The Walking Dead spinoff prospects of Melissa McBride’s Carol Peletier have been left to look at the flowers… so to speak. In a development that has to be considered a significant setback, the long-planned series set to showcase the ongoing adventures of Norman Reedus’s Daryl Dixon and McBride’s Carol will have to move forward without the latter. Thus, Carol’s TWD undead apocalyptic journey will, as far as we know, conclude with the mothership show’s (already wrapped) final episodes, which AMC plans to unveil later this year.
Melissa McBride’s apparent exit from the yet-to-be-titled The Walking Dead spinoff series, as reported by TV Line, was initially attributed to practical reasons since the series is set to shoot—in a first for the franchise—outside the United States, across various locations in Europe, and, perhaps crucially, as soon as this summer. Consequently, the production’s relocation requirements are currently, according to an AMC spokesperson statement, “logistically untenable” for McBride, who is one of two remaining original cast members of the 2010-launched original series. Thus, the spinoff has been effectively transformed into a Daryl solo series.
“We know fans will be disappointed by this news,” the network statement goes on to express in a conciliatory manner.” But The Walking Dead Universe continues to grow and expand in interesting ways and we very much hope to see Carol again in the near future.”
Nevertheless, Carol’s removal from the spinoff series is a surprise, to say the least. While the finish line for The Walking Dead and AMC’s ambitious spinoff strategy have both been on the horizon for years now, the informal early pitch to fans that popular mothership show OGs in Daryl and Carol would hop on a motorcycle for adventures across never-featured segments of the zombie-afflicted contiguous United States was, arguably, the most prominent carrot dangled by franchise chief content officer Scott M. Gimple and company. Moreover, the spinoff served as auspiciously sweet succor to the segment of the viewers who have spent nearly 12 years shipping the two close characters after myriad teases of romance that typically ended up being abandoned.
Pertinently, in a move atypical to dramatic conventions, Daryl had only just experienced his first-ever onscreen romance in 2021’s Season 10, notably with the initially reclusive Leah Shaw (Lynn Collins), who, in a shock move, would suddenly reemerge from an unexplained disappearance as a prominent member (and eventual leader) of a group of brutal, military-trained belligerents called the Reapers; a development that eventually ended in tragedy this current season when Daryl was forced to put down his unhinged former love. Thus, the expected romantic aspect of the Daryl and Carol spinoff—for which the Leah angle was expected to provide key context—has been effectively eliminated in one fell swoop with McBride’s exit.
Intriguingly, a contradictory narrative about the shakeup initially claimed that McBride was actually removed from the spinoff series for what was reportedly a “creative” reason. While the official “logistical” explanation would eventually arrive, the earlier notion still serves as food for thought since a purported creative move to cut Carol from the spinoff on which she shared main character status would have to be rooted in a profound story-based explanation. In that sense, the answer would be a simple one, namely that Carol won’t survive The Walking Dead’s upcoming, already-in-the-can series finale, the secrets of which are obviously being tightly kept.
Something that might just ominously validate a dead Carol theory is the fact that creator Robert Kirkman’s comic book source material ended in 2019 with a tragic climax, in which our rebelling survivors—after achieving victory against the oppressive Commonwealth—were forced to endure a senseless post-war tragedy when main character Rick Grimes is gunned down in martyred fashion. While the prospect of purely emulating that comic angle on the show was seriously lessened upon the 2018 exit of Rick’s television counterpart, former series star Andrew Lincoln, it stands to reason that, in typical TWD fashion, a substitute character of equivalent prominence will experience this iconic comic death.
Of course, on the show, a gravely injured Rick was whisked away by a mysterious helicopter that, as eventually revealed, belongs to the advanced authoritarian society called the Civic Republic, a group that would go on to serve as the primary antagonistic force in the two-season-spanning spinoff series, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, which ended leaving only a slight dialogue tease implying that—six years after the helicopter—Rick is still in their custody for mysterious ends. While pre-pandemic plans had Lincoln set to return as Rick for a series of connected TV movies, those plans—still in the works—have yet to bear any significant developments… at least, as far as the public knows.
That leaves The Walking Dead in need of a non-Rick finale martyr. While we don’t yet know who that will ultimately be, it clearly has to be someone who’s earned some serious show gravitas, and, ideally, has been there since the beginning. That narrows it down to Daryl and Carol, and there’s too much invested in Daryl for it to be him. While Carol started the series as a mousy housewife background character, the deaths of her abusive husband and, eventually, young daughter Sophia became the catalyst for a radical metamorphosis into a cunning, confident, self-reliant Machiavellian manipulator with a badass reputation. Indeed, as the show’s characters turned over several times across its now-dozen years (notably with the recent absence of Rick), Carol has emerged as one of its driving forces, coming across as a good character with a slightly sinister edge—an edge cemented in the minds of viewers back in Season 4 when she executed the dangerous, delusionally homicidal child, Lizzie, in an emotional, but nevertheless calculating fashion, telling her to “look at the flowers” before firing a round in the back of her head. Thus, Carol’s arc—which would be defined by further tragedies—is one of the most dramatic in television history. That and her overwhelming popularity makes a prime candidate for a series-climaxing martyrdom that actually carries weight.
Admittedly indulgent speculation aside, it appears that Norman Reedus is now slated to dominate the marquee all by himself for a still-untitled, European-set spinoff series. The franchise, however, has a lot of content to offer until then, notably with The Walking Dead Season 11, Part 3, which is slated to premiere on AMC later this year, kicking off an 8-episode final run. However, it will likely be preceded by debuting anthology series Tales of the Walking Dead, which is expected to arrive sometime this summer. After that, a 2023-aimed spinoff series, bearing the George Romero-esque title, Isle of the Dead, will see Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) and, awkwardly enough, her husband’s semi-reformed murderer, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), in further walker-slaying adventures in the setting of New York City.
