TL;DR: Season 3 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon strands our favorite survivors in Spain, gives them nothing to do, surrounds them with cardboard side characters, and forgets that zombies are supposed to matter. Only worth watching if you’re a die-hard Daryl-and-Carol fan, otherwise skip and save yourself the frustration.

I’ll be honest: I have a complicated relationship with The Walking Dead. The original show was one of those cultural juggernauts that everyone pretended to stop watching after Season 5, even though they still checked in on Sunday nights just to see which secondary character got chomped. I stuck with it longer than most. I cared about Carol’s gradual evolution from battered housewife to hardened survivor. I cared about Daryl’s journey from grunting background redneck to the beating heart of the series. But by the time the flagship show limped across the finish line, I felt like I’d been stuck on a road trip with people who refused to admit they’d been lost for three seasons.

So, imagine my surprise when AMC pulled a trick that only this franchise could: instead of mercy-killing The Walking Dead, they cloned it into multiple spinoffs, each one promising to rekindle that early magic. Some of them even delivered. Rick and Michonne’s return had at least some emotional heft, Dead City leaned into pulpy fun, and the first two seasons of Daryl Dixon had the gall to be—dare I say it—pretty good. Daryl wandering through France, stumbling into weird cults, making fragile connections? It was fresh. It was moody. It felt like the franchise had finally found a new frequency to hum at. Season 2 doubled down by bringing Carol into the mix, reminding us why their dynamic is one of the most compelling friendships in TV’s zombie apocalypse canon.

Season 3, though? Oh boy. Season 3 feels like taking that momentum, pouring it into a gas tank, and then watching the car break down on the side of a Spanish highway while everyone shrugs and decides to just sit there until the credits roll.

The Setup: London Calling, Spain Answering

The season starts strong. Honestly, the premiere had me fooled. Daryl and Carol crawling through the ruins of London felt like the show had taken notes from The Last of Us. The ruins were haunting, the atmosphere oppressive, and for once, the tension wasn’t just about whether zombies would pop out but whether these two old warhorses could actually make it back to the States. Then they meet Julian, played by Stephen Merchant, a character who has enough nervous charm to feel like he could hang in this bleak world. When the trio sails off, I thought, okay—maybe this is where the show evolves into something new.

And then the boat sinks. Of course it does. Because god forbid The Walking Dead ever allow forward momentum without immediately yanking it back. Daryl and Carol wash ashore in Spain, which sounds sexy on paper—sun-bleached ruins, crumbling cathedrals, narrow cobblestone streets—but quickly devolves into the dullest setting the franchise has conjured. Spain should be alive with cultural specificity, but instead, the show paints it with the same tired brush as any nameless post-apocalyptic wasteland. Replace the signage and you wouldn’t even know where they were.

Supporting Characters: The Beige Apocalypse

Here’s the real problem: the people they meet in Spain are about as interesting as a beige wall in a beige room. Remember how France gave us Isabelle, the conflicted nun who grounded Daryl’s story in romance and faith? Remember how Laurent was a messiah figure whose existence raised thorny questions about hope and manipulation in a dying world? Season 3 throws all of that away in exchange for… Roberto and Justina. They’re young, they’re in love, and they have the dramatic depth of a CW pilot that got canceled after one episode. Why Daryl and Carol risk so much for them is a question the show never bothers to answer beyond the tired “they’re good people, so of course they help.”

Then there’s Fede, the mayor-villain-whatever who can’t decide if he wants to be sympathetic or despicable, so he just hovers in the bland in-between. And Guillermo, who the script positions as some kind of king-in-waiting, barely even shows up long enough to register. The rest of the townsfolk? Forgettable. When one of them dies, the show wants me to care, but I found myself checking my phone instead, scrolling Twitter to see if AMC had announced Season 4 yet (they have, of course, because nothing in this universe stays dead).

This is what makes the season so frustrating. Daryl and Carol are still magnetic. Their bond is the closest thing this franchise has to a soul. But surrounding them with cardboard cutouts means that every emotional beat rings hollow. You can’t build drama on characters who feel like they were generated by a half-asleep AI prompt.

The Zombies Are Missing in Action

If you’ve stuck with The Walking Dead for this long, you probably don’t need the walkers to be front and center all the time. But you do expect them to matter. Season 2 of Daryl Dixon played with mutated zombies that actually changed the tactical dynamics of survival. Even Dead City made its walkers into set pieces that could shape entire action sequences. Season 3? The zombies are background noise. They stumble in now and then, do the obligatory growl, maybe bite a random extra, and then vanish again like stagehands sweeping through between acts. They feel less like a threat and more like contractual obligations. “Hey, don’t forget, this is technically still a zombie show.”

The result is that the supposed stakes of Spain—the arranged marriages, the corrupt leadership, the rebellion against power—don’t feel like they belong to this universe. They could be happening in any generic medieval fantasy or dystopian drama. The walkers used to be the universal equalizer. Their absence here makes the whole season feel detached from the DNA of The Walking Dead.

The Daryl and Carol of It All

Here’s the maddening part: even with all this mediocrity, I still enjoyed watching Reedus and McBride together. Their chemistry is one of those rare TV alchemies you can’t fake. Every glance, every sarcastic jab, every moment of wordless solidarity feels like history made flesh. These two have been through hell together, and their connection radiates off the screen. They don’t need to kiss, they don’t need to declare anything—they just are. And that “just are” has carried them through more than a decade of uneven writing.

But even here, Season 3 stumbles. Their arcs don’t move forward. They don’t grow. They don’t regress. They just… tread water. We’ve seen Carol mourn her past. We’ve seen Daryl question his place in the world. Season 3 recycles those beats without adding anything new. It’s like listening to your favorite band play a greatest hits set for the third tour in a row—it’s comforting, sure, but you start wishing they’d take a risk instead of leaning on nostalgia.

Spain Looks Gorgeous, Shame About the Story

One thing I can’t knock: Spain itself is stunning. The cinematography captures winding streets, mountain villages, centuries-old churches now draped in moss and decay. It’s easily the prettiest backdrop this franchise has ever had. Watching Daryl and Carol move through these spaces almost tricks you into thinking the story matters more than it does. If this was a travelogue, I’d give it five stars. Unfortunately, it’s a zombie drama, and pretty ruins alone can’t save it.

Running in Place

By the time the final twist rolls around—a twist so unintentionally goofy I actually laughed out loud—it’s clear what’s happening here. AMC has no interest in letting Daryl and Carol find closure. They are cash cows strapped to a never-ending treadmill. The apocalypse has gone from a desperate fight for survival to a long-running sitcom where no one ever moves out of the apartment. And maybe that’s the cruelest fate of all: not death by walker bite, but death by narrative stasis.

Final Thoughts

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 isn’t unwatchable, but it’s deeply disappointing. After the promise of Season 2, this feels like the franchise taking two steps back, content to shuffle in circles rather than chase something new. Spain looks gorgeous, Daryl and Carol remain endlessly watchable, but the supporting cast is lifeless, the zombies are irrelevant, and the story feels like it’s running out the clock. If Season 4 doesn’t shake things up in a meaningful way, AMC might finally manage to do what the walkers never could: make me stop caring about Daryl Dixon.