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Television

The Walking Dead: Dead City – Who’s There? review – S1 E2

Jeffrey Lyles , , , , , , , ,

Two episodes in and I’m enjoying Walking Dead: Dead City even if I’m not fully convinced we need a full Walking Dead TV universe. Who’s There provided the mini-series with the additional cannon/walker fodder necessary to provide some stakes for characters that can die besides the stars.

In the exact opposite of a high-speed chase, Negan and Maggie chase after the woman who stole her bag…very…slowly. Clearly considering her more of a nuisance than a threat, they follow her briskly without running as she leads them to her sanctuary.

Maggie’s leery of the woman, but Negan graciously accepts her pigeon food offering. Maggie is otherwise a great character, but whenever she’s around Negan she acts irrational. That’s understandable, but it’s also the issue of her actively searching him out to help her. Why team up with the one guy you absolutely loathe the most?

Meanwhile, Nina brings Ginny to the community, let’s call it Hilltop Ver. 13.7, and takes her to a class where the instructor is teaching valuable lessons including foraging. That’s a more useful skill set in the walker world than world history.

the walking dead - dead city - ginny

The Ginny storyline doesn’t really go anywhere this episode, but Ginny does as she decides a cozy bed, food and school isn’t as comforting as hanging with Negan and she leaves.

Investing in a new character now is a tough ask since this is a character who doesn’t talk that longtime TWD fans have no attachment to. At least she’s a likable character as opposed to The Marshal, Perlie Armstrong.

His subplot this week was weak. After waking up, he ditches his search for Maggie and Negan and heads to his brother’s apartment. It seemed kinda random that Perlie decided to abandon his pursuit of Negan after suddenly remembering his brother lived in the city. His brother gave it a go, but ultimately killed himself.  None of this made Perlie more relatable or likable. Remember, in his introductory scene he threw the bartender into a pack of walkers for aiding and abetting Negan just to show he was a tough guy.

the walking dead - dead city - marshal perlie

Take that one moment out and Perlie is just a hard nose who takes his job of upholding the law too seriously. Killing a defenseless woman is pretty much irredeemable territory especially for the first impression. Perlie gets snagged in a trap set up by The Croat — clearly someone skipped trap detection class. 

The Pigeon Lady, aka Esther (Eleanor Reissa), takes Negan and Maggie to her friends. For some reason Maggie decides it’s a good call to lie to the group leaders Tomasso (Jonathan Higginbotham) and Amia (Karina Ortiz). Amia sniffs through Maggie’s smelly story and sends them to their community’s prison cell — a dilapidated bathroom. 

Maggie has a flashback of prickly teen Herschel blowing off her efforts to connect. Geesh, even in the zombie apocalypse some teenagers can still be jerks. 

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Negan explains the origin of The Croat, who he took in during the early days of the apocalypse and used him as the Savior’s torturer. Negan foreshadows a valuable lesson for Maggie “I was only a monster when I had to be — to put on a show to protect my people,” while inferring for The Croat it wasn’t an act.

Recognizing he was too unhinged, Negan tried to kill him, but only took off his ear. So The Croat isn’t gonna be thrilled to see his old boss. Maggie’s upset that Negan didn’t share that tidbit earlier. It seemed she should have considered a reason The Croat wasn’t among The Saviors that Rick’s crew and the two factions didn’t encounter was because he fell out with Negan. 

The Croat’s helmeted guards, the Burazi, are on the way to the camp and Negan takes advantage of the chaos to grab Tomasso. He mentions he’s been sharpening this pigeon bone all afternoon and he wants to gouge a jugular. Negan won’t since he and Maggie are here to help. That’s good enough for Tomasso and Amia, who welcome more bodies to fend off the Burzai. 

the walking dead - dead city - who's there - negan and maggie

Their efforts are useful, but not enough to save Esther. Tomasso takes it hard, but Negan is upset this sweet, innocent woman got killed for no reason. He grabs Esther’s murderer and tells Maggie and the others to hang back. 

Negan re-enters the camp as more Burazi watch him in the balcony with their companion. Maggie ignored Negan’s command and followed him. She probably wished she hadn’t as she watches Negan transform into the swagger filled, sadistic Savior leader Negan that killed her husband and Abraham. Negan did warn her and this performance proves very effective in scaring the heck out of the Burazi, who quickly flee.

This was a great scene from Jeffrey Dean Morgan and from Lauren Cohan from Negan stepping into the “role” of Negan and for Maggie’s horror in seeing this version of Negan again. 

It’s clear that Herschel is going to be revealed at some point as one of The Croat’s newest Burazi, right? This is the only reason for the helmets since the Burazi aren’t wearing much else in the way of protective material. 

the walking dead - dead city - who's there - the croat and his bruzagi

In the battle aftermath, Maggie finally comes clean and tells the group The Croat has her son. A little honesty was all they need and Amia says they can help with that. Now we’ve got some more characters to get invested in that we hope survive since they’re helping Maggie and Negan and come off like a cool little community on their own. Maybe if enough survive there’s another spin-off? It’s possible.

For now, Dead City retained the momentum of the debut episode and introduced some new characters and raised The Croat’s threat level once again. Not bad for the follow-up episode. 

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: AMC

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