Daryl Dixon Episode 4 Dream Scene Has a Much Deeper Meaning Than You Thought

Episode 4 of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon opens with a weird sequence that quickly proves not to be real. Daryl tries to prevent Laurent from getting swarmed by numerous zombies, but the boy prays and the walkers leave him alone. After that, Laurent completely ignores Daryl and walks away with the horde of zombies.

On the one hand, it was but a dream or a hallucination on Daryl’s part, and none of that really happened. On the other hand, there was clearly a reason to include this sequence in the episode, and we think we’ve uncovered the real meaning behind it.

First of all, this dream shows that Daryl starts to actually care about Laurent. Despite his initial reluctance to deal with the boy and the claims he is only in it to get back to Alexandria, Daryl’s bond with Laurent becomes stronger. Now, the boy’s no longer a stranger to Daryl, and the man really cares about him and wants to keep him safe.

Second, in an unexpected turn of events, Daryl’s dream reveals that he believes Laurent is special. While Daryl generally remains skeptical at best about the nuns’ business and the idea of Laurent being the savior, the dream clearly shows Laurent stopping the zombies with the power of his prayer, proving that Daryl believes in it — at least, to some extent.

Third and final, there’s the ending of the dream. We think that Laurent leaving with the zombies is nothing but an indication of Daryl’s fear of losing more people close to him. Throughout the many years of his The Walking Dead journey, Daryl had lost one too many folks, including children, so it was only obvious he’d be afraid to become attached again.

Overall, the meaning of Daryl’s dream seems to highlight Laurent growing on him in two ways: not only does Daryl now care about the boy, but he’s also not so skeptical about his assumed powers anymore.