Season 3 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon opens not with gunfire or gore, but with something deceptively simple: a can of hot dogs. Carol clutches it like treasure, promising Daryl that one day soon they’ll cook it up as a celebratory meal. It becomes a running thread through the episode, a strange and tender symbol of survival, hope, and the need to believe there’s something worth holding onto at the end of all this devastation.
It’s a fitting motif for a premiere that constantly balances fragility and brutality. “Costa da Morte” pulls us into new landscapes, new dangers, and new layers of vulnerability for Daryl and Carol, while still echoing the emotional core that made the show’s earliest seasons resonate: survival is never just about making it through the day, but about finding reasons to keep going.
Apocalyptic London
The episode wastes no time in dropping us into apocalyptic London, and the effect is both horrifying and fascinating. Seeing familiar landmarks, such as Big Ben and the Tower Bridge, gutted by time, weather, and sheer survival feels like a return to the eerie, unsettling tone of The Walking Dead’s earliest episodes. It’s yet another reminder that this apocalypse wasn’t just confined to rural America, but is a mutation that has rewritten the entire world.
Naturally, once inside the city itself, Daryl and Carol are forced into the old routine: fighting off walkers and finding cover. They stumble into an abandoned flat (yes, flat — when in Britain), and it’s here the episode delivers one of its most haunting images: a lone walker hanging from a chandelier in a dining room. There’s no telling how long it’s been there. Maybe it was someone bitten who chose to end things before the change, leaving themselves suspended above the room as a grim warning. Maybe they’ve hung there for months, even years. Either way, the tableau is devastating, a snapshot of loneliness and despair in a world that can no longer take the time to mourn its dead.
The flat becomes Daryl and Carol’s temporary prison, one that is claustrophobic and tense. What works here is the way the city itself feels untrustworthy: the walkers lie silent for long stretches, only to suddenly animate as if stirred awake. It’s jarring, inconsistent, but it makes the silence inside the building feel heavy and deceptive.
But after two days, there’s the light. Trapped inside, Daryl and Carol notice a reflection flashing from a building across the way. It’s not fire, not random — it’s deliberate. Light becomes more than illumination here. It is a beacon, a signal, and, most importantly, a symbol of life. It’s how they’re drawn to Julian Chamberlain, the so-called “last Englishman alive in England.” His presence opens a new door, not only for the story, but for the audience: a chance to hear, finally, how the apocalypse unfolded in another part of the world.
The Boat and a Hope for Home
The boat isn’t revealed as part of some grand plan. Instead, it slips out casually in conversation with Julian, who’s practically buzzing with excitement just to have someone to talk to after years of solitude. His eagerness to share, to trade stories, to connect, makes the reveal of the boat feel almost accidental, but for Daryl and Carol it immediately becomes everything. Almost before the words are fully out of Julian’s mouth, the conversation tilts toward America. Daryl and Carol start coaxing him, asking if he’d consider coming with them, the boat suddenly transformed into a lifeline.
That’s when the episode delivers one of its most poignant lines: “Friends that love us, and miss us…they’re waiting for us to come back, that’s what makes it home.” It’s a verbalization of hope, a sentiment that pulses beneath the whole episode. For Daryl and Carol, home is no longer a place. Home is people. And Julian, the last Englishman alive, could do with more people, could do with home, too.
The pacing here, however, is strange. On one hand, things seem to accelerate unnaturally fast with Julian. The three of them go from strangers to co-conspirators plotting a transatlantic journey in what feels like seconds. On the other hand, the rhythm of the episode sometimes drags, lingering on quiet beats that sap tension instead of building it. It’s a dichotomy that could work — fast and slow, urgent in its devastation and lingering in its pain — but here it feels off balance.
Still, once on the boat, what holds it together is the emotional core. Brief glimpses of Daryl’s childhood surface, grounding his desire for home in a history of constant loss. Carol, by contrast, seems more at ease than she’s been in ages, steadied by survival and bolstered by the ordeal of the Chunnel. When she tells Daryl, “It’ll get better, y’know?” it lands as one of the most remarkable lines in the episode. Coming from her, after everything, it carries the weight of stubborn optimism — fragile, maybe, but real and utterly human in a world where humanity is fleeting.
The Storm and the Last Englishman Alive
Of course, nothing can stay calm. A storm comes suddenly, dark and violent, the ocean itself turning hostile. Julian — who had voiced his fears earlier about not being skilled enough to sail — is injured in the chaos, leaving Daryl and Carol to fight against the waves alone.
There’s a small but powerful moment here: while trying to steady the boat with Daryl, Carol starts speaking in that way people do when they think the end has come. “If this is the end…!” she begins, before admitting she’s glad she found him. It’s raw and vulnerable, but Daryl shuts it down, refusing to let her spiral. It’s classic Daryl, deflecting even as the moment threatens to break open something too deep to handle. And just as quickly, the episode doesn’t let us linger. The screen fades to black.
When it fades back in, we’re no longer on the boat with them. We’re on a sandy beach, the wreckage of the vessel scattered across the shore. Daryl and Carol wash up battered and injured, dragging themselves upright and taking shaky stock of their surroundings. Once they find their bearings, they go searching for Julian.
Carol spots him first, standing eerily still, facing out toward the sea. But it’s not really Julian anymore. The “last Englishman alive in England” has already turned.
The moment should be heartbreaking (and it is, to a point) but it’s also strangely rushed. The pacing of Julian’s arc feels jagged, his brief life in the show and his ultimate death more abrupt than earned, and the emotional weight of his character never quite lands the way it could have.
Carol’s Injury and New Threats
Carol is hurt worse than she lets on. In the wreckage, a shard of metal has embedded itself deep in her right shoulderblade, and by the time they stagger to safety, she’s feverish and fading fast. Daryl, grim-faced and steady, knows what has to be done. With nothing but his hands and a handful of scavenged supplies, he cuts into the wound to dig the metal out.
It’s a brutal moment, but it’s softened by the way Carol bears it. Despite the agony, she clenches her jaw, rides it out, and refuses to let it break her. And watching Daryl hover over her, frantic but focused, reminds us of the bond at the core of this story. His desperation to save her is palpable, but so is the sweetness: the quiet gentleness threaded through his rough, matter-of-fact care. It’s intimate without being romantic, the kind of survival-driven devotion that makes their relationship so compelling.
But the night doesn’t give them space to recover. Just when things feel bleakest, the silence shatters with the sound of eerie whistles and the pounding of hooves. Strange figures emerge from the darkness, riders on horseback with torches raised, their faces obscured by animal-bone masks. It’s a new kind of terror, one that feels almost ritualistic. Daryl reacts instantly, extinguishing any light and covering Carol’s mouth to keep her quiet as the riders stalk the beach. The tension is suffocating. We watch as they search, raid the wreck, and ultimately strip away what little supplies Daryl and Carol might have salvaged. The whole sequence is unnerving and it’s clear this isn’t the last we’ll see of them.
When morning comes, the devastation settles in. The boat is gone, their supplies are stolen, and they’re stranded. And, most devastatingly, an old road sign confirms the bitter truth: the wreck carried them no farther than Spain. The dream of home has been reduced to yet another impossible dream. All they have now are each other, dwindling resources, and the knowledge that new enemies are already watching.
The Woods, The Cliffhanger
Leaving the beach behind, Daryl and Carol push into the woods, where the signs of human civilization are immediate, but just not in the way they’d like to find human civilization. Walkers hang suspended in net traps from the trees, swaying grotesquely overhead. It’s a grisly marker that this territory belongs to someone else — someone Daryl and Carol don’t know at all.
Eventually, they stumble across a rundown shack and decide it’s safe enough to stop for the night. It’s here, in the dim and the quiet, that the most vulnerable moments of the episode unfold. Carol’s wound still burns with fever, and Daryl works to keep her awake, trying to will her through sheer force of presence. Their exchange is stripped bare:
“I never lie to you. Ever.”
“But you hide.”
It’s a short dialogue, but it cuts deep. Daryl’s honesty and Carol’s quiet challenge expose the cracks in the walls they’ve built around themselves. Later, he admits in a low voice, “I was ready to give up. Thought it was all over.” These are the kinds of scenes the show excels at.
The next morning, Carol wakes in the shack to the sound of laughter, distant and distorted, maybe real or maybe not. Injured and fevered, it’s impossible to tell if she’s hearing voices outside or her own mind turning against her. When Daryl returns from hunting, she’s gone. No trace, no note, no sign of struggle. Just absence.
It’s a gut-punch of an ending, leaving us in the same place as Daryl: desperate to know if Carol is safe, or if she’s found new life that could lead to salvation…or danger.
And yes, I’m, too, still holding out hope for those hot dogs.
You can watch The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 on AMC and AMC+.
