The Walking Dead will give us a backstory for Daryl’s dog…named Dog

In just a few days, we’ll get to see the first of six extra episodes of The Walking Dead season 10. We’re getting an origin story for Negan, a look into Maggie’s past, updates on what’s going down with Princess and the Commonwealth, and more. It’s a little bit of forward plot momentum, a little bit of character-building backstory…a little bit of everything.

Most important of all, though, we’ll get a backstory for Daryl’s fan-favorite canine companion, Dog. Because everything needs an origin story these days, even the dog.

Dog — definitely the most original name Daryl has come up with — was never formally introduced into the series. Instead, he just kinda shows up in season 9 after a time jump, and we accept him as Daryl’s new furry friend. In true Daryl style, he doesn’t mention how he met Dog. Not oven once.

Of course, fans instantly fell in love. There’s even a petition with over 70,000 supporters begging the writers not to pull an I Am Legend and kill the dog. And it sounds like the show will honor our wishes. They wouldn’t do an entire backstory if they were planning to kill off Dog soon, would they?

What will fans see in the extra episode of The Walking Dead season 10?

Speaking during The Walking Dead Extended Season 10 Preview Special on AMC+, showrunner Angela Kang revealed that the second of the new episodes to air, “Fine Me,” will shine a much-needed spotlight on Dog. “We will get to see a little Dog, a little baby puppy Dog,” she teased. “The Dog origin story.”

“Find Me” won’t be entirely about Dog. It’s also a Daryl and Carol adventure. Taking us back to just after Rick Grimes was taken away in a CRM helicopter, we see how hard Daryl tried to locate Rick. The episode will also introduce us to newcomer Leah (Lynn Collins), who apparently could be Dog’s original owner.

Daryl might finally meet his match with Leah, with table reads suggesting a lot of tension between them. In one  read, Daryl bursts into a cabin where Leah stands with a gun pointed directly at him, refusing to let him leave. “I think Leah, without giving too much away, Leah is formidable,” Kang said. “We wanted to tell this story from Daryl’s past, and I don’t want to say too much more, but let people kind of see how it unfolds between them.”

The new Walking Dead episodes kick off with “Home Sweet Home” this Sunday, February 28, although it’s streaming now if you’re an AMC+ subscriber. After that, it’s full speed ahead to season 11, the show’s last. While these new episodes filmed during the pandemic will be smaller in scale, Kang promises that season 11 will be “a much bigger scope-ier thing,” since they’ve now figured out how to work under these conditions. “[W]e’ve kind of figured out where the stress points are, I guess, for the production,” she told Entertainment Weekly.

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h/t ComicBook.com