Daryl and Carol finally reunited in the second season of the hit Walking Dead spinoff series, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol. It was something the stars of the show had been wanting to see just as much as the fans.

At New York Comic Con, CBR’s Kevin Polowy discussed the series with some of the actors and other team members of Daryl Dixon. Present for the panel were executive producer Greg Nicotero and showrunner David Zabel alongside cast members Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon), Melissa McBride (Carol Peletier), and Louis Puech Scigliuzzi (Laurent). When discussing the long-awaited reunion between Daryl and Carol, McBride described how it was “fun for me,” while Reedus shared how the two had been speaking about the big moment happening ever since the start of the spinoff.

“I’ve been waiting for her to show up the whole time,” Reedus said. “We’ve been texting and calling, going, ‘Come on! Hurry up!’ Yeah, just telling her what it’s like, and it’ll be fun, and we can go shopping for antiques and stuff… But, yeah, it’s great having her there. She’s got an energy that’s fun and we had a scene the other day that was really fun, with me just sort of being an idiot between takes.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve missed that,” McBride responded.

Daryl and Carol’s Reunion Needed to Feel Earned

Zabel went on to explain how it was very exciting for the creative team once they were able to bring Carol into the show. While the spinoff had found a place of its own by putting one fan favorite like Daryl in an all-new location totally unlike the original series, it undoubtedly brought some “new energy” to the show with Carol’s reunion with Daryl in Season 2. The reunion was not immediate, as the writers wanted it to feel earned, and Nicotero even lamented how the season wasn’t longer, as they would have stretched out the wait for the big moment even further.

“We were super psyched, in the writers’ room, obviously, when we got to bring Carol onto the show,” Zabel explained. “There was a lot of excitement about that, and it was great. We had a great story with Daryl in France going, and then we got to inject this new energy, which is this desire for Carol to find him. So, that just got everybody amped up to see them together again. The challenge was, let’s bring them together, but let’s not make it too magical, let’s not make it too easy. Let’s give a real challenge to her to find her way and get to him… That was a moment we were obviously always building to, and super excited about.”

Nicotero added, “It would have been nice to have some more episodes, so we could draw that out. If you really think about it, The Walking Dead, we had 16 episodes per season. So, we introduce Carol in the first episode, and by episode three, she’s already traveled halfway across the world.”

I mean, there’s no better friendship than Daryl and Carol on television.

“My real purpose is to provide some continuity between the original show and what David’s doing, and the writers,” Nicotero further explained. “And that’s been a lot of fun, because the goal always was to make the show feel different, and to really play into the strengths of these two friends. I mean, there’s no better friendship than Daryl and Carol on television. They have such a great connection, and such great chemistry as friends, that that’s really what solidifies the journey, and people watch the show because they want to see these two friends unite.”

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon –The Book of Carol premiere on Sundays on AMC and AMC+.