Daryl is becoming his own person in The Walking Dead Season 8. Unfortunately, Daryl’s new persona isn’t good news for Rick or the rest of the crew.
Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl on the show, spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the current story arc. Last season we saw a broken Daryl deal with the loss of Glenn after his outburst during the group’s first encounter with Negan provoked him into killing Glenn. Had Daryl had contained his anger and not lunged at Negan, maybe Glenn’s life would’ve been spared.
But Daryl is past the grief and now dealing with the anger. In The Walking Dead Season 8 episode 5, we see Daryl be openly defiant when Rick wants to continue their plan to take down Negan despite losing the Kingdom’s soldiers. And that’s not even the biggest act of rebellion for Daryl this season.
“Daryl does go a bit rogue this season, and he’s continuing to go rogue throughout the season quite a way through the story,” Reedus told EW. “There are some bigger rogue moments coming, to be honest, and it’s funny because we joke around. [Andrew Lincoln’s] like, ‘You know what? That would’ve worked if it wasn’t for [Daryl].’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you know what? If [Rick] would’ve come up with a better plan, that would’ve worked!’
“I’m constantly giving [Rick] s— for coming up with these complex plans that don’t work. So it’s a little bit of both. There are some really big moments coming where I kind of go rogue without him knowing it, because this group gets separated from time to time. Everybody in this group, everyone’s trusted enough, and everyone’s in it enough to make plans, and we’re all trying to reach the same spot, but there are moments when you have to make decisions on the fly, and that happens this season quite a bit.”
Reedus isn’t wrong about Rick’s plans. They seem to be more trouble than they’re worth even when everything works out in the end. It makes you wonder how much of Rick’s survival is actually luck. Daryl also doesn’t understand that they need more people to survive in this world. Rick and Negan both see value in creating a community while Daryl just wants to destroy everything. To Daryl, more people means more distrust, which leads to more chaos. It’s a tough call, but a rogue Daryl is more interesting for the show than a compliant Daryl. After all, the man can only blindly follow Rick for so long.
The scary part is Daryl could stage a coup against Rick and win. Maybe Negan isn’t the only threat to Rick’s peaceful world. Maybe it’s people like Daryl, too. What do you think about Rogue Daryl? Let us know in the comments below. The Walking Dead Season 8 airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
