Comic-Con: “It gives us the opportunity to tell different parts of stories we didn’t get to,” Norman Reedus tells TheWrap of his hit spin-off

Melissa McBride poses in the IMDboat Exclusive Portrait Studio at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 at The IMDb Yacht on July 26, 2024 (Credit: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for IMDb)

“The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon” Season 2 is set to return to the show’s original premise with “The Book of Carol,” and both Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride are thrilled about it — particularly because it allows them to explore some story aspects they wanted to in the original series.

Both actors appeared in all but three episodes of the original “Walking Dead.” “Daryl Dixon” was originally supposed to be called “The Walking Dead: Daryl & Carol,” but due to scheduling issues, McBride had to drop out. So it came as a welcome surprise when she popped up at the end of “Daryl Dixon” Season 1 to reunite the duo.

Sitting down with TheWrap at the IMDboat during San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, McBride teased that, with that reunion, Season 2 will open things up between Daryl and Carol.

Melissa McBride, Greg Nicotero, Norman Reedus, Louis Puech Scigliuzzi and David Zabel pose in the IMDboat Exclusive Portrait Studio at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 at The IMDb Yacht on July 26, 2024. (Credit: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for IMDb)

“Without going into too much detail, we’re doing some things that I wanted to do in the original series,” she said. “Deal with things, deal with the repercussions of loss and things like that. Things that just — unspoken things nobody had conversations about, and how everything that they’ve been through really affects them.”

Reedus readily agreed, celebrating how the spin-off allows Carol and Daryl to truly shine as a duo without getting lost in the crowd.

“Because it’s just the two of us from that originally large cast, it gives us the opportunity to tell different parts of stories we didn’t get to,” he explained.

Really, Reedus only agreed to star in the spin-off specifically because it let him dig in deeper on a character he was already well familiar with.

“I put a lot of work into this character. The idea of having a drone shot go away, and we all wave goodbye, like wouldn’t work for me,” Reedus explained. “David [Zabel, the showrunner of “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon”] had a bunch of great fresh, new ideas.”

Reedus added, “If I was doing the same show in Georgia, in Europe, I wouldn’t have said yes. But we had an opportunity to make something brand new and reinvent it. And we’re all very proud of what we’re doing.”

What the actor has especially enjoyed is playing a more mature version of Daryl, having literally spent years “growing up as this character.”

“I started out as such a hothead on the show,” he recalled. “And I’m sort of becoming a more mature decision maker. You know what I mean? So it’s a gradual process, and it keeps changing with who I meet along the way, who comes and rescues me along the way.”

Meanwhile, McBride has long felt an ownership of Carol because of some more traumatizing pieces of the character that McBride had brushed up against in real life.

“What feels different now is that she’s healed from a lot of that,” McBride said. “And she has really harnessed her, I guess warrior self, survivor self, and is now facing a slew of different challenges and coming to terms with things that have happened.”

McBride added: “It feels like a good progression to me, and I’m really proud of this character. I’m very excited looking forward to what’s coming next.”

“The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon” Season 1 is now streaming on AMC+