AMC: Top 20 Moments from The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has been an international treat for both current and new fans of The Walking Dead. Daryl has taken the world by storm and the City of Light has remarkably changed since his arrival.

The journey was an unexpected one and since stepping foot on French soil, Daryl has been trying to get back home. Even if he is starting to care about the people standing in his way.

Daryl finds himself in trouble in Maine and after a long list of bad decisions, the lone wolf archer finds himself on Genet’s ship to an unknown destination. We later come to find out that the French wanted the walkers Daryl was rounding up, to perform experiments on.

Why they needed so many isn’t clear but what Genet was never expecting was a man like Daryl Dixon to come in and spoil all of her plans. Trying to catch Dixon was a feat in itself and our hero soon finds some refuge and a passageway back home, as long as he delivers Laurent to a haven called The Nest.

Which moments from The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1 made our list?

Laurent is said to be the one who will revive humanity and Isabelle, the leader of the Union of Hope, believes Daryl to be a messenger sent by God to deliver them there safely. Along the way, Daryl does begin to care for these people more than he would like.

However, The Nest is not his journey’s end. He made a promise, and as simple as that promise might be, he is going to fulfill it or die trying.

The man is hell-bent on not making the mistakes of generations before them. Daryl of all people knows what it’s like to be left behind and to have to wonder if the one who left, ever loved you at all.

There are so many great moments to take away from this series, even in just the short 6 episodes. Here are our picks for the Top 20 moments of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: 

20. Father Daryl

There weren’t many scenes as comical as this one in the show. When Lou calls him Father Daryl, his reaction was priceless and so was the audience.

They may have assumed him to be the Father, as the only adult male in the group, but it took Lou and her flock little time to realize he was not Father material. He lacked table manners which seemed like a regression, but it was still hysterical to watch.

The best part of this era in time for the series, is Daryl’s grace before dinner. As always with Daryl it was a very simplistic speech, but it still resonated deeply.

When he said maybe we deserve this all for being so mean to each other, truly made you think if the apocalypse was something they all caused.

19. The Burners

The burners are one of the coolest variants revealed in Daryl Dixon. These types of walkers carry acidic skin and blood.

We witnessed them in the very first episode of the series, where one touched and burned Daryl’s skin. After Daryl was rescued and brought to the Abbey, the nuns cauterized Daryl’s burner wound to keep the danger from spreading.

This was a really cool evolution in TWDU that fans were waiting to witness.

18. The Catacombs

Fallou introduced TWDU to the catacombs of Paris, on their way to have a meeting with Quinn at the Demimonde underground nightclub. This is a rich moment in French history that we all got to witness.

The catacombs of Paris hold the remains of more than 6 million of the dead. It was a setting that was a must to put into a show of this stature.

One of Fallou’s greatest lines were if Paris can survive something as catastrophic as The Black Death, then they could survive this apocalypse too.

17. Blowing up the moat

This Daryl Dixon scene encapsulated a mini callback of when Carol blew up Terminus to save the group. Now this had nowhere near the magnitude and it’s actually the kids who end up saving Daryl, but it was still an amazing scene that kept the memory of Carol alive as we follow Daryl’s journey across France.

We are once again reminded in this episode how Daryl is not better off on his own. Sometimes you will find help in the most unexpected ways.

16. We all have someone who waits for us

Meeting Fallou’s group was one of the first highlights of Daryl Dixon. Daryl once again asks for a radio and surprise surprise, every place they travel to has a broken radio. But they do have another means of sending messages; through the use of homing pigeons, which Daryl finds utterly ridiculous.

Antoine wasn’t around long but he told Daryl a line that really strung at his heartstrings. When Antoine said the words, “We all have someone who waits for us” Daryl lowered his head in a moment of guilt and sadness.

15. Daryl throwing his captors into the walker pit

A moment that the prisoner ship never saw coming. It could have been Daryl’s demise, but he turned the table and threw his captors to the wolves in his gigantic effort to escape the ship.

He caused near annihilation to Genet’s ship, which is the reason she wants Daryl on a platter so badly.

14. Daryl using the burners to break through the wall

Think smarter not harder. In Paris, Isabelle and Daryl were trapped and poor Isabelle is not so useful with the burners, so Daryl had to quickly come up with a way to create an escape route.

He used the corpse of a burner to burn down the vines of a wall. They narrowly got out with their lives, but they did thanks to Daryl’s fast thinking.

13. Daryl in the Flags of our Fathers

The season 1 finale felt as though it came right out of the Flags of Our Fathers. Except of course, Daryl is on the wrong side of the fight.

But you can see where they got the passion from this scene. It was Daryl’s grandfather who fought for France and died on the beaches of Normandy.

However, U.S. troops won a crucial battle on the island of Iwo Jima and this reenactment by Daryl Dixon comes from that war, which became an iconic symbol of victory.

12. Daryl opening up to Laurent about his family

Laurent became tired of revealing so much about his life and who he loves, while Daryl kept that part of him a secret. The young man grew frustrated and because he cared about Daryl he wanted to know more about his life back home.

I loved this scene because it’s the first time someone cared enough to ask Daryl. Too many characters on this show only care about what Daryl can do for them, rather than where his heart lies.

11. Daryl’s masterful torturing skills

Daryl torturing one of Quinn’s men to get Laurent back was a controversial decision at best. He continuously stabbed the man with short and quick penetration, allowing him to die a slow and agonizing death, unless he helped them.

I didn’t have much sympathy for the man because he had it coming for being an accessory to kidnapping. We got to see the brutal side of Daryl again and it was a joy to see the old Daryl who didn’t need help from anyone to attain justice.

10. The story of Laurent’s arrival

This is one of the most heartbreaking scenes I’ve witnessed in TWD. Isabelle and her sister Lily were on the run after the zombie outbreak and had escaped yet another danger, Quinn.

After a run-in with an ambulance, they found refuge at a convent. Sadly, Lily had been bitten and passed moments before Laurent was born.

Her dying wish was for Isabelle to always take care of her son. It was a heart-wrenching moment watching these sisters having to say goodbye to the only thing they had left in the world.

But Isabelle got to carry on with a new life and a new future as a nun.

9. The Zombie Orchestra

The zombie orchestra was the most improbable scene of the show, but it was so bizarrely fantastic. Isabelle’s contact was completely out of his mind, but this was such a mind-bending fanatical scene to watch.

It was hard to say if Isabelle and Daryl were impressed, annoyed, or dumb founded. Maybe all of the above.

8. The Call. The Promise.

Daryl has been mentioning his promise since the very first episode, but it’s not until episode 5 that the audience learns what the promise was. It was none other than Daryl making a promise to Carol that he would be home soon to tell her all about his adventures.

It sounds simple enough, but Daryl takes his word to Carol very seriously. It is most likely about more than just a promise.

I do get the vibe Daryl had a reckoning when he was out on the road and took Judith’s words to heart. He does deserve to have a happy ending and maybe he was well on his way to that before he was sent to the viper’s nest.

7. How Paris fell

Isabelle’s backstory was one of the coolest of the show with some of the best cinematography. She was anything but a nun, so it was pretty fascinating to watch her become a woman of faith after being someone entirely opposite.

She was a party girl, addicted to pills, alcohol, and other drugs. She used men to get her way and robbed them blind by using her sex appeal.

Though that part of her life has been left behind she is still a master manipulator, which is sometimes a good and bad thing. We don’t always get to see how certain places fell but seeing how Paris went down was somehow still beautiful.

6. Zombies on steroids

In season 2 I hope we see more of these zombie experiments because there are so many unanswered questions. The super strong zombies we saw in The Walking Dead: World Beyond were man-made creations and did not evolve naturally.

In Daryl Dixon’s epic battle, we saw Genet’s men tranquilize one, which made them evolve into killing machines, that is until it made them blow up. These zombies are called ampers.

Pretty self-explanatory, just amped-up zombies. They only last for a few minutes, so as long as you can hide from them and hold them off, I’m not sure they cause enough chaos until the cocktail they reserved is perfected.

Season 2 might dive deeper into that. Still, not many zombies in TWDU topped the Hannibal Lecter looking one.

5. Daryl was so close to home

Daryl Dixon had left The Nest and was an inch away from getting everything he ever wanted and where he wanted to be. He had gotten to the beach and waved down the ship that Losang had set up for him.

But just like The Walking Dead fashion, Laurent once again put a wrench in his plans. Daryl had no choice but to turn around and save the child who followed him from being devoured by a group of walkers.

America will have to wait.

4. The Demimonde nightclub

The Demimonde nightclub is an underground club owned by Quinn. It was originally a bunker built by the French inside the catacombs of Paris.

In present day it serves as a sexy nightclub with entertainers of all kinds. It is highly illogical to see such a place in an apocalypse where people can dance, party and live life like there is no longer death circling around them.

On the other hand, it’s completely captivating to watch. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of it and more of Quinn.

3. The Dixon Family history

Speaking of more heartbreaking moments. Anyone who has ever followed Daryl from day one knows how big of a heart he has, and how hard he fights for people.

Even for those he barely knows. The story unfolds how his grandfather died on the beaches of Normandy in WWII.

He left his family back home to grieve and that decision alone created anger and resentment from his father that he took out on Daryl. The one thing he doesn’t want to do is continue that history and hurt his loved ones back home, because he knows the trauma that can bring.

Watching him cry at his grandfather’s grave gutted me but it also showed Daryl finally letting go of some of the pain.

2. Daryl and Quinn’s fight to the death

Daryl and Quinn shared one of the most epic battles in The Walking Dead history. Now this battle did remind me a bit of the fight against Merle at Woodbury as spectators watched for entertainment.

The fight in the dome was on a much, much larger scale. Two enemies had to work together to ensure survival against these super zombies.

They used everything in their wheelhouse from old-school weapons to flag poles, to the chains they were bound to. Isabelle and Laurent prayed but this hero makes his own destiny.

1. The return of the Queen

The top moment of them all goes to none other than the Queen of The Walking Dead herself. Through all 6 episodes, the audience was gifted clues and Carol easter eggs.

From the replica Carol knife to the similar ways in which Daryl fought. Once we heard her on the radio with Daryl, we knew her return had to be inevitable.

Of course where there is Daryl, Carol usually isn’t far away. By now news back home has spread and people are worried about Daryl, but nobody is as worried as his soulmate and best friend.

She has gone to Maine, his last known location to track him down. But unlike Daryl, she’s not going to wind up in trouble and shoved onto a boat.

This Queen is done waiting around and will stop at nothing to make sure Daryl is safe. Her return was epic as she managed to track down Daryl’s bike and use her strategic intelligence to get answers out of the man who had it.

This all happened shortly after bashing him over the head with a wrench and hog tying him up in the trunk he so desperately wanted to look through. It won’t be much longer until we see Carol’s journey to France and the impending reunion that is going to shake the world.

Season 2 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon will be coming later in 2024. The sky is the limit for what Daryl and Carol will bring to the table.

They may be leaving the City of Love soon but it’s safe to say they will leave a lasting impression on the land and those they helped along the way. In the meantime, you can watch The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon on AMC.

What was your favorite moment of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1? Let us know in the comments below!