Walking Dead season 8
Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon in Walking Dead season 8 Gene Page/AMC

The Walking Dead season 8 took a major deviation from the comic book written by Robert Kirkman when it killed the core character of Carl Grimes (played by Chandler Riggs). The unexpected twist has led fans to riot online and some even went as far as to start a campaign to fire the show producer Scott Gimple.

As of now, most of the original star cast has been written off the script with only a handful of them left in AMC's blockbuster zombie thriller. But with Carl's death, even Norman Reedus, who plays the role of Daryl Dixon, is speculative about the show's future and warns the show producers and creators of not losing any more key members. "The people that started this show, to me, are the heart of the show. When you lose those key members, it's such a big blow," he told Entertainment Weekly.

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The show started off with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his family surviving the zombie apocalypse along with Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, Michonne, Carol and Abraham among others. In the comic book series, Carl emerges as a major leader as he grew up in the post-apocalyptic world but the show creators have hinted that Carl's part will be fulfilled by another character.

Reedus, however, is not convinced about the deviation and feels the original cast made the show feel special for seven long years. "If you want to hold on to what made the show special, you've got to be very careful what you do with those people," he added.

Speaking about his character Daryl's future in TWD, he told EW that fans will enjoy the crossbow warriors' story arc in the second half of season 8. "There's some really good Daryl stuff coming up with some of the characters he's been going toe-to-toe with," Reedus teases.

The actor also teases that the end of the eighth season will be loved by avid TWD fans for its "poetic way".

"I love the way some of those stories get wrapped in the end. There's a real beauty to it. It's not exactly the way that you think. It wraps up in a very poetic way," he added.