‘The Walking Dead’ Writer Breaks Down Carol’s Violent ‘Daryl Dixon’ Detour

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The second of six episodes in ‘Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol’ makes a stop in Greenland, with writer David Zabel explaining, “We’re not lacking for story here. We’re just lacking real estate.”

Melissa McBride as Carol in ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol.’

Emmanuel Guimier/AMC

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[This story contains spoilers from The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol season two, episode two.]

When The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol producer and writer David Zabel sat down to work with the rest of the team on breaking season two, six words immediately leapt to mind: “We’ve got some work to do.”

With two out of six season two episodes now released, the titular heroes have yet to meet face to face. For anyone feeling impatient, you’ll have to blame air travel in the zombie apocalypse. As Zabel and the writers started chipping away at story beats to bring Carol (Melissa McBride) from Maine to France, it became clear that she would need at least one major detour along the way.

Enter: Greenland. In this week’s second episode, Carol’s trip to find Daryl (Norman Reedus) leaves the not-a-badass on a side quest of sorts, stopping for fuel over in Greenland. Carol and new pal/pilot Ash (Manish Dayal) are immediately overrun with overgrown field zombies.

“This one started with me,” Zabel tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We didn’t want to just have Carol pop into France and make things too easy. And we knew that the plane really couldn’t go direct. It was gonna have to make a stop somewhere. So we started talking about Greenland and, who would be in Greenland? If we found somebody still in Greenland, would they be? What would the walkers be like? We talked a lot about the walkers, the marshy walkers, and then we talked about who would be there, and how would that make an interesting story?”

Zabel’s answer to that last question: introduce a pair of ecologists hellbent on saving humanity, in their own way. The scientists debut as heroes, saving Carol and Ash from their certain death at the maws of the marsh walkers. However, this being The Walking Dead, these Greenlanders have an ulterior motive: they want to kidnap Ash, procreate with him and slowly repopulate mankind. Neither Carol nor Ash are particularly enthused with the idea, and the two scientists end up dead — one of them killed by the other, the second one killed by Ash.

“We had this idea that two scientists could have survived, alone in their station,” says Zabel. “After the apocalypse, they had managed to continue to live there. We managed to spin a good story out of that. I really love that one. In a different world, we would have spent even more time in Greenland, but we only had six episodes.”

According to Zabel, the episode order for Daryl Dixon came with plusses and minuses. It allowed for a tight, propulsive narrative, but it also meant leaving a few different story ideas on the floor.

“It really was the toughest thing,” he says. “You end up having to put a lot to the side when you really wanted to explore. We’re not lacking for story here. We’re just lacking real estate.”

Of course, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol only has four episodes left in season two, but it’s already in production on season three. What’s more, the show will be shifting locales, with production having moved to Spain. In other words, Daryl and Carol (or, at least their show) are on the move — which means, another stop in Greenland could be in the cards some day… and if not Greenland, then certainly somewhere else beyond France and Spain.

“We considered other places,” says Zabel, teasing other locations The Walking Dead nearly visited this week instead of Greenland. “There are a couple of other options out there. You never know.”

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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol season two releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on AMC. Follow along with THR‘s season coverage here, and keep track of the franchise spinoffs.

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