A decade and a half after the first episode of The Walking Dead aired on TV screens, the franchise is still alive and well. That show aired its final episode almost three years ago, but the shared universe of zombies and survivors had already launched three spinoffs at that point so there were more stories to tell. But it took the opportunity of the new beginnings and endings to launch three more - this time centred on classic characters from the original show.
The biggest story of them all was how The Ones Who Live finally brought back Rick Grimes and Michonne after both characters had been gone for years, but it also gave us the opportunity to catch up with Daryl and Carol in Daryl Dixon and Maggie and Negan in Dead City. All of these have offered up new chances for the franchise to reinvent itself and try different things.
It's also allowed it to try things that fans have been longing for it to try. That includes answering a question we have all been asking for years. And it's one that we have known is coming for quite some time, but a recent preview has left audiences feeling very conflicted about how it will go down.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 will answer a question fans have asked for the past 15 years in a surprising way
Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier's European journey continues in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 as the pair complete their trek through the Chunnel and find themselves in England. The show's most devoted fans have known that for some time as the first preview trailer for the upcoming season confirmed as much, showing us the stunning visuals of post-apocalyptic London. It's the first time that the United Kingdom has been featured in the TWD Universe, so Daryl Dixon is answering a decade-long question from fans in regards to how the UK coped with the dead rising.
It wasn't until very recently however that we actually got the beginnings of an answer. Although Daryl Dixon season 3 has yet to premiere on screens, a new video preview for the upcoming episodes was released as part of the official The Walking Dead YouTube account's webseries Behind the Dead showcased some of what fans can expect from the upcoming season and, well, the results are mixed.
The clip officially introduces TWD fans to legendary actor Stephen Merchant, who joins the cast this season as the mysterious Julian. Up to this point not much was known about the character, but Merchant reveals that Julian is actually the last-surviving Englishman. That would suggest he is the only person left in London when Daryl and Carol arrive - and that would line up with a previously-released clip from the season's opening moments when the duo can't find a single soul upon arriving in the UK.
Needless to say, this has led to surprise from fans, who aren't sure about the idea that nobody else survived in London. Not only does it feel like a bit of a cop out, it also feels like it was engineered as a reason for the TWD Universe to never have to revisit it in the future, robbing fans of the hopes of a TWD series actually set in Britain. And it's hard to argue with that because, as we know the majority of this season of Daryl Dixon is set in Spain (all of the episode titles are, after all, in Spanish), it's starting to feel like London will only be a quick stop on Daryl and Carol's journey back to the US.
Another element of this reveal that brings disappointment is that there were some fans who were hoping that Julian might have been part of a bigger TWD narrative related to the upcoming season's setting. When it was revealed last year that Daryl Dixon season 3 would be set in Spain and that Stephen Merchant would be joining the cast, there was a popular fan theory that he might have been playing Jeffrey Grimes - the long-lost brother of Rick Grimes who we were told in the comics survived the outbreak and resided in Barcelona in Spain.
Although Jeffrey has yet to appear on the show, fans hoped this might be when he finally makes his debut. Now that we know Julian is seemingly introduced as an Englishman in London, it looks like that won't be the case.
How London fell in the TWD Universe
The clip features an interview with Stephen Merchant, who introduces himself to the fans watching. It's also broken up with some clips from the upcoming season of Daryl Dixon that involved Merchant in action as Julian. One of those clips feature him telling Daryl and Carol what happened to London and why there are no souls there.
According to Julian, they sealed the Chunnel off to protect themselves from any threats that might have come from other European countries, but that only created more problems for them. As he tells Daryl and Carol with a somber expression: "First no one could get in... and then no one could get out".
It sounds like the survivors in London got on top of the apocalypse but that they inadvertently ended up dooming themselves by sealing the Chunnel off. It's not yet clear if there is more to the story or not, but if Julian is telling the truth, it sounds like he's been surviving on his own for a long time (as Carol is impressed that he managed to survive all that time on his own).
We'll have to wait for the premiere of Daryl Dixon to find out if there are any more details about the fall of London in the TWD Universe but there is no doubt that even this small morsel of information is a big deal. Not only does it answer a question that has been lingering in the minds of Walking Dead fans for 15 years, it does so in an incredibly poignant way - while also undoubtedly generating a lot of discussion among fans.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3 premieres on AMC and AMC+ on September 7, 2025.