‘The Walking Dead’ Season 7: Norman Reedus On Daryl Dixon’s Rage – ‘Let’s Fight This Monster’ [Spoilers]

The Walking Dead Season 7 premieres the second half in two weeks. As the date gets closer, more information is being released. Recently, Norman Reedus spoke about his character, Daryl Dixon. He has gone from feeling grief to being full of rage. In the interview, the actor explains what is going through Daryl’s mind and reveals that he is ready to “fight this monster.”

TWD spoilers are ahead. Do not continue reading unless you want to know what to expect on AMC’s zombie apocalypse TV show.

During the first half of Season 7, Daryl Dixon spent his time being held prisoner at the Sanctuary, the home base for the Saviors. Negan insisted on trying to break him and put Dwight (Austin Amelio) in charge of getting it done. Even though it seemed at times that Daryl was getting close to breaking, he remained strong. Even when facing Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), he refused to become one of the Saviors. He still could not be completely broken, even after being locked in a closet without any light or clothes and being fed dog food.

During the midseason finale of The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon escaped and ran into Jesus (Tom Payne), who took him to the Hilltop Colony. There, he reunited with some of his group, including Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Norman Reedus explained what is going through Daryl’s mind in Season 7B. He went through grieving for Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) while being kept a prisoner. Now that he has escaped, he is full of rage and ready to take action.

“He wants revenge. He’s ready to fight. When he goes back in that last episode and hands Rick back his stuff, it was like, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go beat this guy up. Let’s go take what’s ours and fight this monster.’ So, you know, he’s in kill mode.”

In the first half of Season 7, Daryl felt like he deserved what was happening to him. He felt that Glenn and Abraham’s deaths on The Walking Dead were his fault. However, when TWD returns, he will have a different mindset.

“I feel like he spent his time in the hole thinking about Glenn and thinking about Abraham. He took it very personal, and felt like it was his fault and he was deserving what he was getting. Now he’s ready to get revenge. He’s ready to go kill everybody.”

In a promo clip released by AMC, Daryl suggests they blow up Negan and the Saviors. However, he is reminded that not everyone at the Sanctuary is there by choice. Like Dixon, there are others who are being kept prisoner and are being used as slaves. It almost sounds like Rick Grimes and the others may want to rescue some of them and defeat Negan at the same time.

Norman Reedus also teased that fans will see Negan actually getting a little bit scared. So far, Negan has shown nothing but fearless brutality, doing whatever he wants to other survivors. Negan may be on top right now, but he will soon find out that Rick’s group are not the typical survivors. Has Negan finally met his match?

“I think you’re going to start to see a little fear in that bad guy’s eyes. He’s been walking tall long enough wielding his little toy bat around. Time to bring that guy down a notch.”

Fans who are familiar with The Walking Dead comics know that Rick tries to kill Negan, but is not successful. They do win the war and Negan is taken prisoner. However, even in a cage, Negan manages to escape, but doesn’t run away. Instead, he uses the opportunities to taunt Rick. Jeffrey Dean Morgan also stated several months ago that Negan will put Rick through hell for the next couple of years. This implies that Negan is going to remain part of the story for a while. Fans will have to wait and see if the TV show follows Robert Kirkman’s comic books with this storyline or if they throw in a few twists instead.

What do you think of what Norman Reedus had to say about Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead? Season 7B premieres on February 12.

[Featured Image by Gene Page/AMC]