Between Noviciado and Plaza de España there is a section of the Metro that almost no one has seen, except for the most attentive fans of The Walking Dead. It is an underground corridor that was closed in 1978 and, decades later, has been brought back to life as the setting for the third season of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, the latest spin-off of the zombie saga.
This corridor, built in the 20th century to connect line 2 (Noviciado) with what was then Plaza de España–Carabanchel and facilitate transfers, was taken out of service with successive reforms of the network, but it was preserved: old tiles, antique signage, and that patina of dust that seems tailor-made for an apocalypse. It is not a ghost platform that can be visited, like Chamberí, but a space “frozen in time” that Metro de Madrid keeps closed to the public and which its Head of Historical Heritage, Álvaro Ruiz, defines as one of the most special corners of the underground, because several eras of the network overlap in just a few meters.
(Fictional) zombies in the Madrid Metro
It was precisely this air of a forgotten tunnel that seduced the series’ team, who in 2025 turned the corridor into an apocalyptic setting: flashing lights, smoke, debris, and extras made up as walkers to accompany Norman Reedus on his journey through a Madrid Metro disguised as another city. The scenes were completed at the Plaza de España station, also transformed for the occasion, and were part of a shoot that took the production to 22 locations in eight Spanish autonomous communities , with Madrid as one of its nerve centers.
This is not an isolated case. The underground is increasingly being used as a filming location—23 times in 2025 alone, between series, films, and commercials—and Metro has even published a map It was filmed in the Metro to locate stations such as Núñez de Balboa, Paco de Lucía, and Herrera Oria, which have become recurring sets.