“Who Came Back?” Daryl Dixon’s [Spoiler] Cameo, Explained

[This story contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon episode 5.] “Who came back?” That was the question Daryl (Norman Reedus) asked Carol (guest star Melissa McBride) over the radio in Sunday’s “Deux Amours” episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. The penultimate episode of the first season took a detour to Freeport, Maine, for a back-and-forth flashback sequence revealing how Daryl wound up on a zombie-freighting French cargo ship, only to go overboard in the Gulf of Càdiz before washing ashore in France. And while we got answers about the “what,” “when,” “where,” and “why” of it all, the “who” question remains: WHO CAME BACK?

The Walking Dead series finale ended with Daryl leaving Carol and the Grimes children at the Commonwealth community in Ohio with a promise: “While I’m out there, if I hear anything, see anything, I’ll find them both. I’ll bring them home.” Daryl then rode off on his bike to go find Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira), who will return in their 2024 spin-off series titled The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live.

Daryl’s solo travels brought him to the coastal town of Freeport, Maine, about a week’s trip out from the Commonwealth. After his bike ran out of fuel, Daryl happened across Jones (Gilbert Glenn Brown) and a French doctor (François Delaive) trading ethanol for “live” walkers: no children, no elderly, none shorter than five feet, four inches, and extra fuel for the freshly turned.As it turned out, these walkers would be shipped overseas as the zombie test subjects of French Pouvoir des Vivants leader Madame Genet (Anne Charrier).

Before a hoodwinked Daryl ended up in the ship’s brig and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, he made radio contact with Carol. The connection was weak, but lasted long enough for Daryl and Carol to say the following through radio static:

Carol: Hello. Are you there? 

Daryl: Hello! Hey! It’s me!
Carol: Daryl. Are you okay?
Daryl: Yeah, well, I have a radio here. I thought, what the hell? How you doing?
Carol: Where’s there?
Daryl: I’m in Maine, by the coast. Everything good there? 

Carol: Yeah, you know, pretty quiet here.
Daryl: Quiet’s good. You okay?
Carol: Yeah. Just takes some getting used to, that’s all.
[A beat.]
Daryl: You sure you’re okay?
Carol: You never have to worry about me, Daryl. How is it out there?
Daryl: I’ll tell you all about it when I see you. I’m just gathering up some fuel. I’ll be there in about a week. I promise.
Carol: Copy that. Hey, Daryl.
Daryl: Yeah.
Carol: [Static, transmission breaking up] …came back.
Daryl: Who came back?
[Static]
Daryl: Carol. Who came back? Carol?

So, who came back?

Rick Grimes

Daryl watched as Rick sacrificed himself by blowing up a bridge to stop a walker horde, then spent the next six years looking for a body. Only Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) knows what happened next: she flew away with the gravely wounded Rick aboard a CRM helicopter and trafficked him to the Civic Republic. Jadis then became a high-ranking official in the Civic Republic Military as Rick repeatedly tried to escape his fate as a walker-clearing worker at a Civic Republic Cull Facility in Philadelphia.

Michonne

When Michonne followed a stranger named Virgil (Kevin Carroll) to Bloodsworth Island in Maryland, it was for weapons to help the Alexandrians win the Whisperer War. What Michonne found instead was evidence that Rick survived — and then set off to find her husband and bring him home. Daryl eventually found out the truth about Michonne’s mission when Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) revealed her secret, confessing Michonne believes Rick is alive. Michonne was heading north with a massive caravan of survivors before continuing her search as a lone, katana-wielding samurai in The Ones Who Live.

Morgan Jones

Spoiler alert for Fear the Walking Dead season 8. After a seven-year time jump, Morgan Jones’ (Lennie James) story on Fear the Walking Dead came full circle with the pilot episode of The Walking Dead when Morgan radioed Rick Grimes. “I’m gonna come and look for you, whether you’re at Alexandria or not,” Morgan said into the dead air of a walkie-talkie. “I will leave this message every morning at dawn, and I’ll leave the walkie on for a few minutes after. Who knows? Maybe you might even be listening.” 

We last saw Morgan at Eastman’s cemetery in Georgia, far from Rick’s home in Alexandria, Virginia. But it’s a trek that Morgan made before when he tracked Rick’s group from Georgia to Virginia back in season 5 of The Walking Dead, only to later leave Virginia for Texas. If Morgan made his way back to Alexandria, he’d find some of its residents relocated to the Commonwealth in Ohio. 

Dwight

“You go, and you keep going. Don’t you ever come back here again. If I ever see your face around here again, I’ll kill you.” Those are the last words that Daryl said to ex-Savior Dwight (Austin Amelio) on the “Wrath” episode of The Walking Dead season 8. More than seven years after Daryl banished Dwight from Virginia, he’ll return to old haunts with his wife Sherry (Christine Evangelista) in the final episodes of Fear the Walking Dead: Dwight and Sherry can be seen visiting their old house and Negan’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) long-abandoned Sanctuary. 

Heath

Heath (Corey Hawkins) has been MIA since disappearing during season 7 of The Walking Dead, but the former supply runner for the Alexandria Safe-Zone is unlikely to merit a mention in that conversation between Daryl and Carol. Years have passed at this point, and Heath’s fate — Jadis secretly trafficked him to the CRM, leaving behind a mysterious card with the letters “PPP” — remains a loose end.

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