Why can’t The Walking Dead find Daryl Dixon as a romantic partner?

Daryl Dixon’s love life is an insane series of “possibilities,” whether you’re watching from the sidelines or rooting for the OTP of your choice. His journey still continues The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carolbut it’s hard to imagine him committing to anyone after so many dead ends.

Norman Reedus is one of the few actors to appear in all 11 seasons of the AMC flagship series. Daryl is an extremely popular character. Even a casual one TWD Fan recognizes “If Daryl dies, we riot” as a rallying cry. This franchise has a sex symbol for everyone, and he’s the scumbag, underdog, anti-hero with a heart of gold. But the character itself, for want of a kinder term, don’t fuck. Daryl has had one romantic relationship in the franchise so far, and it took place off-screen. This is not a judgment! It is an observation and personal fascination of mine.

Daryl is what Holly Golightly would consider a wild thing. He belongs to no one and no one owns him. And like that Breakfast at Tiffany’s Heroine and her “no-name slob” cat named Cat, the most loyal partner Daryl has is his dog named Dog.

One wonders why people are hesitant to take him on as a partner? It’s not like that The walking dead is anti-romantic. There were even love triangles. It’s as if Daryl is a celebrity whose manager wants him to stay single for image reasons so everyone in the audience thinks they have a chance.

That hasn’t stopped fans from rooting him in certain characters, sometimes based on moments in the series and sometimes based on a mood or feeling. People love to nail a loner. These potential partners are all different, which I think says more about the fan than it does about Daryl. He is quiet and introspective, making him a good blank slate to imagine Daryl with anyone at any time, such as:

Carol and Daryl talked about running away together. They exchanged friendship bracelets long before the Swiftie trend. Carol calls Daryl her favorite. (“She’s not going to be purely cute,” Scott Gimple, who first wrote the sarcastic term of affection in a season four script, said of the nickname’s choice in an AMC featurette.) But Carol bluntly asked Daryl if he wanted to “fool around” in Season 3 (“Seed”), and laughed when he shook his head. Since then they have been best friends, nothing more. This is exactly the kind of platonic soulmate relationship that viewers and critics alike claim is missing from television in recent memory The bear.

While Carol has had multiple romantic and sexual partners The walking deadNot Daryl. So the proverbial door is still open for the hordes shipping this pairing. Sure, the possibility is always there The book Carol – or whatever they end up calling Daryl Dixon Season 3 and 4 – includes the much-awaited “Friends to Lovers” storyline. Remember that Carol isn’t afraid to be direct and Daryl has a habit of keeping people he cares about at a distance.

Ultimately, it’s for the best that this relationship remained platonic. Beth was a teenager when she and Daryl became friends in season four’s “Still,” the episode in which this ship was launched. The world doesn’t need any more discourse about age differences than it already has. But if there were two other characters, the standalone episode in which the two are separated from the group, playing Never Have I Ever with moonshine, revealing personal truths, and blowing off steam by committing some old-fashioned arson would have been a central one Plot point in a romantic story arc. The two characters were separated shortly after this episode and Beth died minutes after being reunited. At the time, Reedus mused in an interview with CinemaBlend that Daryl didn’t understand and was “kind of uncomfortable” with his feelings for Beth. This suggests a kind of aversion to romance on his part, at least in the first third of the series. But again: teenagers. We can allow that.

To my slight surprise, this is the number one romantic pairing for Daryl on the fan fiction site Archive of Our Own. (To be fair, it is significantly less popular on fanfiction.net, which is sometimes more reminiscent of older fandoms such as The walking dead.) Daryl replaced Shane as Rick’s right-hand brother in the first few seasons. Given Rick and Michonne’s rock-solid monogamous marriage, it shouldn’t be surprising that this didn’t become “canon,” so to speak.

But I understand the appeal of exploring Daryl’s weirdness. The lack of significant romantic storylines involving female characters, as well as a vague and slightly problematic quote about co-creator Frank Darabont I want Daryl to be “prison gay.” I have considered this possibility for years. In addition to Rick, fans have paired Daryl with Jesus, Glenn, Negan, and even Shane. I had once foolishly cast an eye on his companionship with Aaron; Ross Marquand’s character recognized Daryl’s value in a way that other characters didn’t. He’s the only one who got Daryl to dress up for a party in Season 5 (“Forget”) where they ended up dancing together. Nothing came of it, and it’s not even a popular pairing, but I’m still a believer in it.

It wasn’t long before Connie insisted on accompanying Daryl’s search and rescue mission in Season 9 (“Guardians”) that fans noticed and began commenting on the spark between them. Daryl learned sign language to better communicate with her. He’s not a particularly verbal character anyway, so they made a good team. He smiled when he saw her, which is rare. Dog free from Connie. Even Carol thought it was kind of ridiculous that they weren’t together. She asked him about his feelings for her in season 10 (“Bonds”), only to be answered by Daryl with “It’s not like that.” Tel-rent.

Their flirty dynamic was interrupted when Ridloff temporarily left the show to flirt with another scumbag, Barry Keoghan, on Marvel’s Eternal. When Connie returned in Season 11, Daryl dropped an entire bushel of apples to run over and hug her. But still nothing happened! This one is a real stunner, although Daryl may have had a romantic mental block on Connie because of what happened with Leah.

The one post-apocalyptic love affair that Daryl definitely made during a time jump. In Season 10 (“Find Me”), we learn that Daryl ran away looking for Rick and lived with a veteran in the woods and her dog, the famous Dog, for about a year. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly was so different about Leah in just one episode, but it seems closeness, stubbornness, and a kindred spirit of reclusiveness won him over. But while Daryl was willing to leave his surviving family behind and risk everything for them, The walking dead wasn’t. She disappeared just as he was ready to tell her how he felt. When Leah returned last season, she was a member of a rival group called the Reapers. Long story short, she threatened Maggie and Daryl killed her. So much for “happy endings”.

It’s important to note that the flashback episode was filmed in the early days of the pandemic, before vaccination. So the physical aspects of Daryl and Leah’s relationship are only hinted at. The reason we don’t even see Daryl and Leah kiss on screen had to do with health and safety. Practical perhaps, but understandable.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixonthe spin-off, which kidnapped the title character to France, introduced another person who has a deep connection to Daryl. In Season 1, Daryl and Isabelle had some intimate conversations, a “just one bed” scenarioand a supercharged sponge bath. But nothing explicit happened between them, either sexually or sexually.

What’s interesting about Isabelle, beyond Poésy’s soulful performance, is how you can draw parallels between her ex-partner, her relationship with her sister, and the alternating sense of hope and nihilism with the women in Daryl’s past who came before her. She’s even a leader, raising a child whose deceased biological parents had an affair behind her back, like Rick!

Beth and Leah are dead. Connie is an ocean away. Carol is on her way. Rick is again very loved and married to Michonne. Is Isabelle the lasting, meaningful, passionate romantic interest in Daryl we’ve been waiting for? (If that’s even something you’re waiting for at this point; I’ve obviously given up the fight.) Or will it fizzle out and go nowhere like all the ones that came before? If there’s one lesson to be learned from all of this, it’s not to get your hopes up. This post-apocalyptic, undeterminable image of a lone wolf is just way too tempting.