Does Carol departing The Walking Dead's upcoming spinoff prove zombie virus origin details are incoming? Only 8 episodes of The Walking Dead season 11 remain - which means only 8 more slices of the landmark zombie apocalypse TV series as a whole. Fans needn't panic, however. AMC is broadening The Walking Dead's world into a veritable feast of content, including Isle of the Dead (with Negan and Maggie), Tales of The Walking Dead (an anthology), and a Rick Grimes movie starring Andrew Lincoln. Another confirmed spinoff venture is centered around Norman Reedus' Daryl Dixon and Melissa McBride's Carol Peletier set after The Walking Dead season 11.
The Walking Dead's Daryl & Carol spinoff is now morphing into something else entirely. As confirmed in April 2022, Melissa McBride has departed the project, turning the "Daryl & Carol spinoff" into a "Daryl spinoff," but the official reason behind her departure is curious. According to AMC's announcement, the Walking Dead spinoff is scheduled to film in Europe, and the logistical challenges involved prompted the Atlanta-based McBride to quit.
That AMC would rather lose one half of the spinoff's main character pairing than relocate Daryl & Carol's Walking Dead shoot to the US speaks volumes. Since 2010, The Walking Dead has predominantly filmed in Georgia (sometimes just the same square mile of woodland it feels like...), so upping sticks to Europe wouldn't have been a decision taken lightly even before Melissa McBride's shock exit. The European setting must, therefore, be deeply integral to the narrative - not just a change of scenery, or because producers fancied a vacation. What could be so vital about Europe that The Walking Dead would rather lose Carol than film closer to home?
An answer can perhaps be found in Walking Dead: World Beyond - specifically, the season 2 finale's post-credits scene, which takes place at an abandoned laboratory in France. A scientist arrives and boots up an old video message from Dr. Jenner (The Walking Dead season 1's CDC scientist), but she's executed by a survivor who claims doctors from this very lab were responsible for the zombie outbreak. As Jenner's video mentions zombie "variants," the scientist's corpse reanimates, but instead of shuffling around slowly like a normal walker, it runs toward the lab door and bangs fiercely. Is the Daryl and Carol spinoff's European setting so crucial because the story connects to Walking Dead: World Beyond's French lab, the outbreak's origin, and these formidable zombie variants?
That'd certainly explain why (and how) Daryl travels to Europe in the first place. Transatlantic flights aren't easy to come by in The Walking Dead, and Daryl has shown precious little interest in sightseeing. But if the survivors learn where this virus came from, they might be inclined to investigate. It's possible Rick Grimes returns in The Walking Dead season 11's final episodes, reveals everything he learned about the virus, the CRM, and fast zombies, then sends his friends on missions across the world - Daryl to Europe, Negan and Maggie to New York, and so forth.
Daryl's Walking Dead spinoff connecting to Walking Dead: World Beyond's post-credits would also explain an odd detail from AMC's official announcement confirming Melissa McBride's departure. The quote mentions the Walking Dead spinoff will be set in "Europe." That's a rather vague geographical statement - a bit like someone saying they're "from America." Europe covers an entire continent, with an eclectic range of countries and cultures, from London to Lisbon, Munich to Milan, Prague to... Paris. AMC's intentionally vague wording might've been intentional, because specifically mentioning France would all but confirm the spinoff's Walking Dead: World Beyond links.
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