Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman set a sizable chunk of the Internet on fire a few weeks ago when he revealed that Daryl Dixon could maybe, possibly be gay, and that they plan to address it if Daryl ever has a second to put his crossbow down. This was both (a) kind of a big deal, because Daryl would immediately become one of the most high-profile badass gay characters on television since Omar Little, and (b) entirely reasonable, as there are probably less awkward times to reveal intimate personal information about yourself than between zombie brain splatterings. “THWACK … Oh, by the way … THWACKSPLAT … did I tell you I’m g-LOOK OUT … THWACK … ay?” Not ideal.
Anyway, as you can imagine, people wanted some clarification, and now Walking Dead showrunner Scott Gimple has provided it. Sort of. Via TVLine:
“The fact that there’s still a question as to what Daryl’s orientation is in Season 5 absolutely speaks to Daryl’s character; he is a very guarded, very closed-off individual in a lot of ways. We have been able to see him ever so slowly open up and show the other characters aspect by aspect as to what makes him tick. That’s been a very satisfying journey for all of us on the creative side to portray. [And] he’s still on that journey.
“This is a character who is going to continue to grow closer to the other characters,” he continues, “[and] let his guard down, and let them see just who he is, in every way.”
He also went on to say that there’s definitely a gay male character coming at some point, even if it’s not Daryl. But it’s probably Daryl, right? It would be super weird if they went through all this and then one day we just see, like, “and Harvey Fierstein as himself” at the end of the opening credits.
