The Walking Dead: Norman Reedus says Daryl is ‘in kill mode’

​s stripped of both his clothes and his dignity, forced to eat dog food and listen to the most infuriatingly peppy song ever recorded on a continuous loop, but Daryl Dixon escaped all that in The Walking Dead’s midseason finale.

So where is Daryl emotionally now that he has been reunitedwith his friends when things pick back up in the Feb. 12 midseason premiere? According to Norman Reedus, the dude is hella pissed off. And he’s ready to make some people pay. “He wants revenge,” says Reedus. “He’s ready to fight. When he goes back in that last episode and hands Rick back his stuff, it was like, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go beat this guy up. Let’s go take what’s ours and fight this monster.’ So, you know, he’s in kill mode.”

Kill mode! The best of modes on this show, by far. It sounds like Daryl’s emotions after watching his friends bludgeoned with a baseball bat have progressed from grief to rage. “I feel like he spent his time in the hole thinking about Glenn and thinking about Abraham,” says Reedus. “He took it very personal, and felt like it was his fault and he was deserving what he was getting.” But no longer. “Now he’s ready to get revenge. He’s ready to go kill everybody.”

Reedus says he’s especially excited for the back half of season 7 in general and what may be in store for Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan. “I think you’re going to start to see a little fear in that bad guy’s eyes,” he says. “He’s been walking tall long enough wielding his little toy bat around. Time to bring that guy down a notch.”

Asked for the best way to describe the next eight episodes, Reedus settles for the following: “It’s going to be consistently loud.” Bring your earplugs.

EW