The Walking Dead: Dead City
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
I keep coming back toThe Walking Dead.
The first wasFear the Walking Dead, a Southwest companion piece.
Unlike other cinematic universes, fans dont feel any urgency to watch every story.
In short: Maggies son has been kidnapped by a former member of Negans crew.
She finds Negan on the run from the law, and they team up.
Its a clear, simple, western-y premise.
I really dig the dynamic, though I wouldnt dare ship it.
Are we implying that Maggie will become as dark as her nemesis?
I wouldnt put it past her.
Shes gotten close before.
I might not even fault her.
AsTWDargues over and over, the world is now ruthless.
Trying to hold yourself to the societal standards of a society that no longer exists gets you nowhere.
Let me take this moment to catch you up on what happened in the later seasons ofThe Walking Dead.
She gave birth to a son and named him Hershel, after her father.
She became a leader of the Hilltop community.
Negan, meanwhile, spent many years locked up after Rick and his allies defeated him.
The Saviors scattered, some joining the survivors, others going their own way.
By theseries finale, he had a new wife named Annie and a child.
Do we want them to be friends?
In theWalking Deadseries finale, Negan apologizes for killing Glenn and leaving her son without a father.
Maggie receives the apology but says shes unable to forgive him.
But thats not why Maggie is looking for him.
So they make a deal.
Negan will help Maggie get her son back from his former acolyte.
In return, Maggie will get the girl set up at Hilltopandprotect him from the Marshalls.
She drops Ginny off at a Hilltop-adjacent community, and they get going.
Maggie is visibly uncomfortable whenever Negan behaves in a paternal or caring way.
Representatives from the New Babylon Marshalls show up at the bar.
They torture the employees for information about Negan and then kill them for aiding and abetting a fugitive.
Bye, Michelle Hurd!
He picks a fight with her.
Stop treating him like the bad guy when theyre all the bad guy.
Ask yourself one question, he says.
How many husbands and fathers have you killed?
He tries to humanize himself to Maggie so she wont kill him.
Theres that question of whether or not Maggie is a villain again.
At the end of the episode, we meet the Croat, played by Zeljko Ivanek.
The Croat waxes lyrical about New York City making you stronger because of the struggle.
I think youre gonna like it here, he says to Hershel.
This dude thinks hes Daddy Warbucks.
In the final scene, the Croat is called away to the roof of his lair.
There, a bloody hostage is trying to escape.
It seems like an awful way to die and an awful way to run a community.
You let part of your infrastructure collapse just to watch one dude drop?
Im intrigued and Im scared, but Im not exactly impressed by him yet.
Thats probably a realistic but endlessly annoying thing aboutThe Walking Deaduniverse and its spinoffs.
Different groups have decided to call the undead different things.
Since mass communication got cut off at the beginning of the apocalypse, there is no agreed-upon term.
One group calls them biters, chompers, infected, the dead, and another empties.
Since the terms are regional, its likely that Maggie uses an alternative to disguise her origin.
The Croat reminds me so much of Niska onFirefly.
Remember him, nerds?
I think its just the Slavic accent and the cool, calm, and collected villain vibe.
Heck, they both even talk about pain revealing who you are.
In dialogue, we learned what happened to Manhattan.
Let me tell you, Ive never been happier to be a borough girlie in my little life.
Maggie and Negan pass graffiti that says, Dawn.
Come kill with us, and that REALLY got my brain spinning.
Trust New Yorkers to organize zombie slaying like a flash mob, silent rave, or snowball fight.
It seems like she could be connected to the Marshalls and expose their organization somehow.
