Daryl will be getting two new weapons for The Walking Dead’s Season 9

Daryl Dixon’s crossbow has become an iconic weapon for the fan favorite from The Walking Dead, but Season 9 will expand on his arsenal.

From the comics to the television show, The Walking Dead has always been known to pair a certain weapon with a character. Michonne has her katanas, Tyreese’s hammer, Rick’s 357. Magnum and red handled hatchet, Negan’s bat, Merle’s knife hand, and last and not certainly least, Daryl’s crossbow.

Besides being much quieter than a gun, it doesn’t seem like the best weapon in a zombie apocalypse only because it’d be slow to reload. However, Daryl (Norman Reedus) has always made the crossbow work and it’s been one staple of his character from the beginning of the series.

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While the crossbow has always been Daryl’s weapon of choice, it’s far from the only thing we’ve seen him use to decimate walkers. He’s skilled with guns and he’s bludgeoned plenty of heads along the show’s journey. In fact, it should come as no surprise that he’s second only to Rick Grimes in on-screen walker kills. 

New showrunner Angela Kang recently sat down with AMC and shared the news that our favorite redneck-biker, hotheaded zombie killer is about to add two new weapons to his already loaded arsenal.

"“Since our characters are being more stingy with their bullets this year, we wanted to make sure Daryl had a good secondary weapon for hand-to-hand fighting (a crossbow is difficult to reload, so it’s not good for quick combat)."

Looks like Season 9 is already making the much-needed improvement on Season 8’s endless supply of bullets. It’s difficult to fathom just how many were wasted during last season’s war. Adding a unique twist otoDaryl’s new hand-to-hand weapon is that Norman Reedus had some input on their creation.

"“Norman helped to custom design a pair of knives that he can use for two-handed combat,” Kang continued, “They’re saw-backed Bowie knives with finger rings that allow you to quickly twirl the knives into different positions (you can grip them in either direction).”"

The Season 9 Comic-Con trailer offers just a quick glimpse at Daryl’s new knives at 2:45 and in action at 3:57. The trailer also provides a further example that Daryl is far from dependent on his crossbow, as he punches a guy in the face and then whacks him with a cooking pot.

Now that “All Out War” is over, laying off the guns would be a wise decision until the next human threat comes along. Until then, we’ll be watching Daryl using crossbows, knives, cooking pots, etc., to dispose of the walkers.