Summary
- Daryl Dixon season 2 of The Walking Dead spinoff will feature a new character, Ash, played by Manish Dayal, who is an engineer with a mysterious secret.
- Season 1 of the spinoff focused on Daryl’s journey through France after washing up on shore with no memory.
- Melissa McBride will reprise her The Walking Dead role of Carol as a main cast member for season 2.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon has brought on a brand-new character. The AMC show is a spinoff of The Walking Dead that spent season 1 following Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) through France after he washed up on shore with no memory of how he got there. Season 2, subtitled The Book of Carol, will also star Daryl’s longtime companion Carol (Melissa McBride), who was originally intended to be the co-star of season 1 before McBride had to pull out due to an inability to shoot in Europe at the time, though she did make a cameo in the season finale.
Per Deadline, a brand-new character has been cast for Daryl Dixon season 2. Manish Dayal has been brought on to play an important recurring role. His character, Ash, is a Maine-based engineer who has managed to maintain upkeep on a plane throughout the zombie apocalypse but potentially holds a dark secret in the greenhouse in his backyard.
Everywhere You’ve Seen Manish Dayal Before The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
Although joining the Daryl Dixon cast will mark the first time that Dayal has been a part of the universe of The Walking Dead, he has already held several prominent television roles. Although his career began in the mid-2000s, his first major role came when he played the ill-fated college student Raj Kher on 14 episodes of the CW reboot 90210. He followed that with a recurring role as programmer Ryan Ray on Halt and Catch Fire.
By far, his most prominent television job so far has been on the medical drama The Resident, in which he starred opposite Matt Czuchry and Bruce Greenwood in all six seasons until the show went off the air this January. Other television roles of his include playing Vijay Nadeer on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and voicing Shashi Dhar on Fast & Furious: Spy Racers. He has also held some significant movie roles including playing Hassan Kadam in The Hundred-Foot Journey and Faarooq in Holidate.
Manish Dayal played internist Devon Pravesh on The Resident.
It is currently unclear how his new character Ash fits into the overall storyline of the season. However, the The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon season 1 finale showed Carol taking Daryl’s motorcycle up to Maine while trying to find him. Given Ash’s Maine outpost, it seems likely that he will fly Carol across the ocean to find Daryl, and may even end up stranded alongside them.
