The Walking Dead's Carol and Daryl are just friends and should stay that way according to Henry actor Matt Lintz. Recently it was revealed that the long-running and sometimes highly-rated AMC zombie series will wrap up its run after season 11, but fans of the show should not despair because the TWD universe will still live on via spinoffs and movies for the foreseeable future.
Of course, it was long ago revealed that Rick Grimes is set to return with his own theatrical movie after departing the Walking Dead in season 9. In the near-term, TWD will get another TV series spinoff with World Beyond, which follows a new group of young survivors embarking on a dangerous quest through the post-apocalyptic wastes. And, it was also reported that fan favorite characters Carol and Daryl get to survive the demise of the main series and team up for their own spinoff show, with Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus returning in the leads.
It remains to be seen what new developments will happen in the on-going relationship between Carol and Daryl, but at least one former TWD actor thinks it might be a mistake to take the two characters out of the friend zone. Speaking on the Talk Dead to Me podcast (via ComicBook.com), Henry actor Lintz discussed the possibility of the two spinoff characters getting romantic, and indicated that he’s not necessarily a fan of the idea:
"I feel like you can have a really good relationship, a male can have a really good relationship with a female and just be friends. It would be cool I guess if they became a thing, but at the same time I've always personally — even when I was on the show — I always saw them as friends. Maybe the spinoff will take a different route, you never know."
Of course, many TWD fans have long yearned for Carol and Daryl to become an item, but over the years the show has resisted the temptation to make them into a romantic couple and instead allowed them to remain tight friends (during the times when one of them hadn’t wandered off to be alone). That friendship has been tested during the still on-going season 10 though, after Carol made her efforts to gain revenge against Alpha for killing Henry a little too personal, leading to some behavior that Daryl strongly disapproved of. But, everything worked out on the revenge front, after Carol enlisted Negan to infiltrate the Whisperers and take care of Alpha once and for all. However, the Whisperers remain at large with Beta now in charge of the group, and indeed the delayed season 10 finale is set to feature a big showdown as Beta leads a horde of zombies to the hospital where many characters are holed up.
As for the upcoming Walking Dead season 11, it will be interesting to see how the show sets up the further adventures of Carol and Daryl while wrapping up the main series’ various storylines. While many fans will no doubt call for the characters to get closer than ever before, there’s a very strong argument to be made that they shouldn’t become romantic but should instead retain their Platonic buddy dynamic. TV shows are of course notorious for "will they or won't they" storylines built around on-going flirtations that ultimately lead to romance, but employing such a worn out trope with Carol and Daryl would frankly seem cheesy and a bit of a betrayal. The mutually respectful and obviously caring on-screen relationship between McBride and Reedus has in fact been one of the few consistently good things about The Walking Dead over recent seasons, and tampering with that dynamic just to please shippers seems like it would be a bad idea.
Source: Talk Dead to Me (via ComicBook.com)