Daryl Dixon Explores The Early Days Of The Apocalypse

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 3, episode 6, “Contrabando”.

Ever since The Walking Dead started, the focus has been on survivors trying to adapt to the apocalypse and set up new settlements, but Daryl Dixon has repeatedly focused on the outbreak’s early days. While Fear the Walking Dead centered around the initial collapse of society, most of the franchise’s other projects opted to skip past Z-day.

Instead, the main show, alongside the likes of World Beyond, Dead City, and The Ones Who Live, all take place well after zombies began rising from the dead. We have still learned plenty about The Walking Dead‘s zombie virus over the years, but how the central characters dealt with the outbreak is largely unknown outside a select few survivors.

Interestingly though, Daryl Dixon has frequently put the spotlight on these first few days, despite the show taking place predominantly after the fact. Season 1 spent time exploring Isabelle’s backstory as the world fell apart, while Daryl Dixon season 2 explained Genet’s villainous motivations through her tragic first day origins. Now, season 3 has continued this trend.

Daryl Dixon Season 3 Continues Showing The Early Days Of The Walking Dead’s Outbreak

Having already focused on the start of the apocalypse through flashbacks in seasons 1 and 2, Daryl Dixon season 3 did so once again via Antonio. Typically, the franchise has avoided depicting this part of the outbreak, as legacy characters like Daryl and Maggie’s instant reactions to the virus have still never been shown all these years later.

However, we did gain an insight into Antonio’s dark past, as he showed video footage of what went down. Hours before the dead started rising, Antonio convinced his wife to try and get a quote from a political figure while protesting for independence, only for an explosion to go off, which killed his partner and left him with severe burns.

After a paramedic claimed there was nothing more he could do, Antonio stayed with his wife in the back of an ambulance, only for her to reanimate. While it looked like Carol’s love interest was doomed in this Daryl Dixon season 3 flashback, Antonio managed to survive, providing an interesting perspective on the early outbreak.

It is the third time in as many seasons that the spinoff has provided a look at one of its characters’ journeys while the world was falling apart, which is a welcome surprise. Seeing how different people react, especially in a variety of countries, has been fascinating, and these captivating sequences prove The Walking Dead should’ve focused on day one more often.

Daryl Dixon’s Early-Outbreak Backstories Have Been Devastatingly Tragic

Given no one could have prepared for such a tragedy, it shouldn’t be a surprise that many backstories are dark in The Walking Dead universe, but Daryl Dixon‘s have been particularly brutal. Antonio’s is arguably the worst, given he essentially lost his wife twice while suffering his own scars, but Genet’s definitely competes.

As everything began kicking off in France, Genet tried to leave the Louvre where she worked as a janitor, but was forced to stay inside. She eventually managed to get in contact with her husband, speaking to him over the phone before coming face to face through the glass. However, her husband was bitten in front of her very eyes.

Likewise, before Isabelle’s Walking Dead romance with Daryl, she had an incredibly taxing start to the outbreak. She was already struggling mentally and watched the chaos unfold in front of her, nearly dying before Quinn saved her. Additionally, her pregnant sister was also bitten during the ordeal, leading to Laurent’s miracle birth at the expense of Lily’s life.

Whereas some of the main show’s characters escaped to somewhere safe with their family, Daryl Dixon‘s survivors all suffered tremendous loss, making these compelling backstories hard to watch at times due to how devastating they are.

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  Created by

  Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard

  First TV Show

  The Walking Dead

  Latest TV Show

  The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

  Upcoming TV Shows

  More Tales from the Walking Dead Universe

  First Episode Air Date

  
  October 31, 2010
  

  Cast

  Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Danai Gurira, Lauren Cohan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, Lennie James

  The Walking Dead is a massive multimedia franchise that began with a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. The franchise gained widespread popularity with the launch of the television series The Walking Dead in 2010 on AMC, which chronicles the lives of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies, referred to as “walkers.” The success of the original show has led to numerous spin-offs, web series, video games, novels, and other media. The franchise explores themes of survival, human nature, and the breakdown of society in the face of an existential threat, making it one of the most successful and influential horror series of the 21st century.