The Walking Dead Universe has staged some unexpected reunions over the years. Rick's emotional reunion with Carl in the first season of the original show, the group's reunion with Carol in season 5, and most recently Daryl and Carol's reunion in France in spinoff The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. When you have such a large cast in such a large franchise, it often makes characters spend a long time apart, so that makes their inevitable reunions that much more fulfilling.
On paper, you mightn't think that a franchise like the TWD Universe would be as good at something like this, but with the high stakes of the zombie apocalypse as a backdrop, it pulls them off incredibly well. And that has carried through into the spinoffs, as we noted with Daryl Dixon's Daryl and Carol reunion, as well as The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live's Rick and Michonne reunion.
Now, one of the spinoffs has staged a more unlikely reunion, as two badass warriors came together to track down their friends in El Alcazar.
Daryl and Paz team up in Daryl Dixon season 3
The penultimate episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 saw Daryl get some help from an unlikely source. Paz, who had aided him and Carol before in Solaz del Mar, tracked him all the way towards Barcelona - where he was heading to try and rescue Justina from the El Alcazar convoy. Of course, Daryl was cautious about accepting her help - reluctant, even - as the notorious lone wolf is cautious about trusting anyone, but her knowledge of Barcelona makes her the perfect tour guide.
The episode, titled "Contrabando", then sees the pair make their way into the city in the hopes of finding some of Paz's old friends. They are successful in doing so, and build an army in a bid to block the convoy to El Alcazar and save Justina from a future serving a life she doesn't want to live. And, as we found out in this episode too, she didn't volunteer to live this life either, as it was her uncle Fede who made her go.
The badasses that they are, Daryl and Paz led their army to the city block that they knew the convoy would be and attacked in a bid to save the prisoners. Guillermo Torres, the future king of Spain, was among the men there and he narrowly managed to avoid injury (along with his wife Elena). However, Daryl and Paz's army also suffered losses too, as walkers broke through the wall and begin feasting on anyone and everyone around them.
Daryl and Paz tried their best to break the lock and free Justina but they weren't able to do it. That meant that Daryl could only hold Justina's hand and watch as the truck began to pull off with her still imprisoned in the back. In the silence lay a promise; Daryl will find her again. And this time, he will free her.
An unlikely reunion makes for a great team
It's safe to say that fans didn't expect to see Daryl and Paz working together in this capacity for multiple reasons. For starters, Daryl barely teams with anyone outside of Carol, and considering that she opted to wait back in Solaz del Mar to keep an eye on Fede, it was looking like he might go to Barcelona by himself. Furthermore, when Paz sounded suspicious about Daryl's whereabouts, that could have went a very different way if she had been a different person.
Thankfully, Paz is a badass too who it also committed to doing the right thing. Furthermore, she and Daryl see eye-to-eye on this as she also has someone she loves and cares for in El Alcazar who she wants to save from that life. We know that she has history with Elena, so Paz sees this mission to rescue Justina as a way to perhaps rescue her lover too. And that makes it doubly upsetting when the duo aren't able to release their friends.
But there is one good thing to come out of their failure to save Justina and Elena: Daryl's determination not to fail a second time. He wasn't all in before, and that goes back to his character journey this season, as he's eager to get back home because he doesn't want to get caught up in another high-stakes situation that has nothing to do with him. Carol has been trying to make him see the good that he can do, but he's clearly been afraid to commit. That is no longer an issue.
If there is one thing more dangerous than Daryl Dixon, it's a motivated Daryl Dixon. The unyielding warrior has fought and faced down some of the worst threats in the TWD Universe and, thanks to this alliance with Paz, he's more motivated than ever to succeed in bringing Justina and Elena home.
We'll find out if he's successful in the season 3 finale of the beloved TWD series. Something tells us that he might just pull it off. Heck, they both will!
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon's season 3 finale will air on AMC on Sunday, October 19, at 9/8c. It will also be available to stream on AMC+ from midnight on Sunday.