The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon heads to Spain for freshly renewed season 3

Daryl Dixon isn’t going anywhere. The Walking Dead spin-off centered on Norman Reedus’ character has been handed a season three renewal, even though season two hasn’t even debuted yet. Well, Daryl actually is going from France to Spain for it, with production set to begin next month. The announcement was made during the show’s San Diego Comic-Con panel by showrunner David Zabel and the cast.

By cast, we mean the reunion everyone’s been waiting for: Reedus and Melissa McBride, of course. The Walking Dead’s Daryl and Carol Peletier (McBride)—the couple that wasn’t—have always been a fan-favorite duo. Their history goes back a long way: a friendship bloomed when Daryl helped out in the search for her missing daughter in the original’s season two (which aired in 2011, by the way) and there’s been no looking back as their relationship has gone through various highs and lows.

Reedus and McBride are coming together again in the six-episode second season, which is helpfully subtitled The Book Of Carol. The SDCC special trailer reveals them sitting together at the end. Hallelujah, indeed.

McBride was supposed to star with him in the series from the beginning, but McBride opted not to film in France, where the show is set. Although she recently told Entertainment Weekly that they had conjured up an idea for a Daryl/Carol spin-off long before AMC proposed the same. Patience is key, we suppose, because the takeaway is that everyone was jonesing for this team-up. It took a while to get here, but the actor finally joins her co-star so the rest of us can find out what the hell Carol has been up to and how her hunt for Daryl is going.

McBride first shows up in the closing moments of Daryl Dixon‘s season one finale. She’s still in Maine looking for her missing pal, finding his motorcycle and its hostile new rider in the process. This is badass Carol we’re talking about, so of course she wields her gun (and her righteous anger) to her favor to find more information. Season two will follow up with her as she makes her way to Paris and Normandy, where Daryl spent season one. He was helping protect Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), the supposed Messiah destined to save humanity from the zombies walkers. Daryl is also conflicted at the end about whether he should return to America or not, but we assume seeing his BFF in the land of croissants and baguettes will make that decision for him. 

How emotional do you think their first hug will be on a scale of one to their embrace after Terminus? After their French adventures, Daryl and Carol will make their way to Madrid for six more episodes. Per AMC, in season three, “their paths lead them further astray in a distant land, with ever-changing and unfamiliar conditions as they witness the various effects of the Walker apocalypse.”

Season two’s cast also includes Clémence Poésy, Laika Blanc Francard, Anne Charrier, Romain Levi, and Eriq Ebouaney. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon—The Book Of Carol (damn, that’s a mouthful) premieres September 29 on AMC. Let’s see what part of Europe they conquer in the future besides France and Spain.