The Walking Dead: Dead City is back and you might be tempted to say “The Walking Dead: Dead City is back, baby!” with a fist-pump in the air and a round of “huzzahs!” on the subreddit, because it’s at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes right now, courtesy of all five of the critics who have seen and reviewed it. I no longer receive screeners for The Walking Dead because, I suspect, my opinions on these shows can come off as vendetta-adjacent.
That isn’t the case, of course. I would love nothing more than a really good new Walking Dead show (except for maybe an MLT, a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich when the mutton is nice and lean, and the tomato is ripe…) but it seems, alas, that this series remains mostly dead.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Starts With Negan And Maggie Arguing
So the big promise of Season 3 has been A) that it would be kind of wacky and far-out with at least one “alt-history” episode involving the return of Beth (perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that our heroes end up in a hospital community) and B) that Maggie and Negan would finally bury the hatchet once and for all.
It was weird, then, that Negan starts this episode off crying like a punk about how mean Maggie was to stab him like that and ruin his life and honestly I sort of immediately tuned out this entire conversation. Maggie eventually, after apologizing repeatedly, offers to let Negan stab her in return, as though that would balance the scales. As though Negan didn’t kill Glenn in cold blood, widowing her and taking Hershel’s father away before they could ever meet.
I would like, for the sake of just tolerating this show, for them to stop rehashing the past and constantly digging up grievances, but I guess before that can happen we have to hear Negan say the S-word 800 times in one monologue (followed by plenty of swearing and F-bombs throughout the episode because this show is “edgy” and “dark” or something).
Their little pity party is interrupted by two newcomers who just happen to stumble on the pair (and recognize them from wanted posters scattered about by New Babylon). Negan, they say, is the Croat’s right-hand man and they need to find the Croat for some methane which, we later learn, is to power a baby incubator. It’s a long and convoluted story and I have no interest in recapping the whole thing. Suffice to say, the Croat really screwed over this community of very friendly and nice people and now they want what he has to save an infant’s life.
Fortunately, everything just sort of comes together. The newcomers, Renata and Luis, take Negan and Maggie captive and into the city they go where, not long after, there’s an explosion and Hershel appears. He’s running away from the Dama because the new showrunner and writers decided to pretty much retcon the first two seasons entirely and now Hershel is back with dear mummy and his old pal Negan. The Croat also appears, badly wounded, and reveals that he destroyed the methane because he couldn’t countenance the “visigoth” New Babylonians having it. But he knows where more is and the plans to make more, so they have to spare him even though he killed Luis’s brother and uncle and was generally just an awful, awful, terrible man.
The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 3 Is More Of The Same (So Far)
You can check out my video review of this episode below:
They get away from their captors but soon their captors become allies and they agree to help them bring the Croat to wherever the methane gas is. Negan is being very emo and doesn’t want to help and would rather hang out with Jimmi Simpson in a funky bar that he’s created. Simpson’s character is named Dillard and he’s pretty much lived in this building since the outbreak started. He has a food system in place that makes absolutely zero sense and might be kind of funny if the show really allowed itself to lean into the humor, but instead just stands out as this weird moment, like another show entirely.
Dillard has a room where maggots feed on the dead and then another room where frogs eat the maggots and then a third room where he feeds the frogs to turkeys. Apparently there’s a fourth room with coyotes who eat the turkeys, though why you’d need coyotes in your food farm is beyond me. Dillard also has some zombies chained up to the bar who he talks to and hangs out with. I like Dillard. I like to think that he’s actually McPoyle from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, the only survivor from that show (somehow) now living in NYC. Or maybe his creepy siblings are in the building also and soon Negan will be in the most terrifying encounter of his life.
One thing leads to another and Negan helps Maggie and the others get the Holy Methane Of Antioch and the prophesied child is born unto the woman in the hospital and Maggie visits Negan and basically says, “I would have killed you all the way except that I knew there was good in you and that you’d someday help us doing something like this” as though he hasn’t already done countless redemptive acts throughout this show and the main show for years now. She smiles and Negan says he’s never seen her smile, which I find hard to believe, and tells her it “suits her” and now my theory that eventually these two are going to get shipped feels stronger than ever. Negan + Maggie. What should we call that? Neggie? Maggen? Nutmeg?
Maggie wants Renata to go back to The Bricks with her even though she admits she’s struggling to make it work there and Renata is like “Hey, you could stay here instead since we have a pretty awesome setup. This could be your fresh start.” Maggie is reluctant because “it’s not my home” as though this Bricks place is her “home” or something, as if she hasn’t moved from one community to the next a million times over the course of these various shows. The farm is your home Maggie. It was overrun by zombies years ago. Sophia walked out of that barn and it blew all our collective minds. Back when this show had some creativity and some style and could still surprise us and not just make us shake our heads in disgust and disappointment.
Since the five critics who rated this season with “fresh” scores on Rotten Tomatoes have lots of nice things to say about it, I can only surmise that it gets better from here. Or that far too many critics just let the worst sort of mediocrity slide. But that can’t be true, right? That’s never happened before.
What did you think of the Dead City Season 3 premiere? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.