The Walking Dead veteran Norman Reedus aka Daryl Dixon has admitted that he was “super nervous” about the season 9-time jump for one particular reason.
In the latest episode ‘Find Me’, which airs in the UK tonight (March 8), viewers found out what his character Daryl Dixon got up to in the woods after splitting from the main group of survivors to look for Rick Grimes. For the first time in the show’s history, he had a love interest, Lynn Collins’ cabin dweller Leah. She along with her dog, Dog, lives in a small, rustic cabin, and as Daryl has taken up residence in the woods nearby, they begin running into one another. Initially, Leah is hostile towards Daryl for disturbing her, even tying him up and holding him at gunpoint when Dog first brings him to her cabin, but in time they grow close.
Leah shares with Daryl her tragic story of how she lost her family and her son, and now only has Dog, while Daryl explains that he’s been staying in the woods to search for his brother, who he doesn’t want to believe is dead.
As their relationship turns romantic, Leah presses Daryl to make a choice — either return to Alexandria or stay with her. Daryl, however, is struggling to decide where he belongs and still clings to the hope he’ll find some sign of Rick. He leaves on another search, but when he returns, Leah is gone. Clearly heartbroken, Daryl leaves a note for Leah in the cabin — “I belong with you. Find me” — and leaves with Dog in tow. It’s unclear if Leah left or was taken, but seeing as she didn’t take Dog with her, it’s most likely the latter.
Another pattern that returns in “Find Me” is Daryl’s fraught relationship with Carol
Though The Walking Dead has moved beyond them becoming a romantic item, their friendship has been one of the show’s longest-lasting relationships. However, recent seasons have seen them growing apart, and during both this episode’s flashback scenes and the present day, there’s a tension between them that remains unresolved. During the time jump years, it appears this tension stems from Carol moving on with her life at The Kingdom while Daryl remains isolated in the woods. In the present, though, it’s Connie’s disappearance that’s driven a wedge between them.
The suspicious circumstances of Leah’s disappearance and the obvious set up between her and Daryl seem to hint she will someday return, but it’s also unclear when that will happen.
Speaking to us, the actor shared his initial reaction to the plot, and how he has been “fighting having something like this happen since day one“.
“We had a little talk about it. I was super nervous,” he said. “And you never know what to expect with those things“.
“So I just wanted to stay true to Daryl, and depending on what happens next, you kind of have to play it a certain way or otherwise something else might not work later. So I tiptoed around [the writers] as much as possible.”
