The last time we saw Norman Reedus’ Daryl and Melissa McBride’s Carol, they had just loaded Laurent into a helicopter bound for the United States and set off to find another way back home. With the first trailer for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 dropping at San Diego Comic-Con, we learn the duo didn’t make it as far as they would’ve liked. If all the country-hopping has your head spinning, you aren’t alone. Apparently, Daryl Dixon has turned into a globe-trotting adventurer of sorts. If Daryl and Carol ever manage to reunite with Rick, he had better be darn grateful for all the effort they put into finding him.
Travel plans gone wrong aside, the Daryl Dixon Season 3 trailer returns the series to its intended plot. Carol and Daryl against the world was originally what fans signed up to see. After two seasons and a whole lot of meaningless side characters, we’ve finally got what we wanted.
Daryl Dixon Season 3 Trailer Teases a True Carol and Daryl Adventure
It’s been a long couple of weeks (months?) for Daryl. In Season 1, Daryl became the reluctant guardian-babysitter to Laurent, a boy potentially holding the cure to the Wildfire virus. Come Season 2, Carol reunited with Daryl after an incredible demonstration of friendship sent her overseas and into the rural countryside of France. Now, with Laurent out of the picture and another Daryl love interest killed off, Season 3 returns Daryl Dixon to the place it should’ve been all along, with Carol and Daryl setting out on a proper adventure. (Too bad all those side characters had to die to get here.)
The Daryl Dixon Season 3 trailer kicks off with them crossing paths with Stephen Merchant’s “last Englishman in England.” However, after their boat ride goes awry, they end up right back in Europe, this time in Spain. In true The Walking Dead fashion, our titular heroes find themselves pulled into disputes involving a corrupted regime. Funny enough, it’s Daryl who doesn’t seem too keen on getting involved. However, a push from Carol sends him headfirst into the action because, of course, we need some good TV.
The trailer continues with a series of scenes featuring lots of fire, bombastic action, plenty of fighting, and even a creepy zombie marionette show. Unlike other places in the TWD universe, Spain seems to have put their walkers to work, and we catch a quick glimpse of them lugging a train down dust-covered tracks. What does it mean? It’s too early to say, but Daryl talks about “fighting them” and “killing the next king of Spain” not long after kicking-butt on top of the very same train.
While the season bills itself as a Carol and Daryl showcase, the two actually don’t interact much in the trailer. In fact, a brief clip of Carol suggests a potential romance is on the horizon… but not with Daryl.
MORE: The Book of Carol’s Best Shipping Moment Falls Victim to Messy Writing
A Carol And Daryl Romance Seems Unlikely in Season 3
Those hoping Daryl Dixon would push the longtime besties into romantic territory should temper their expectations. Based on the Season 3 trailer, Carol seems bound for a new romance that doesn’t involve her “Pookie.” Before the Caryl shippers start screaming, hope isn’t lost entirely—never rule out showrunner “gaslighting.”
As mentioned, the trailer gives us very little of Carol and Daryl together. Given their dynamic—platonic, romantic, or something in between—is the main draw of the show, Daryl Dixon is likely saving its quieter, more intimate character moments for release. Considering Daryl and Carol spent so much of Season 2 apart, it wouldn’t make much sense to separate them again.
MORE: ‘The Walking Dead’ Is Ready for a Carol and Daryl Romance
Daryl Dixon Seems Headed Toward a Big TWD Reunion
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, AMC renewed Daryl Dixon for a fourth and final season. With The Ones Who Live done, at the time of writing, and Dead City renewed for a third season, The Walking Dead‘s future plans could include a reunion between the spin-off leads. Daryl and Carol’s European misadventure started with the search for Rick. So, it would certainly be nice to find closure there—and it seems likely with Laurent headed back to Alexandria.
Currently, Daryl Dixon Season 3 appears intent on thrusting Carol and Daryl into local disputes rather than connecting back to The Walking Dead as a whole. Perhaps the series plans to save the overarching story of Laurent holding the potential cure to the Wildfire virus for Season 4. As McBride said at the SDCC panel, “There is still so much story left to tell and so much for the fans to look forward to.” So look forward, we shall.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 premieres September 7, 2025, on AMC.
They are separated during the season if you are to believe the rumors, so the adventure you’re hoping to see is probably not going to happen.
The fans have made it known from the day the rumors about the spinoff started. We want to see Daryl and Carol together. We want them to be love interests. And we want them with each other. We want a mature relationship where they can grow together and act like the soulmates even their friendship fan base admits they are to each other.
Zabel keeps talking about the new people. I literally do not care about a single new person. I don’t care if Laurent and Ash made it back to the US. I don’t care at all that Isabelle is dead. (She was manipulative and Zabel doesn’t even know he wrote it that way. He insists she wasn’t) I just don’t care. And I know I am not alone.
I am literally at my wits end that these 3 men in charge don’t care at all what the fans have made perfectly clear from the beginning, we want Daryl and Carol. PERIOD. And they clearly have zero ability or interest in giving us what we want.
I don’t want to see Carol with anyone but Daryl, and the same for Daryl,(with Carol) and I find it completely inconceivable to me that Daryl would fall in love with Isabelle a few weeks after knowing her. He was almost at that boat when Laurent showed up in season 1. In season 2×1, he talked about going home. By the time Isabelle died, he was in love with her? It makes no sense. Daryl isn’t that person. And she told him she loved him and he didn’t reply but were supposed to believe he’s going to bed upset about her in season 3?
And as much as I love Melissa, I don’t think she understands what the fans want either. We know Norman doesn’t care. And if I actually decide to watch this season and it ends up being a season where Daryl and carol aren’t together I won’t be back for season 4. if I even make it to season 3.