“The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol” finale ending explained

Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, and EPs answer our burning questions.

Warning: This article contains spoilers about The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol season 2 finale, “Au Revoir Les Enfants.”

The season 2 finale of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol was a freaky, psychedelic affair. It was also action-packed, with our heroes fighting off enemies both living and dead — culminating with a surprise ending, considering the recent news of where season 3 will be set.

The episode began with Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) arguing about who would stay behind so Ash (Manish Dayal) could fly Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to (relative) safety in the United States. After finally agreeing that Daryl would stay behind, the group had to escape the troops under the direction of Jacinta (Nassima Benchicou), still determined to capture the boy.

Related: Inside Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride's long, winding Walking Dead road: 'It's a great full circle'

Eventually Ash, Laurent, and Carol were on the plane speeding toward a takeoff, but one truck had to be taken down so they could escape. In the end, one shot took out the truck driver. However, it was not from Daryl, but Carol, who we learned had jumped out of the plane on the runway to ensure the other two made it away safely.

After Ash and Laurent flew off into the wild blue yonder, Daryl and Carol traveled into the Channel Tunnel (a.k.a. the Chunnel) for a nine-hour hike to England, but once they entered, they were surrounded by bioluminescent zombies. Not only that, but a psychedelic effect brought on by a high concentration of bat excrement started to cause them to have visions.

Daryl saw a vision of his dead grandfather and the recently departed Isabelle (Clémence Poésy), who encouraged him to fight back against some duplicitous Scottish guides who stole the protective gas masks. Meanwhile, Carol saw her daughter Sophia — in both pre- and post-zombie state. “Can I come with you?” she asked her daughter, but Daryl would eventually come to her rescue and bring Carol back to reality.

“Let’s go home,” Carol told her best friend as they made their way towards England. Though it seems that is not where they will end up. We spoke to stars Reedus, McBride, and Scigliuzzi, as well as executive producers David Zabel and Scott M. Gimple to get the full behind-the-scenes scoop on what big line was ad-libbed, which music played a key role, if we’ve truly seen the last of Laurent, and how the Chunnel will somehow lead to Spain.

Related: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon reunion between Daryl and Carol was changed (exclusive)

How to jump out of a moving plane

There’s no way producers would spend all that time getting Carol to Daryl and then rip them apart again by having her fly back to America. Which is how they came up with the plan for her to secretly exit the plane and take the final shot that enables Ash and Lauren to escape.

“We wanted to play it like Darryl's going to get left alone again,” says showrunner Zabel. “He's going to be left alone in France. Everybody else is going to go, and he's going to be alone again. But then the big moving shocker is that Carol can't do it and stays behind, so that's where that idea came from pretty early on in planning that sequence. We just knew that she couldn't leave him there again, and we knew we wanted them to be together for the next part of the story.”

Once they settled on Carol jumping out and taking the shot, the next discussion revolved around how to show it. “There was a lot of conversation on the day really about how to reveal Carol,” Zabel recalls. “Does Daryl see her first? Does she see Daryl first? Where's the camera going to go? Is she standing up? Is she down in a sniper pose? We had a lot of chats about that.”

Related: Norman Reedus reacts to surprise Daryl Dixon kissing scene

Of course, the moment is punctuated by a classic back and forth between the pair as Daryl claims, “I had it” and Carol responds in true Han Solo fashion with, “Yeah, I know.” It turns out that line was not originally in the script. “We ad-libbed that line out on the day,” Reedus reveals. “That's their relationship.”

And while Ash and Laurent may have flown away in the episode, that plane never went airborne during filming. “We didn't actually fly around in the plane,” Scigliuzzi says. “Which was kind of sad, but it costs a lot of fuel, and you have to get a real pilot, and it's complicated.”

Instead, the actors and plane were shot on a green screen on what Scigliuzzi remembers as a “long day.” But a long day that was well worth it. “From Laurent's vision, he's sad, but also happy that he's going to leave France. But he's really sad that he's going to leave Daryl and Carol back in France, so it's really an emotional finale for season 2.”

Related: Inside that dramatic zombie Sophia Barnageddon flashback on Daryl Dixon

Will we see Laurent again on a different TWD show?

With season 3 of Daryl Dixon set in Spain (more on that later) and Laurent now presumably en route to America, does that mean the character could be seen in another stateside Walking Dead spinoff? It turns out that is a distinct possibility.

“I got a text from Louis all but asking the same question,” Walking Dead chief content officer Gimple says, before correcting himself. “He's actually much more polite than that. He was just checking in.”

So what is the answer? Might we see Laurent alongside Negan or Michonne on whatever future spinoff that might be on the horizon? “It's a garden of forking paths,” Gimple says. “There are different things I've been working on, and I have absolutely played with how Laurent might fit within those things in America.”

Of course, those plans will most likely be dictated by how other characters shake out. “You have all these pivot points,” Gimple explains. “Like, oh, if we're doing this, we can't do that. Or if we stop doing this, we can't do this. Or what do we need here? And who's available then? But yeah, he's absolutely in mind. Louis is terrific, Laurent was wonderful. And such a great character to bring different things out of Daryl. I am a fan.”

Related: Melissa McBride had lots of creative input into Daryl Dixon: The Book of Carol

Filming in that tunnel was not easy

That epic final sequence in the tunnel with the bioluminescent zombies was not an easy one for the cast and crew. “Everybody was just blowing black dust out of our noses and eyeballs for weeks,” Reedus says. “It was crazy.” And that wasn’t the only issue. “It's so far down in the tunnel that if you have to get a cup of coffee or go to the bathroom, it’s like, ‘I'll be back in 25 minutes.’”

“I’ve got to hand it to the crew, that's a very hard landscape to maneuver around in,” McBride says. “It was very dark. Also, a chill right through the middle of it. And it's a long trek if you need to go to the restroom.” Even so, McBride calls the setting “amazing, incredible. It was one of my favorite sets, with the glow-in-the-dark walkers.”

Reedus also credits the crew, creatives, and cast with all being on the same page amidst challenging conditions. “It was one of those moments where everybody as a collective was all thinking the same things and moving in the same directions. It was so fluid in such a hard circumstance. We had enough hurdles with the location, and even the sets inside the tunnel were huge. Then you had that bioluminescence and all these other elements, but everyone just fit into the same gear, and the car was rolling, and it was oddly comfortable in the most uncomfortable situation. It felt like we were all on the same path.”

And then there were the hallucinations. “It was very cool getting all looped out and everybody going bat s--- crazy on that bat poop,” laughs McBride. “I asked a lot about, ‘How looped out are we?’ and understanding how this is going to be shown. You're kind of going somewhere in your head and seeing things in front of you — literally playing out in your mind in front of you. Filming that is tricky, but that was fun. Another good challenge, and I love that resolution with Sophia coming in there. It was very, very sweet.”

It was also sweet for the actress to finally be done. “That was the last scene I shot, too. I was the only one left at that point, so I think that was the last scene [of] the season.”

Related: How Daryl Dixon is bringing bioluminescent zombies to The Walking Dead

Norman Reedus had a special finale song

Like his former Walking Dead costar Andrew Lincoln, Reedus has often used music to help get into character and inspire his performance. And one album has been his mainstay since the day the spinoff began filming. “I played the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis album Carnage over and over and over,” Reedus reveals. “That was my go-to album since the day we started at the Abbey in season 1.”

Why Carnage? “I think it had to do with loss, and it had to do with inspiration and where do you find it?” says the actor. “And just all the themes of that album worked with the tone, the violin, the voice. It fit with where I was.”

But that changed for the finale tunnel scene. “I remember Norman sending me a Radiohead song,” says showrunner Zabel. “It was actually one I didn't know that well, but it was the perfect song.”

The tune in question was “Pyramid Song,” off Radiohead’s fifth studio album, Amnesiac. “It captured the spirit of that sequence and the mood of it,” Zabel says. “It had a melodic sadness to it, and then also a discordant noisiness. And that sequence had both those things."

Related: Norman Reedus sings on season 2 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (exclusive)

Finally, where exactly are Daryl and Carol going?

Season 2 ends with the dynamic duo continuing their journey through the Chunnel to England. Yet season 3 is filming and set in Spain. So how exactly does that work? “There's a big earthquake and the Chunnel now goes to Spain,” Zabel laughs. “It's a circuitous route. It's not a direct path, but that's part of what's great about the opening of season 3, is seeing that journey that gets them there. And it doesn't go straight to Spain. It’s a very cool adventure that somehow gets them from inside the tunnel to Spain.”

Never one to spoil too much, Gimple adds, “It's got to be some sort of detour, right? The Chunnel does not go to Spain. I'm so excited about the detour, about the things they experience, and the people they meet, and the people who play the people they meet. Season 3 seems to have hit its stride before they started, so I'm pretty excited about it. It’s a really, really good team over there, and it's a really good story.”

How that story plays out, however, remains to be seen.

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