Merle Dixon

Merle Dixon
Continuity:	The Walking Dead
Notability:	Supporting character
Gender:	Male
Race:	Zombie
Location:	Atlanta, Woodbury, Georgia
Relatives:	Daryl Dixon
Status:	Deceased
First:	"Guts"
Actor:	Michael Rooker

Merle Dixon is a secondary character featured in the AMC television series The Walking Dead. He was played by actor Michael Rooker and introduced in the second episode of season one, "Guts".

Biography

Merle Dixon is a former soldier in the US armed forces and a Southerner from Atlanta, Georgia. When a zombie outbreak overwhelmed the city, Merle was separated from his brother Daryl and took refuge on the roof of a department store. He encountered several other survivors including a black man named T-Dog. A violent racist, Merle had an altercation with T-Dog and beat him to a bloody pulp. The others managed to pry the two off of one another and former Sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes hand-cuffed Merle to a pipe running across the roof of the building.

As tensions escalated, the group decided to leave the building and debated upon whether they should free Merle or leave him to his fate. T-Dog was the one who decided to let him go and Rick gave him the keys to the handcuffs. When he went back upstairs however, he dropped the keys down a drainage pipe and had no means of setting Merle free. Left with no recourse but to abandon him, T-Dog barricaded the door behind him so that the zombies could not get to the roof.

The group left and a horde of zombies did manage to break into the store. They came close to tearing through the barricade that T-Dog had erected and Merle struggled to break free. He found a hacksaw lying nearby and used his belt buckle to pull it closer to him. He then used the belt as a tourniquet and sawed through his own hand and managed to escape. He somehow fought his way past the zombies and used a downstairs stove top to cauterize the wound.

Rick Grimes met up with Darryl and told him what had happened. Darryl forced him to go back to Atlanta to rescue his brother. When they reached the roof however, all they found was Merle's bloody hand.

Notes & Trivia

• The character of Merle Dixon was created by director Michelle Maxwell McLaren and teleplay writer Frank Darabont based on concepts originally developed by writer Robert Kirkman.

• Merle Dixon is a character unique to the continuity of The Walking Dead television series. He does not have a counterpart in the The Walking Dead comic book series.

• In the season two episode, "Chupacabra", Merle Dixon appears to his brother Daryl as an hallucination. It is intended to reflect Daryl's subconscious mind, projecting his true opinion of himself.

• Archival footage of Merle Dixon was included in The Making of The Walking Dead documentary featured on the Walking Dead: The Complete First Season DVD and Blu-ray collections.

Appearances

1. "Survival Instinct" (Video game prequel)
2. "Guts" (1st appearance)
3. "Tell It to the Frogs"
4. "Chupacabra" (As an hallucination only)
5. "Walk With Me"
6. "Killer Within"
7. "Say the Word"
8. "Hounded"
9. "When the Dead Come Knocking"
10. "Made to Suffer"
11. "The Suicide King"
12. "Home"
13. "I Ain't a Judas"
14. "Arrow on the Doorpost"
15. "This Sorrowful Life" (Dies)

See also

The World of The Walking Dead

Characters Locations

Items Organizations

Images

Season One gallery Season Two gallery Season Three gallery Season Four gallery Season Five gallery

Season Six gallery Season Seven gallery Season Eight gallery Season Nine gallery Comic book series gallery

Miscellaneous

Walking Dead category Walking Dead seasons Walking Dead episodes

Walking Dead cast & crew Walking Dead home video Walking Dead miscellaneous

External Links

• Merle Dixon at IMDB
• Merle Dixon at AMC TV
• Merle Dixon at Wikipedia
• Merle Dixon at The Walking Dead Wiki