I didn’t think this day would come, but I must admit there’s something about these The Walking Dead spinoffs that is bothering me. Extensively.
At this point, after years of being part of this universe and trying to keep up with everything going on, I have to share my opinion because I feel like I am not alone. It’s not pretty, but we have to talk about it.
I do enjoy the spinoffs
Normally, I’m pretty chill when it comes to these shows. I really loved The Ones Who Live. I think Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira are some of the best actors in The Walking Dead universe, and their chemistry as Rick and Michonne is unmatched.
The same goes for Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Maggie and Negan. Dead City has been surprisingly fun this season, and I’ve enjoyed every aspect of it. Sure, that alternate-reality episode was a little weird, but it was fun to see Beth (Emily Kinney) again and to see Maggie and Negan interact differently.
And The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has been fun, for the most part. You have to understand, I was a huge Daryl (Norman Reedus) fan for years. I had a poster of him in my bedroom and everything. I was obsessed. So when a spinoff was announced with him before the mainline series even ended, I knew I was going to watch it. And I have.
Watching him and Carol (Melissa McBride) and their adventures in Europe has been fun. It’s been a nice change of scenery. And there’s no denying the fact that it’s always interesting to see how this pair will try to figure out how to get home and what will happen next.
But there’s one little aspect from all three of these shows—but mainly Dead City and Daryl Dixon—that is bothering me.
And it has to do with the characters.
But why are we introducing people who die in the same episode?
I am so tired of this. Throughout all of The Walking Dead episodes, there weren’t many characters who were introduced in one episode and then died in the same episode. There were a few that didn’t make it long or past the season—Noah (Tyler James Williams) is a great example of that, and his gory death. But at the very least, most made it past one episode.
That is not the case with these spinoffs. There have been a few characters in Dead City who were introduced and then killed off within an episode or so, but some haven’t even made it past one episode. The same goes for Daryl Dixon.
This isn’t me saying that I need all the characters to survive. I’m okay with certain characters just getting offed. It’s how the apocalypse works. But my issue comes up when a character feels like they are supposed to be important to the plot, we’re given a lot of background on them, and then, out of nowhere, they are taken out.
Season 3 of Daryl Dixon has a great example of this. Daryl and Carol meet Julian (Stephen Merchant), a man who agrees to sail to America with them because he believes no one is left alive in England. He talks about his past with them and his hopes and dreams and makes us (the viewer) invest in him. He genuinely seems like a good guy.
And then he gets killed about forty minutes later. By a head injury, no less. Granted, the boat they were on did crash-land on a beach, which could have mattered. But his head injury is really what led to him being hurt in the first place.
What the heck is the point of introducing a character and giving him all this story in the first episode of his appearance, only to kill him off in the SAME episode? That kind of storytelling makes no sense whatsoever. It would have hit harder if he at least made it a few more episodes and then had been killed off, maybe by sacrificing himself or something. Why do that?
How are we expected to actually care about these characters if the writers are just going to kill them off as quickly as we met them? I don’t care what kind of reasoning you give. It’s not right.
It’s decisions like that with these spinoffs that get me going. I understand that because these characters are in new situations, the writers want to put them with new people. But when things like this happen, where you’re trying to shove so much into one season that characters literally only get a half hour to shine, that bothers me.
And it doesn’t just alter my experience of the show. It alters everyone’s experience. That’s what makes people not want to watch them.
I’m still going to watch Daryl Dixon season 4, even if it is delayed to 2027, but I really feel like something needs to change. We want characters who last, not ones who get killed off so fast. It’s okay to let them live a little while, AMC. The fans won’t hate you!
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