‘The Walking Dead’: Norman Reedus Talks Daryl Dixon’s Final Days
Norman Reedus, once again, shared his thoughts about Daryl Dixon exiting The Walking Dead, and fans won’t like what the actor had to say. However, it’s not because he said that Daryl is going to die next season.
According to Mashable, Norman Reedus teamed up with Chevrolet to play a pretty epic April Fools’ Day prank on a group of students at St. John’s University. The students were chosen as the beneficiaries of Chevy’s #BestDayEver campaign, and they were shocked when Reedus waltzed into their classroom and told them that he would be filling in for their professor. Obviously, the students had to ask Reedus a few Walking Dead-related questions, and it wasn’t long before the topic of Daryl Dixon’s demise came up.
It should surprise no one that Norman Reedus doesn’t want to see his character die, but he’s open to the idea of leaving the show another way. He’d like for Daryl to slowly disappear by walking over a hill, and the lone wolf would suddenly be joined by his ideal companion: a puppy that doesn’t judge his wild man ways.
Unfortunately for Norman Reedus, there’s a high likelihood that fans of The Walking Dead would not be happy with Daryl Dixon’s story ending this way — they’d simply spend the rest of the show’s run begging Scott Gimple, Robert Kirkman, Norman Reedus, and anyone else connected to The Walking Dead for a Daryl update. Fans would also expect Daryl to reappear someday, especially after seeing Morgan Jones’ story play out this season. They don’t want to see Daryl Dixon die, but they also wouldn’t want his story to end on such an open-ended note.
As Undead Walking points out, Norman Reedus loves the walking off into the sunset story. He described the same scene after Yahoo! TV asked him about Daryl Dixon’s ideal final days. However, he improved it by turning his canine companion into a wolf.
“You know, I don’t want to see him die. If Daryl would ever leave the show, I would want him to just walk off into the distance and have like a little dog or a little wolf puppy who just starts following him up over a hill. Some people would be like, “Whatever happened to that guy?” It would be like The Legend of Billy Jack or something.”
As the Inquisitr previously reported, Norman Reedus was telling the same dog/sunset story back in August of 2014. However, he wants the world to reach Mad Max levels of dystopia before this happens. And if it ever does, Norman has the perfect name for AMC’s inevitable Daryl spinoff, Whatever Happened to That Dude?
Perhaps Norman keeps repeating the same Daryl Dixon story because he wants Daryl to exist outside the confines of The Walking Dead TV series. Unlike the other main characters, Daryl doesn’t have a comic book counterpart, so he currently only has one storyline for fans to follow. By creating his own narrative, Norman is giving Daryl fans an alternate version of the character. Now he just needs to tell a few tales about what happens to Daryl Dixon after he leaves Rick Grimes’ group.
Instead of heading off on his own, maybe Daryl should take Aaron with him. During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Norman Reedus described Daaron (Aaryl?) as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Thelma and Louise. He was referencing the season finale moment that the bromantic recruiters got trapped in a car after triggering the Wolves’ booby trap, but Aaron and Daryl were a lot luckier than the aforementioned legendary pairs. Still, they could have avoided being in that situation to begin with if they’d somehow managed to hear the dozens of walkers shuffling around inside those canned food trailers before trying to open one of them. The Walking Dead zombies might be mindless, but they’re really good at staying quiet until they appear onscreen.
What do you think of Norman Reedus’ exit idea for Daryl Dixon? Do you think it’s a fitting way for the fan favorite to bid The Walking Dead adieu?
[Image credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty]
