Warning: Spoilers For The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon.
The Walking Dead Universe is vast and includes quite a number of spinoff series directly related to the original show, as well as some that have no connection to its main characters whatsoever. The latest spinoff, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, follows Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) during his time in France. How the character arrived all the way across the ocean is eventually explained, but whether he will return home was left unknown in the season one finale. Having met a nun and a young boy while there, his entanglement with them leads him to question where he belongs in the post-apocalyptic world.
What immediately sets The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon apart from the other spinoffs is its overt addition of variant walkers referred to as burners. In the first episode of the series, viewers watch as a seemingly normal walker simply touches Daryl’s arm, causing a burn on his skin. While variant zombies have been lightly sprinkled throughout The Walking Dead Universe, Daryl’s series includes them in a way that makes them a direct part of the story. Furthermore, their presence and origin are explained, giving audiences a direct answer as to what they are, how such variants exist, and why they continue to be seen throughout the series.
What Are Burner Variants?
Walkers in any form are a threat to those who happen to cross their path. However, the newest variant introduced in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon possess something even more dangerous than a bite. Referred to as burners, their skin and blood appear to have the same effect as acid and burn through almost anything, at least anything living. Daryl unknowingly comes across one after he washes ashore in France and sustains a burn on his forearm when one touches him.
After he is taken to a convent, the nuns cauterize his wound to prevent infection from spreading, which indicates the zombie’s burn penetrates deeper than the skin’s surface and can be just as deadly as a bite. However, audiences have yet to see someone turn from a burner’s touch, so there’s no telling how such a turn might differ from that of a regular walker bite. Not only does the mere touch of a burner inflict a wound, but the blood and entire body of burner variants garner the same effect. In fact, there’s a moment in the series when Daryl uses the body of a burner to dissolve the overgrown vines blocking his exit as other walkers close in on him and Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) before they narrowly escape.
Created In a Lab
Counter to previous thoughts about the variants, burners are seemingly created via science rather than some sort of natural mutation of the zombie virus. As far as viewers have seen, Madame Marion Genet (Anne Charrier), leader of the Pouvoir Du Vivant (Power of the Living), has been using her resources to experiment on walkers. Such efforts have been seen on the ship she and her paramilitary organization control at the port of Le Havre, as well as the lab seen at the organization’s base of operations. While it’s not explicitly discussed, audiences can easily infer that whatever she’s doing is creating the burners.
By injecting regular walkers with some sort of yellow serum, their blood looks as though it boils, and they become stronger and more hostile. However, the process isn’t foolproof just yet. While having to fight walkers in a pit like a gladiator, Daryl is faced with four walkers simultaneously, all of whom are shot from a distance with the serum. However, one walker’s head explodes while another attacks a fellow walker rather than Daryl. Although Daryl makes it out of the pit safely, the burners he encounters inconsistently respond to Genet’s lab-created serum, which clearly angers her.
Burners Are Everywhere in France
Given the reach Genet has throughout France, it makes sense that her sanctioned experiments freely roam the streets. She clearly wants to utilize the variants for her own political and military takeover of France, as they’re likely meant to play a larger role in her efforts. Plus, an attack from a burner likely turns someone into a burner. As she actively attempts to squash the efforts of the Union of Hope, releasing burners to eliminate such a threat isn’t a bad idea from her point of view. While she never explicitly states such a plan, it only makes sense, given her political drive and the burner’s continued presence throughout the country.
Aiming to make France different than it was prior to the zombie outbreak, her paramilitary organization resembles something more authoritarian than democratic. As a result, the burners created in her labs were clearly made solely to fulfill her ideological purposes. That being said, it’s likely viewers could see a range of variants pop up in future seasons of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and other spinoffs. Either way, given the added tension variants bring to the series, such an addition is unlikely to fall to the wayside any time soon.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
