The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is preparing to debut Stephen Merchant‘s role in full in Season 3, premiering in September on AMC. For those who may think Merchant was cast for some comic relief in the apocalyptic drama, Norman Reedus told TV Insider that it’s actually a quite “serious” role at San Diego Comic-Con 2025. After colliding with Merchant’s character in the U.K., Daryl (Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) will end up in Spain, where they’ll also spend the fourth and final season.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon was renewed for a fourth and final season ahead of its Hall H panel during SDCC 2025. Stars and executive producers Reedus and McBride came by TV Insider and TV Guide Magazine’s studio to chat the upcoming final two seasons alongside Scott M. Gimple, The Walking Dead Universe Chief Content Officer, and David Zabel, showrunner/EP. In the video above, Zabel says that Merchant “was just amazing.”
“We were so lucky and happy that he was able to do it and wanted to do it,” he said. “And he just dove in full on. There’s a bunch of three-hander scenes between Norman and Melissa and Stephen that just like, make my head blow up because I was so happy.”
“He’s really good at being serious,” Reedus said of Merchant’s performance, as McBride added that “there is levity” between Daryl and Carol in Season 3. Zabel said that Merchant isn’t without his light moments despite the dramatic turn to come. “It’s a serious role, but he doesn’t sink into the sadness of the apocalypse,” Zabel explained. “And that’s part of what makes casting him such a great thing for the role. It elevates it.”
“It’s a sensitive, quirky character,” McBride revealed.
Gimple said that Merchant’s episode in Season 3 contains everything they want the show to be about: “Sad, funny, strange, beautiful, scary.”
As for what’s to come in Spain, the teased a “medieval” community.
“There’s a system that this town follows that’s sort of medieval and … that keeps their community running, which we get wrapped into,” said Reedus, prop sword in hand.
“It’s another situation where it’s a community that kind of needs Daryl and Carol, but Daryl and Carol also need the community’s help to continue trying to do what they’re trying to do, which is trying to get home,” added Zabel. “They become wrapped up in each other, these two stories. And Spain has all these things that are totally different from France.”
This makes for a feeling of “reinvention” for the show in a season that is said to be about moving beyond surviving and finally starting to live again.
McBride summed it up plainly and powerfully: “Survive your survival,” she declared.
Find out how they’ll do that in the full video interview above.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Season 3 Premiere, Sunday, September 7, 9/8c, AMC
— Additional reporting by Emily Aslanian
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