Daryl Dixon Continues The Walking Dead’s Habit Of Wasting New Characters
Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3, episode 1, “Costa da Morte”.While divisive, it’s hard to deny that The Walking Dead‘s recent spinoffs have been anything other than successful, yet they all keep making the same frustrating mistake. With Daryl Dixon season 3 finally underway, the project has excitingly taken the franchise to yet another new country, which should pave the way for plenty of new interesting characters to join the zombie universe.
Like Dead City and The Ones Who Live, Daryl Dixon is still focused on its two main protagonists as they attempt to find a way home to America. However, upon finding out that the UK failed to survive the Walking Dead‘s outbreak, their hopes of ever making it back to the Commonwealth looked bleak until they met Julian.
Played by Stephen Merchant, Julian appeared to be the last survivor in England and potentially the entire UK, but fortunately, he happened to have a ship and reluctantly agreed to take the leading duo to America. Things appeared to be going well until a storm set them off course, explaining why Daryl Dixon season 3 is set in Spain.
Although this provided a strong reason to move the story to a fresh location, the spinoff also made an infuriating decision in the process that continues a recent franchise trend.
Daryl Dixon Killed Off Stephen Merchant’s Julian Way Too Quickly
Stephen Merchant as Julian pondering something in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3, episode 1
Despite surviving all on his own for years, things immediately went wrong for Julian the moment he met Daryl and Carol. He may not have been a seasoned sailor, but Julian managed to point the ship in the right direction until taking a knock during the storm, forcing the protagonists to take the reins, which led to a devastating crash.
Daryl survived with minimal injuries, while Carol took a blow to the head and suffered a serious shoulder wound, but Julian unfortunately didn’t make it and reanimated as a walker. With Stephen Merchant being a pretty big name in Britain, alongside his character providing humor and balance to the project, it seemed like a no-brainer to keep him around.
Instead, the series continued its trend of killing characters off far too quickly. Season 1 did a surprisingly good job of making the new additions feel important, but Isabelle’s frustrating Walking Dead death in Daryl Dixon season 2 was one of many swift departures, and Julian’s fate proves that the franchise hasn’t learned its lesson with these unnecessary exits.
The Walking Dead Spinoffs Have A Bad Habit Of Killing Off Great New Characters
Matthew August Jeffers as Nat in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live standing with his arms on a counter
They may deliver great storylines and exciting action sequences, but The Walking Dead spinoffs have a terrible habit of wasting their best new characters. Understandably, the focus has been put on the already established survivors in these projects, but so many promising villains and allies have bitten the dust way too quickly in recent shows.
The Ones Who Live built up Nat and gave him an interesting backstory, only to dump him after one episode, while it also introduced compelling villains like Pearl Thorne and Major General Beale, just to kill them within a single season. Dead City hasn’t been quite as bad, but the likes of Tommaso, Amaia, and Narvaez probably could’ve stuck around longer.
Daryl Dixon Season 3 Episodes
Release Date
Episode 1 – “Costa da Morte”
September 7, 2025
Episode 2 – “La Ofrenda”
September 14, 2025
Episode 3 – “El Sacrificio”
September 21, 2025
Episode 4 – “La Justicia Fronteriza”
September 28, 2025
Episode 5 – “Limbo”
October 5, 2025
Episode 6 – “Contrabando”
October 12, 2025
Episode 7 – Solaz del Mar”
October 19, 2025
Perhaps most annoyingly, Daryl Dixon went from being the best spinoff at maintaining its new characters to the worst in the space of a season. Season 1 did have some major deaths, but they felt impactful and didn’t derail the main story. However, with the project having to move from France to Spain, season 2 essentially went on a killing spree.
In addition to Isabelle, Sylvie, Genet, Losang, Emile, and Valery were all killed off, and while the door was left open for Codron’s return in Daryl Dixon season 3, he’s also been written out and could be dead. This baffling trend has prevented so many unique characters from fulfilling their full potential, and The Walking Dead simply can’t stop making this irritating mistake.
Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Danai Gurira, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, Lennie James
The Walking Dead is a massive multimedia franchise that began with a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The franchise gained widespread popularity with the launch of the television series The Walking Dead in 2010 on AMC, which chronicles the lives of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies, referred to as “walkers.” The success of the original show has led to numerous spin-offs, web series, video games, novels, and other media. The franchise explores themes of survival, human nature, and the breakdown of society in the face of an existential threat, making it one of the most successful and influential horror series of the 21st century.
0 Comments