Angela Kang, the showrunner for The Walking Dead, has discussed Daryl’s bigger role in season nine of the show.
Now that Rick is leaving the scene, there is certainly a significant vacuum to fill, and one character that will surely benefit from the extra screen time available will be Daryl.
Daryl won’t be replacing Rick but will have much more responsibility this season according to Angela Kang, who spoke recently to Rotten Tomatoes: “In some ways, I think of Daryl as a loyal knight. He’s not somebody who would aspire to be the king. He is so loyal, but in some ways the loyalty has come at a cost to his character.
“There are times when he went along with decisions that he didn’t totally agree with, even though Daryl kind of does what Daryl does — when he goes rogue sometimes, and that’s what we love about him.
“I think part of the evolution of his character is he is not a man of many words usually, but across time he has built these very close relationships with certain characters who he’s very loyal to. Daryl and Rick look at each other like brothers. That can be a complicated relationship, but he is developing ways of being more open about what he feels. That’s part of his growth as a character.”
It’s absolutely going to be interesting to see how Rick’s departure impacts the show and Daryl is just one character that will be fascinating to watch in this new chapter for the series. Are you looking to seeing more of Daryl going forward?
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“Last season brought the culmination of “All Out War,” which pitted Rick Grimes and his group of survivors against the Saviors and their cunning leader, Negan. With Negan’s life in his hands, Rick had a character-defining choice in front of him. By making the unilateral decision to spare Negan, Rick upheld the values his late son, Carl, championed in order to build for the future, but created conflict within his group. Now, we see our survivors a year and a half after the end of the war, rebuilding civilization under Rick’s steadfast leadership. It is a time of relative peace among the communities as they work together, looking to the past to forge the future, but the world they knew is rapidly changing as man-made structures continue to degrade, and nature takes over, changing the landscape and creating new challenges for our survivors. As time passes, the communities confront unexpected obstacles, danger, and of course, walkers, but nothing quite prepares them for the formidable force they are about to encounter, which threatens the very idea of civilization that our survivors have worked so hard to build.”
The Walking Dead season 9 airs on Sundays in the US and on Mondays in the UK.
