Who Is Stephen Merchant's Character In TWD: Daryl Dixon, Explained

Season 3 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon opens with a detour that is bleak even by this franchise’s standards: England. Quick temperature check before we dive in — this is the penultimate season (Season 4 will end the series), the production moved to Spain to shoot, and yes, that really is Stephen Merchant popping up in a role that is way more important than the pre-release teaser let on.

Episode 1 drops us in 'Costa da Morte' — and yes, that title choice is a little odd

The premiere is called 'Costa da Morte' — Portuguese for 'Coast of Death.' Not Spanish. The episode does eventually strand everyone in Spain, so file that under 'weird but on brand' naming quirks.

England is empty, the Chunnel is sealed, and 'walkers' get a new nickname

Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) make it through the Channel Tunnel from France to England, only to find… no one. No chatter, no gunfire, no survivors. Just a dead-silent city choked with walkers. Locals (when there were locals) apparently started calling them 'squid' — a little Cockney rhyming slang thing the show never fully unpacks but winks at.

After carving through a swarm of squid, Daryl and Carol crash in a very posh abandoned high-rise and climb up to the roof. From up there it is wall-to-wall dead with no clear exit. For a minute, it feels like they might be spending their last night on Earth.

Enter Julian Chamberlain, Stephen Merchant’s lonely sky-commuter

Daryl spots a distant light and then, in the middle of the night, a guy literally ziplines over from another building. Meet Julian Chamberlain (Stephen Merchant), who leads with an extremely nervous 'I come in peace' while untying himself from his DIY rig.

Julian has been staying alive by traveling between rooftops, avoiding streets entirely. He says he hasn’t seen another person in years and believes he is the last living soul in England. He explains that when people were still around, they actually sealed the Chunnel to keep Europe out — which worked for a while — but then the usual apocalypse problems set in: rival tribes, in-fighting, and no way in or out once things went bad.

Daryl and Carol trade looks that basically say: is this guy a liability? Then Julian mentions he couldn’t 'sail the boat alone' after his last friend died. That changes the math fast. If there’s a boat, there’s a chance at America. Carol has done this before — back in Season 2, she found Ash (Manish Dayal) and maneuvered him into flying her to France to find Daryl — and she slides right back into that mode here.

A little whiskey, a little kindness, and a plan timed to Big Ben

Daryl wants to rip the Band-Aid off; Carol knows this requires finesse. They drink with Julian, keep the conversation gentle, and nudge him toward a shared plan. He’s starved for company and immediately starts imagining a future with them — shades of Princess from the main series, right down to the endearingly awkward social cues.

Carol pitches a move to America and tells a small but crucial lie: that she and Daryl can sail. Julian buys in, gathers supplies, and lays out his escape trick. At 10 a.m., when Big Ben tolls, the bells pull every squid in earshot toward the clock tower, giving them a narrow window to slip out.

Then reality hits: they cannot actually sail. Julian hesitates. He always wanted to be a sailor but washed out of Royal Navy college, and now his confidence craters. Daryl and Carol turn into makeshift coaches — lots of 'you got this' and steady praise — and it works. They push off.

The plan works… until the storm

Julian estimates the crossing will take 11 to 17 days. Daryl and Carol are already thinking long game, talking about how he’d fit in at the Commonwealth back home. But a storm bulldozes the plan. The sail jams, the boom swings, and it cracks Julian in the head. Carol gets him below deck and keeps checking, but the look on her face says she knows where this is headed.

The boat finally wrecks on the Spanish coast — which lines up with where the rest of Season 3 was filmed — and both Daryl and Carol stagger out, though she is badly banged up and disoriented. Julian is nowhere. Then she finds him on the shore, reanimated and hungry. She can barely fight him off before Daryl arrives and ends it with a knife. Their new friend is gone, and in England’s grim parlance, he is now a squid.

Stephen Merchant plays it quiet, wounded, and human

Merchant mostly shows up in comedies, but he has been steering into heavier material lately (Logan, Jojo Rabbit, Four Lives). Julian is another gear entirely: a lonely survivor who kept his decency intact despite having no one to talk to. He still cracks self-deprecating jokes, but it’s all in service of a character who just wants a reason to try again.

'It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before.'

That line lands like a brick on Daryl. Julian talks about saving every penny, waiting until he was finally ready to find the love of his life — and then there was no one left to find. It’s a simple, brutal idea that clearly sticks with Daryl, because underneath the biker armor, these two are more alike than you’d think: quiet guys built on stubborn resilience who needed someone else to remind them that surviving isn’t the same thing as living.

Why this premiere matters

Beyond the stunt casting, Julian is the hinge that flips the season from England to Spain and sets the tone for a penultimate run that is openly about hope, not just headshots. His death is the cost of that pivot, and it’s going to haunt Daryl and Carol as they push toward home.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon launched in 2023 and returns now with Season 3, led by showrunner David Zabel, with episodes directed by Daniel Percival and Greg Nicotero and scripts from Zabel and Angela Kang. Starring Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride (with Clémence Poésy as Isabelle Carriere), it streams on AMC+ and airs on AMC.