Inside Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride's long, winding 'Walking Dead' road

The story on how "Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol" will connect back to the characters' first meeting ever.

Heads are swiveling to check out the guy walking into the El Patio lobby bar at the Four Seasons Madrid. Whether that is due to the fact he is an international television star, or just because it's not every day a dude in all black struts into a Four Seasons carrying a bright red Bell Moto motorcycle helmet under his arm remains up for debate, but suffice it to say that Norman Reedus knows how to make an entrance.

The star and executive producer of Daryl Dixon has set up shop in the Spanish capital for filming on season 3 of The Walking Dead spinoff, with production already underway before season 2 (which filmed and is set in France) even premieres Sept. 29 on AMC. Pretty soon, he will be joined on this sunny September afternoon by showrunner David Zabel, and over crispy chicken Caesar salads (hold the anchovies), the duo will scan through some of the latest casting videos for local actors looking to score an upcoming part on the show.

"This is so professional, look at the lighting on this one," marvels Zabel at the high production values of one home-shot audition. It's a far cry from the days when a young Reedus was working the audition circuit himself in Los Angeles.

"Man, I remember when I would go into some room in front of eight people I had never met before, do a scene, get no reaction at all, then go home and never hear a word back," Reedus says, shaking his head at the memory. "That sucked!"

Of course, all that changed after the bike mechanic turned actor nabbed the part of Daryl on season 1 of The Walking Dead back in 2010, becoming a bona fide star and inspiring the fan-driven motto "If Daryl dies, we riot." Over the years, the character has grown and evolved to the point where season 1 of Daryl Dixon ended with the protagonist having to choose between heading back to America, or sticking around to save the young boy Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) who idolizes him. Spoiler alert: The boy won.

No character in The Walking Dead universe is harder to get closer to than Daryl, who locks his heart in a fortress more impenetrable than the Sanctuary. And the actor playing him is just as fiercely protective of the people he allows into his character's inner circle. Witness this exchange between the star and showrunner:

Zabel: "Can I say that you love Laurent?"
Reedus: "No."
Zabel: "You don't think he loves Laurent?"
Reedus: "No."
Zabel: "Man, come on!"
Reedus: "I don't think Daryl's so easy to love anybody. I think it's an earned thing."
Zabel: "You don't think Laurent's earned it?
Reedus: "Not like that. I think the same way that if I found a puppy in the rain and there was a bunch of traffic, I would probably get it out of the traffic. I don't know that I would fall in love with the puppy. I don't know the puppy yet. The puppy would have to earn my love."

With that, Zabel can only laugh and shrug his shoulders. "Hey, I tried. I knew I couldn't get away with it."

Hmm… If only there was someone Daryl did love. Someone with a long shared history built through intense personal trauma. Someone whom Daryl did not need to save in rainy traffic. Someone who would travel across continents against all hope and odds and possible laws of aerodynamics to save him. If only that person existed. Welcome to The Book of Carol.

Back to the beginning

Melissa McBride remembers the first time the characters Daryl and Carol met onscreen. It was back in 2010 on the third episode of The Walking Dead, and the first installment for each of the actors: "I believe the first time I saw you was when you came in with the squirrels," she says looking over at her now longtime friend and costar while in Entertainment Weekly's suite at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego for Comic-Con this past July.

"That's right," confirms Reedus. "You had to put down your husband, and I kept handing you a bloody pickaxe."

It was over the bloody pickaxe that a special bond was formed. "I kept dipping it in a bucket of brains and blood," recalls Reedus. "And the final time, you just yanked it out of my hand and I'm like, 'God, I love her.'"

That love has endured more than 14 years, 5,829 heinous post-apocalyptic acts, countless batches of Alexandria-baked cookies, and, now, two continents. That's because — after showing up in the final scene of Daryl Dixon's first season as a woman on a mission to find her best friend — McBride's Carol is now fully back for season 2 on the somewhat excessively titled The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. It is a reunion fans have eagerly anticipated ever since McBride dropped out of season 1 when filming on what was originally supposed to be a joint character spinoff set in America shifted overseas to Paris.

"They are the only two left," says McBride of the only remaining season 1 OGs still on active Walking Dead duty. "They were just so close in the beginning, and they have a very long tight bond with each other, and it's been challenged so many times. And to tell this story that we're telling now is just beautiful to me, all these years later."

But the love between and for Daryl and Carol goes beyond mere longevity. There's a reason the duo connected, and a reason why this platonic connection between two characters originally on the periphery became the most treasured in franchise history. "When the show first started, it was all Rick," says Reedus. "And then it was the Rick-Shane-Lori triangle. So we were sort of in the background a bit. But our stories were so honest, and people related to them."

That relatability and gravitational pull between the characters stemmed from the maltreatment they each suffered from a loved one: Carol at the hands of her husband, Ed, and Daryl from his brother, Merle. "Both of us coming from a place of abuse, we had to reinvent ourselves more than the other characters," Reedus says. "We had to come from a place of being afraid — her being afraid to step out and be heard, and me having the same thing with Merle. Once the clouds parted, we had an opportunity to regain and reinvent ourselves."

As Zabel points out, "They were both characters that were empowered by the apocalypse — that changed, that evolved, that became different versions of themselves. She being this kind of meek, oppressed character when we first meet her who becomes this powerful woman. And he being a guy with some shady characteristics and a tough relationship with his brother evolving into somebody who's willing to take a bullet for somebody if he needs to, who's willing to really become a heroic character under the right circumstances."

And those circumstances exploded on season 2 of The Walking Dead after Carol's daughter, Sophia, disappeared. "Everybody stopped looking for her daughter real quick," Reedus recalls. "And Daryl came out of nowhere and said, 'I'm going to go find her.'" He didn't, but he did find something else — a Cherokee rose, which he brought back to Carol and explained how the flowers bloomed from the tears of Cherokee mothers as a sign to uplift their spirits after their children had gone missing.

"With the Cherokee rose story, they really started to connect," says Reedus. "And after that, it was always Daryl looking out for Carol, and Carol looking out for Daryl. That was the catalyst of what brought them together in the beginning. And now she's coming here to do the same for me. It's a great full circle."

"That happened in season 2," points out executive producer Greg Nicotero (who has been with the franchise since day one) of the "Cherokee Rose" episode. "Which always intrigues me when people complain about, 'Well, season 2, nothing happened. It was kind of slow.' And my response to that always is: The reason that you love Daryl and the reason you love Carol is because season 2 took the time to create these characters. You see Carol broken, and Daryl steps up and makes this valiant effort to go save her. They're both broken people who find each other."

And season 2 of Daryl Dixon will revisit the scene of Carol at her most broken. That breakdown occurred in the "Pretty Much Dead Already" episode, when Sophia is finally found… as a zombie emerging from Hershel's barn. A shot of the tragic scene, recreated for the new series, can be seen in the trailer, and will play a big thematic part in what is to come.

"The person who lit the fuse on that [idea] was Melissa," says Walking Dead chief content officer Scott M. Gimple. And that fuse was lit on a long car ride from JFK Airport to an AMC event on Long Island. "I just listened to Melissa talk about her hopes and dreams for storytelling with this character. And in her mind, there was a lot of unfinished business she wanted to attend to."

For McBride, going back to revisit the events of Barnageddon was about more than just Carol managing her sorrow, but rather confronting something far more debilitating. "Carol has had a lot of time to deal with grief, particularly with Sophia," says McBride. "What I was most interested in tackling was the unresolved feelings of survivor's guilt."

That guilt and inability to save her daughter will push Carol to get overseas in her search for Daryl by any means necessary — even if it means duping a nice man (Manish Dayal as Ash, above) with an airplane — to make sure history does not repeat itself. "There's this guilt where if anything happens to him…." McBride trails off. "So I have to go find him. And I need help with what I'm going through too, and I need my friend. He's the only one that truly understands everything that I've gone through."

Ah, but what about what Daryl is going through right now?

Shifting allegiances (and relationships?)

Season 1 of Daryl Dixon had pretty clear-cut sides. There were the villains of Pouvoir du Vivant (Power of the Living), a paramilitary organization that is conducting super zombie experiments on the undead under the leadership of the cold and calculating Marion Genet (Anne Charrier). And there were the heroes of Union de L'Espoir (Union of Hope), a religious resistance group based out of the Nest that seeks above all else to protect the boy Laurent, whom they see as the future to humanity. That is due to the fact that Laurent's mother was bitten by a zombie while pregnant with him, so he is believed to be immune to the virus.

However, the difference between good and bad will not be so sharply defined in season 2, as the motives of Nest leader Losang (Joel de la Fuente) and others will come into question. "The totality of the story is that extremism is bad, and any version of extremism is dangerous," Zabel teases. "Genet is a certain kind of extremism, and without giving too much away, Losang and the Nest represent a different kind of seemingly benevolent extremism."

And take one guess who gets caught in the middle. "Daryl is by nature a doubter in a healthy way," says Zabel. "He's a skeptic, a person who doesn't believe in group think or systemic ways of living. And the Nest represents something to him that he's a little skeptical about."

Especially when it comes to the group's plans for Laurent, and if his safety and future are really their top priority. "It's very personal for Daryl," Zabel notes. "He doesn't really care about the ideas or the concepts as much as he cares about this little boy who's being pulled in one direction, and he doesn't think that's the best thing for him."

As for what Laurent wants amidst all the tumult around him, Scigliuzzi says it is fairly simple, and perhaps a little typical of a teenager: "He kind of wants to be left alone, because he feels like he's too much protected by the people of the Nest. And with Daryl in the story, he taught him to be a bit more free and to do things by himself. So Laurent is picking up things from Daryl, and he doesn't really appreciate always being protected that much. He wants to be free."

While Daryl may have some qualms with the Nest, the man who plays him couldn't have been happier filming on location at the majestic Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. "It's a magical kingdom," says Reedus. "The crew slept in hotels down the road, but I wanted to sleep in the castle. You could feel the salt water coming in, and the birds flying right by your windows. You could feel the history. I slept like a baby there."

Mont Saint-Michel is not the only notable landmark to play an important role in season 2, as we will get another flashback to the initial zombie outbreak, taking place at none other than the Louvre. "Orchestrating that was really difficult and complicated," Zabel says of securing permission to film inside the hallowed halls of the world’s most famous art museum. "When Norman and I first talked about the show, we loved the juxtaposition of being in a place like France, which is all about high culture and beautiful architecture and high fashion, and juxtaposing that against the apocalypse, which is everything falling apart and everything's s--ty."

The flashback at the Louvre will not only give us another entry point to the outbreak, but it will also provide backstory on the show's main antagonist. "The Louvre was always a place that we wanted to film," says Zabel. "And we had the idea for the Genet backstory, so we thought, "Oh, let's do the Genet story at the Louvre and put those two things together.'"

And yes, Reedus confirms, "That is the real Mona Lisa" you will see in the show.

But could there be another special lady involved with Daryl in season 2? Party girl-turned-nun Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) is the one that first set Daryl off on his mission to deliver Laurent to the Nest, and the duo grew closer during that journey. As Isabelle starts to feel some misgivings about the people to which she has entrusted Laurent's safety, she could find herself fixin' for some Dixon. "In that moment of doubt, he becomes one of the only figures she still trusts," says Poésy. "She realizes the two of them are much more alike than she might have thought when they first met. Their connection is stronger, their bond deeper."

That said, Reedus chafes a bit when asked about a possible Daryl and Isabelle romance. "I don't want to be so on the nose with the shipping and all that bulls---, which I hate. People like to couple people up. People like to say, 'Ooh, romance!' But it's bigger than that. It's bigger than just, 'Are they a couple or not? Will they be a couple? Will they kiss?' This is a guy who his entire young adult life has been running and fighting. That's all he's done. He's never had an opportunity to date or to go through those doors before. So wherever this ends up, just keep that in mind."

Apocalyptic art imitating life

Imagine showing up for your first day back at work, but even though you're playing the same character you have portrayed for over a decade… it is now on a new show… with a new crew… in a new country. That is what happened to Melissa McBride when she appeared for her first day in France on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. "It was the same, but different," says the franchise veteran, who suddenly felt like the new kid in school. "It was a little intimidating because they had already filmed the first season, and I didn't know what I was stepping into. It was all foreign to me — literally."

Reedus noticed the uncertainty. "She was a little hesitant when she came here," he says. "She didn't know what to expect, and new places can be scary. I had been writing her and calling her during the first season saying how it was a great opportunity to do new things, and the crew was fantastic, and the city was fantastic. So I was sort of prepping her for greatness, and after a while, she adjusted right in."

The familiar faces certainly helped. "Greg Nicotero directed that first episode, our assistant director Jeff January was there, and, of course, Norman," says McBride, smiling. "Having them there was very helpful, and they were very supportive and made me feel very comfortable."

After so many years together, comfortable is definitely the word to describe the relationship between Daryl and Carol, as well as Norman and Melissa. Their longtime friendship onscreen and off has led to some of the funniest moments in the franchise. (Think Daryl yelling "You look ridiculous!" as Carol donned her suburban PTA garb to go undercover in Alexandria, a line that was ad-libbed by Reedus in the moment.) You can expect those moments to continue whenever this dynamic duo does finally meet up in the land of berets and baguettes.

"They have an interesting dichotomy," says McBride. "They kind of chafe each other, and then they have this incredible ease. They're patient with each other, and they're impatient each other." She pauses and laughs. "Kind of like me and Norman."

"Real friends are so important," says Reedus. "And we are real friends. We got the opportunity to come together as close friends that know each other, and can finish each other's sentences, and know what the other person's thinking. And it creates a shorthand that's real when people know each other so much that they can throw a dig at each other and laugh it off."

Wait, is he talking about Daryl and Carol, or Norman and Melissa? The answer, as always, is yes.