The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon Just Broke a 14-Year Daryl Rule

This Walking Dead article contains spoilers for Daryl Dixon.

AMC’s world of The Walking Dead keeps on shuffling, with season 2 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon set to finally reunite Norman Reedus’ fan-favorite biker with Melissa McBride’s equally beloved badass Carol. With Reedus and McBride being two of the few original cast members who are still around from the show’s first seasons, fans have gotten to know Daryl and Carol a lot over the past 14 years, and some have even long imagined what it’d be like if the two friends ever became a couple.

But the latest episode of Daryl Dixon, titled “Moulin Rogue,” seems to be pointing Daryl’s romantic life in a different direction. Along the way, we get to see Daryl do something we never have in all the years we’ve spent with him… 

You see, in the episode, Daryl finally locked lips with Clémence Poésy’s Isabelle, cementing the star-crossed lovers as another unlikely couple of the apocalypse. Believe it or not, it’s the first time we’ve ever seen Daryl kiss someone on any of these shows, despite being one of the universe’s central stars. In fact, it’s become sort of an unwritten rule that Daryl doesn’t do love scenes. Yes, Daryl was previously romantically involved with Leah Shaw (Lynn Collins) in season 10 of The Walking Dead, but it never moved past some light petting onscreen. 

So why now? Why Isabelle? Before we start declaring Daryl and Isabelle as the next Rick and Michonne, Reedus warned EW that fans shouldn’t read too much into Disabelle (for now).

“I’ll tell you my interpretation of it, is that he’s never got to do this before and he doesn’t know what it means,” said Reedus. “He’s been running and fighting his whole life, and is asking himself: Have I been doing this wrong? Should I have just found someone and settled down in a farm and just had those moments of life before I die? Or is the fighting and fighting the way I’m supposed to go? He’s questioning the whole big picture.”

After so many years of getting to know the character, it feels like Daryl has earned his romantic stripes. As for why Daryl and Leah never got to this all-important stage, their lack of intimacy was a side-effect of the Covid pandemic.

However, it doesn’t sound like they were ever destined to go much further as Collins told CinemaBlend in 2022, “When I was talking to some of the writers, they were like, ‘Oh, I don’t think we would have put the kiss in anyway.'” Echoing the sentiments of many fans, Collins added, “There’s this sacred bubble of energy around the Daryl character, and as a fan, I’m with it, I get it…”

Collins joked about how romance is difficult when brain-hungry munchers are constantly hunting you, reiterating how relationships in this world take a lot of hard work. And then, of course, the writers took Leah’s arc in a very different direction for the final season of The Walking Dead.

Even though the main focus of Daryl Dixon season 2 is Daryl’s reunion with Carol, there could be a new golden couple in town. The question is, will it be a case of three’s a crowd? Despite Carol’s motivations toward Daryl seeming nothing more than platonic, remember that she previously asked if he wanted to fool around in season 3’s “Seed.” There were similar calls for Daryl and Connie (Lauren Ridloff) to hook up, with him saying, “It’s not like that,” when she asked about his feelings toward her in season 10. Most controversially, Reedus confirmed to the Mirror that Darabont had once planned for Daryl to be gay and how the former showrunner problematically referred to how he wanted the character to be “prison gay.” 

Reedus has been notoriously protective of Daryl’s sexuality, saying at one points that he reads Daryl as asexual “quite a bit.” Still, he’s also said he’s open to the idea of Daryl finding someone to settle down with. Where better than in his own series? After Daryl and Isabelle shared a steamy sponge bath in season 1, it felt like it was only a matter of time until things progressed. Importantly, Daryl and Isabelle’s relationship seems a lot more natural than the forced feeling of him and Leah.

That said, we know The Walking Dead isn’t afraid of an unhappy ending, and after Daryl ended up killing Leah in cold blood in season 11 of The Walking Dead, another doomed romance could be on the cards. But here’s hoping Disabelle is a ship that isn’t sunk before it can set sail.

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC, culminating with the finale on November 3.