in Season 4, Rick saying “f— this guy” about Jesus (Tom Payne) and an f-filled alternate Negan monologue in Season 6, and Rick’s “f— it” in Season 8.
“You get a specific number of curse words you can say, and then there’s a list of what you can and can’t do,” Dave Erickson, the then-showrunner for spinoff Fear the Walking Dead, explained to ComicBook in 2017. “I think it was our script coordinator who told me there was an email had come up; there had been a memo saying we could now say ‘f—‘ twice over the course of an entire season.”
See reactions to Daryl’s swear word below.
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