The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon showrunner explains why they'll never make Daryl and Carol a couple

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Exclusive: David Zabel also hints at romance between Norman Reedus's Daryl Dixon and Clémence Poésy's Isabelle

Melissa McBride as Carol and Norman Reedus as Daryl in The Walking Dead season 11
(Image credit: Jace Downs/AMC)

Sorry, Caryl shippers! The team behind The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon don't have any plans to inject romance into Carol and Daryl's relationship anytime soon.

In the new issue of SFX magazine, which features Agatha All Along on the cover and hits newsstands on September 4, showrunner David Zabel explains that, while he can "respect that" a lot of fans see sparks between the pair, it's not something he and the writers are particularly keen to explore.

"The obvious thing to do, and the easier thing to do would be, 'Okay, now they're falling in love and they're a couple.' But I always felt like that would be a mistake, because it would feel like you were going into the TV book of tricks," he explains. "To me, there was never a question that [their connection] was something other than what it is, and what it seems to want to be, and why it works so well."

Having only showed up in the final few moments of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1, Carol (Melissa McBride) is set to become a focal point in the zombie spin-off's second chapter, which is officially titled The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol. After threatening a stranger riding around on her bestie's bike stateside, Carol realizes that Daryl (Norman Reedus) is in France, and embarks on a perilous journey to reunite with him across the pond.

While love may not be in the air for the titular survivors, Zabel goes on to hint at a blossoming bond between Daryl and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy), after the pair grew close in the first instalment.

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"There are moments of friction, but there are obviously moments of mutual interest, and more than friendship that seems to be developing," Zabel confirms. "Norman and I talked about this, that we wanted to draw a mature, adult relationship between a man and a woman and see where it went. Let's just put these two characters, who are very different in very interesting, intriguing ways, force them together by the story facts, and then see what happens. 

"What happened in season one was that you could see a connection forming, for sure," he says. "We didn't manufacture that but we left room for it. A lot of season two is about the development of that and where that relationship goes, and that little surrogate family of Isabelle, Daryl and Laurent."

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol releases on September 29 in the US, and sometime in October in the UK. Read more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which features Agatha All Along on the cover and will be available from Wednesday, September 4. Check it out below...

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Amy West
Amy West
Entertainment Writer

I am an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.